1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
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8 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
11 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
12 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
13 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
14 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
17 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.4
19 ** Emacs includes now support for loading image libraries on demand.
20 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
21 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
22 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
25 ** A Bulgarian translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
27 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
28 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
29 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
32 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
34 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with elisp code.
37 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
38 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
42 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
43 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
44 place for game scores to be stored. This may be controlled by the
45 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
46 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
47 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
48 in each user's home directory.
51 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
52 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
56 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
58 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
59 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
60 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
61 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
64 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
67 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
68 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
69 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
70 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
72 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
75 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
78 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
81 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
82 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
85 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
88 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
91 ** A French translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
92 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
93 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
96 * Changes in Emacs 21.4
98 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
99 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
100 existing values. For example:
102 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
104 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
105 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
107 ** New features in evaluation commands
110 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
111 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
113 *** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
114 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
115 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
116 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
117 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
119 ** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
122 ** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
123 in the current input method to input a character at point.
125 ** Convenient commands to switch buffers in a cyclic order are C-x <left>
126 (prev-buffer) and C-x <right> (next-buffer).
128 ** Commands winner-redo and winner-undo, from winner.el, are now bound to
129 C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an incompatible change.
131 ** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
132 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
133 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
134 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
137 ** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
138 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
139 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
140 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
141 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
143 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
144 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
146 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
147 read-only and field properties. Hence, it will always kill entire
148 lines, including any prompts.
150 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
151 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
152 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
153 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
154 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
155 `kill-region' if read-only are involved: it copies the text to the
156 kill-ring, but does not delete it.
158 ** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
159 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
161 ** Telnet will now prompt you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
164 ** New command line option -Q.
166 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
167 the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, the blinking
168 cursor, and the fancy startup screen.
170 ** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
171 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
173 ** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
174 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
175 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
177 ** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
178 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
179 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
180 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it will stay at
181 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
182 just put point at the end of the buffer and it will stay there. This
183 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior may
186 ** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
187 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
188 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
189 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
190 mode will only revert a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
191 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
192 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
193 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
194 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
196 ** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
197 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
198 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
199 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
200 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
202 ** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
203 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to `T' in Buffer Menu
206 ** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
208 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
209 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
210 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
211 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
213 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
214 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
215 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
217 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
218 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
219 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
220 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
221 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
223 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
225 ** M-x grep has been adapted to new compile
227 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
228 can be saved and will again be loaded with the new `grep-mode'.
230 ** M-x diff uses diff-mode instead of compilation-mode.
232 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
233 resync points in both windows.
235 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
236 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
237 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
238 using strokes as an input method.
243 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, desktop-save-mode. Variable
244 desktop-enable is obsolete. Customize desktop-save-mode to enable desktop
247 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
251 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
252 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
253 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
256 *** New customizable variables:
257 - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
259 - desktop-file-name-format.
260 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
261 - desktop-locals-to-save.
262 - desktop-globals-to-clear.
263 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp.
265 *** New command line option --no-desktop
268 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
269 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
272 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
273 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
274 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
275 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
276 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
277 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
280 ** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
282 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
283 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
284 % emacsclient -s foo file1
285 % emacsclient -s bar file2
287 ** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
288 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
289 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
290 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
291 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
293 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' may be set to nil to
294 revert to the old behaviour of continuing such lines.
296 ** The buffer boundaries (i.e. first and last line in the buffer) may
297 now be marked with angle bitmaps in the fringes. In addition, up and
298 down arrow bitmaps may be shown at the top and bottom of the left or
299 right fringe if the window can be scrolled in either direction.
301 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
302 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
303 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
305 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
306 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp. Any other non-nil value
307 causes the bitmap on the top line to be displayed in the left fringe,
308 and the bitmap on the bottom line in the right fringe.
310 If value is a cons (ANGLES . ARROWS), the car specifies the position
311 of the angle bitmaps, and the cdr specifies the position of the arrow
314 For example, (t . right) places the top angle bitmap in left fringe,
315 the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both arrow bitmaps in
316 right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the left fringe, but
317 no arrow bitmaps, use (left . nil).
319 ** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
320 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
321 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
322 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
323 keyboard oriented alternative.
325 ** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
326 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
327 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
328 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
329 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
331 ** New commands `scan-buf-next-region' and `scan-buf-previous-region'
332 move to the start of the next (previous, respectively) region with
333 non-nil help-echo property and display any help found there in the
334 echo area, using `display-local-help'.
337 ** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
338 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
339 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
340 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
341 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
342 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
343 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node').
345 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
346 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
349 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
350 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
351 an interactively callable function.
356 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
357 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
358 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
359 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
360 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
362 The following values are supported:
364 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
378 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
381 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
382 your .emacs will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
383 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
385 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
387 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
388 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
389 all identifiers ending in "_t" under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
390 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
392 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
393 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
395 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i. Most
396 SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
397 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
399 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
400 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
401 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
402 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
403 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
406 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
407 called with the -E command line argument to use the operating system
408 credentials to authenticate the user.
410 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
411 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
412 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
414 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
415 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
417 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
418 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
421 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
422 appropriate sql-interactive-mode wrapper for the current setting of
425 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
426 with special modes such as Tar mode.
428 ** Enhancements to apropos commands:
430 *** The apropos commands will now accept a list of words to match.
431 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
432 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
435 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
436 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
437 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
438 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
439 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
443 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
444 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
445 the operating system or your X server.
447 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
448 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
449 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
451 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
452 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
454 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
455 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
457 ** A prefix argument of C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-printifies the
458 list starting after point.
462 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
463 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
464 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
466 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
467 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
470 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
471 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
474 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
475 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
476 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
477 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
478 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
479 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
482 *** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
483 types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
484 what external viewers to use and when.
486 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
487 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
492 *** Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode. The mode toggling
493 command is bound to M-o. A new command dired-mark-omitted, bound to M-O,
494 marks omitted files. The variable dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the
495 mode toggling function instead.
499 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
500 with the number appended to the *info* buffer name.
502 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
504 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
505 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
507 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
508 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
511 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
512 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
513 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
515 *** New command `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S).
517 *** New command `Info-search-next' (unbound) repeats the last search
518 without prompting for a new search string.
520 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
521 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
523 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
524 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
527 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
528 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
529 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
531 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
532 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
533 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
534 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
537 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
540 *** Info-index offers completion.
542 ** Support for the SQLite interpreter has been added to sql.el by calling
546 *** The new command bibtex-entry-update (bound to C-c C-u) updates
547 an existing BibTeX entry.
548 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
549 *** bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries can take values `plain',
550 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
551 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
552 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
553 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
554 bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil.
556 *** If the new variable bibtex-parse-keys-fast is non-nil,
557 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
559 *** If the new variable bibtex-autoadd-commas is non-nil,
560 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
562 *** The new variable bibtex-autofill-types contains a list of entry
563 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
565 *** The new command bibtex-complete completes word fragment before
566 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
568 *** The new commands bibtex-find-entry and bibtex-find-crossref
569 locate entries and crossref'd entries.
571 *** In BibTeX mode the command fill-paragraph (bound to M-q) fills
572 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
574 ** When display margins are present in a window, the fringes are now
575 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
576 at the edges of the window.
578 ** A window may now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
579 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
581 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
582 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
583 or when the frame is resized.
585 ** New functions frame-current-scroll-bars and window-current-scroll-bars.
587 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
588 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
591 ** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
592 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
593 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
595 ** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
597 ** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which may
598 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
600 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
601 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
603 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
605 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
606 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
608 ** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
609 Emacs will prompt her for confirmation.
611 ** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
613 ** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
614 and other common debugger commands.
618 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
619 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
622 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
623 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
624 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
625 recent list with different symbolic links.
627 To follow naming convention, `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-flag'
628 and `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag' respectively replace the
629 misnamed options `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p' and
630 `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The old names remain available as
631 aliases, but have been marked obsolete.
633 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
638 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
639 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
641 ** partial-completion-mode now does partial completion on directory names.
643 ** skeleton.el now supports using - to mark the skeleton-point without
644 interregion interaction. @ has reverted to only setting
645 skeleton-positions and no longer sets skeleton-point. Skeletons
646 which used @ to mark skeleton-point independent of _ should now use -
647 instead. The updated skeleton-insert docstring explains these new
648 features along with other details of skeleton construction.
652 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.4.4. There have been major changes since
653 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
656 ** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
657 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given elisp
658 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
660 ** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
663 ** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
664 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
665 appears between the position information and the major mode.
667 ** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
668 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
671 ** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
672 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
673 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
674 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
678 ** There is a new user option `mail-default-directory' that allows you
679 to specify the value of `default-directory' for mail buffers. This
680 directory is used for auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to
684 ** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
685 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
686 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you will in fact be able
689 ** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
690 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
692 ** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
696 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
698 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
699 ps-print, provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF fonts.
700 See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
703 ** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
704 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
705 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
707 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
708 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
709 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories will be
710 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
711 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
713 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
714 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
715 t, and the status is shown.
717 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
718 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
721 ** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
722 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
723 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
726 ** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
727 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
728 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
729 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
730 automatically according to the locale.)
732 ** Indian support has been updated.
733 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
734 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
735 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
739 ** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
740 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
741 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
742 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
743 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
747 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
748 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
749 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
752 ** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
753 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
754 codepage.el, based on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now
755 obsolete and is used only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. windows-1252
756 and windows-1251 are preloaded since the former is so common and the
757 latter is used by GNU locales.
759 ** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
760 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
761 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
762 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
763 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
764 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
765 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
766 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
767 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
768 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
769 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
770 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
772 ** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
773 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
774 fontset appropriately.
776 ** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
780 ** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
781 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
782 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
783 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
784 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
785 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
786 mule-unicode-... ones.
788 By default this translation will happen automatically on encoding.
789 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
790 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
793 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
794 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
795 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
796 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
797 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
799 ** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
800 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
801 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
802 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
804 ** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
805 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
806 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
810 ** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
811 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
812 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
815 ** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
816 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+ and W32).
819 ** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif pops down when pressing ESC.
822 ** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
823 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
826 ** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
827 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
828 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
832 ** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
833 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
835 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
836 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
837 program files that include other program files.
839 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
840 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
844 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
845 when Emacs visits them.
848 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
850 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
851 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
852 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
854 ** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
855 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
856 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
857 and use the more appropriately result.
860 ** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
861 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
862 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
863 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
865 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
866 hscrolling will scroll the window when point gets too close to the
867 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
868 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
869 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
870 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
872 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
873 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
876 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
878 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
879 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
880 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
881 TeX commands to use at startup.
882 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
883 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
885 *** New major mode doctex-mode for *.dtx files.
888 ** New display feature: focus follows the mouse from one Emacs window
889 to another, even within a frame. If you set the variable
890 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a
891 different Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can
892 be selected only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this
893 feature is not enabled.
895 ** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
896 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
897 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
898 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
899 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
903 ** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
904 description various information about a character, including its
905 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
906 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
907 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
910 ** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
911 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
912 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
913 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
914 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
916 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
917 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
918 in Indented-Text mode.
920 ** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
921 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
922 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
924 ** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
925 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
926 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
927 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
928 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
929 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
930 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
931 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
932 can be edited for each replacement.
935 ** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
936 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
937 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
938 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
939 also disable mouse highlighting.
941 ** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
942 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
943 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
946 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
947 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
948 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
949 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
950 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
953 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
954 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
955 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
959 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
960 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
961 the mode line of the currently selected window.
963 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
964 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
967 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
968 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
969 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
970 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
971 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
972 current date and time, current line and column number in the
976 ** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
979 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mail
980 in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
981 `display-time-mail-directory'.
984 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
987 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
988 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
989 argument it toggles the mode.
991 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
992 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
995 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
996 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
997 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
998 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
999 `inhibit-splash-screen').
1001 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
1004 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1005 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1006 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1007 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1008 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1009 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1010 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1011 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1012 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1015 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1016 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1017 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1018 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1019 all of these colors.
1022 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1023 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1024 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1025 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1029 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1032 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
1034 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
1035 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
1036 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
1037 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
1040 ** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
1044 ** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1045 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1046 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1047 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1050 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
1052 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
1054 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
1057 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
1058 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
1060 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
1061 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
1063 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
1065 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
1066 run by the key sequence.
1068 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
1069 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
1072 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
1073 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
1075 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
1076 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
1078 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
1079 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
1081 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
1082 new-kill-line is on C-k
1085 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
1086 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
1087 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
1088 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
1091 ** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
1092 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
1093 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
1096 ** M-% and C-M-% typed in isearch mode invoke `query-replace' and
1097 `query-replace-regexp' with the current search string inserted
1098 in the minibuffer as initial input for the string to replace.
1101 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
1102 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
1103 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
1104 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
1107 ** Occur, Info, and comint-derived modes now support using
1108 M-x font-lock-mode to toggle fontification. The variable
1109 `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable fontification,
1110 remove `turn-on-font-lock' from `Info-mode-hook'.
1113 ** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1114 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep will automatically
1115 detect whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1116 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1117 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1118 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1121 ** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1122 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1123 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1124 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1125 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1126 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1127 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1130 ** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1131 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1132 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1133 under the "[State]" button.
1135 ** The new customization type `float' specifies numbers with floating
1136 point (no integers are allowed).
1139 ** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
1140 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
1143 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
1145 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
1146 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
1147 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
1148 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
1149 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
1151 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
1152 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
1153 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
1156 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
1159 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
1160 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
1161 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
1163 Added Customization Variables
1165 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
1167 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
1168 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
1169 java sources (previous method).
1171 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
1172 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
1177 *** The STARTTLS elisp wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
1178 instead of the OpenSSL based "starttls" tool. For backwards
1179 compatibility, it will prefer "starttls", but you can toggle
1180 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
1183 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
1186 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
1187 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
1188 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
1191 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
1192 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
1193 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
1194 is only rarely needed.
1198 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
1200 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
1201 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
1202 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
1203 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
1205 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
1207 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
1208 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
1209 refontification takes place.
1212 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
1213 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
1214 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region will now be extended
1215 each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC,
1216 for example. This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you
1220 ** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
1221 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
1222 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
1223 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
1224 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
1227 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
1228 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
1229 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
1232 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
1233 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
1234 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
1238 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
1239 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... will cycle through the
1240 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
1243 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1244 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1248 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
1249 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
1250 affects the initial frame.
1253 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
1254 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
1255 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
1259 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1260 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1261 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1262 directory listing into a buffer.
1265 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1266 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1268 ** Unexpected yanking of text due to accidental clicking on the mouse
1269 wheel button (typically mouse-2) during wheel scrolling is now avoided.
1270 This behaviour can be customized via the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1271 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1274 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1275 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1276 may mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1277 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1278 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1279 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1280 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1281 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1284 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
1285 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
1286 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
1287 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
1288 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
1291 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
1292 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
1295 ** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
1296 of the recognized cursor types.
1299 ** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
1300 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
1301 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
1304 ** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
1305 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
1306 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
1307 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
1308 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
1309 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
1310 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
1311 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
1312 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
1315 ** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
1316 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
1317 count backward from the end of the year.
1319 ** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
1320 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
1321 and `diary-header-line-format'.
1324 ** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed: use
1325 the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
1326 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
1327 appt-issue-message, appt-visible, and appt-msg-window.
1329 ** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
1330 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
1331 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
1332 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
1338 *** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
1339 the read-only state of the buffer (toggle-read-only). We made this
1340 change because we held a poll and found that many users were unhappy
1341 with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this behavior, you
1342 can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your .emacs:
1344 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
1346 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
1349 *** There is a new user option `vc-cvs-global-switches' that allows
1350 you to specify switches that are passed to any CVS command invoked
1351 by VC. These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which
1352 means they are inserted before the command name. For example, this
1353 allows you to specify a compression level using the "-z#" option for
1356 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
1361 *** When comparing directories.
1362 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
1363 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
1364 from one directory to another.
1367 *** When comparing files or buffers.
1368 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
1369 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
1370 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
1373 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
1374 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
1375 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
1380 *** New regular expressions features
1382 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
1383 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
1384 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
1385 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
1386 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
1387 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
1388 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
1389 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
1390 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
1391 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
1392 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
1394 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in Gcc.
1395 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
1396 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
1399 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
1400 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
1401 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
1402 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
1404 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
1405 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
1406 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
1408 *** New language parsing features
1410 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
1411 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
1413 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
1414 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
1415 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
1418 **** New language PHP.
1419 Tags are functions, classes and defines.
1420 If the --members option is specified to etags, tags are vars also.
1422 **** New language HTML.
1423 Title and h1, h2, h3 are tagged. Also, tags are generated when name= is
1424 used inside an anchor and whenever id= is used.
1426 **** New default keywords for TeX.
1427 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
1430 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
1431 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
1432 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
1434 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
1436 *** Honour #line directives.
1437 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
1438 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
1439 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
1440 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
1441 writes tags pointing to the source file.
1443 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
1444 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
1445 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
1446 will read from standard input and mark the produced tags as belonging to
1452 *** Font lock support.
1453 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1454 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1455 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1456 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1457 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1458 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1460 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1461 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1462 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1463 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1464 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1465 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1466 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1467 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1468 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1470 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1471 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1472 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1473 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1474 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1475 take the better part of a minute.
1477 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1478 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1479 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1480 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1481 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1482 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1484 **** Support for documentation comments.
1485 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1486 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1487 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1488 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1490 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1491 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
1492 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
1493 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1495 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
1496 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
1497 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
1498 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
1501 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
1502 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
1503 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
1504 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
1505 not as configurable as it ought to be.
1507 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
1508 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
1509 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
1510 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
1511 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
1513 *** Support for the AWK language.
1514 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
1515 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
1516 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
1519 **** Indentation Engine
1520 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
1522 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
1523 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
1524 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
1525 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
1526 definition, or structured statement.
1528 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
1529 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
1530 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
1532 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
1533 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
1534 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
1535 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
1538 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
1539 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
1540 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
1541 the AWK language itself.
1543 **** Comment Commands
1544 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
1545 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
1547 **** Movement Commands
1548 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
1549 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
1550 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
1552 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
1553 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
1554 recognise these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
1557 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
1558 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
1559 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
1560 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
1562 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
1563 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
1564 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
1565 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
1566 composition-close, and incomposition.
1568 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
1569 The functions c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forward can be
1570 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
1571 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1573 *** Better control over require-final-newline.
1574 The variable that controls how to handle a final newline when the
1575 buffer is saved, require-final-newline, is now customizable on a
1576 per-mode basis through c-require-final-newline. The default is to set
1577 it to t only in languages that mandate a final newline in source files
1578 (C, C++ and Objective-C).
1580 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
1581 The elements in the syntactic context returned by c-guess-basic-syntax
1582 and stored in c-syntactic-context has been changed somewhat to allow
1583 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
1584 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
1586 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
1590 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
1592 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
1595 This change might affect code that call c-guess-basic-syntax directly,
1596 and custom lineup functions if they use c-syntactic-context. However,
1597 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
1598 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
1600 *** API changes for derived modes.
1601 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
1602 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
1603 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
1604 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
1605 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
1607 **** New language variable system.
1608 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
1610 **** New initialization functions.
1611 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
1612 give better control: c-basic-common-init, c-font-lock-init, and
1613 c-init-language-vars.
1615 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
1616 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
1617 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
1618 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
1620 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
1621 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
1622 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
1623 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
1624 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1626 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
1627 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
1628 its substatement. E.g:
1634 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
1636 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
1637 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
1638 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
1639 variable c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros. A new syntactic symbol
1640 cpp-define-intro has been added to control the initial indentation
1643 **** New lineup function c-lineup-cpp-define.
1644 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
1645 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
1646 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
1647 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
1648 much line c-lineup-dont-change, which was used earlier, but handles
1649 empty lines within the macro better.
1651 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
1652 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
1653 c-context-line-break and c-context-open-line.
1655 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1656 c-backslash-region tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
1657 variable c-backslash-max-column which put a limit on how far out
1658 backslashes can be moved.
1660 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1661 This is controlled by the new variable c-auto-align-backslashes. It
1662 affects c-context-line-break, c-context-open-line and newlines
1663 inserted in auto-newline mode.
1665 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
1666 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
1667 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
1668 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
1669 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
1670 backslash) in the macro.
1672 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
1673 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
1674 the variable c-indent-comment-alist. The indentation behavior based
1675 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
1676 and #endif but indentation to comment-column in most other cases
1677 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
1679 *** New function c-context-open-line.
1680 It's the open-line equivalent of c-context-line-break.
1682 *** New lineup functions
1684 **** c-lineup-string-cont
1685 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
1688 result = prefix + "A message "
1689 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
1691 **** c-lineup-cascaded-calls
1692 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
1694 **** c-lineup-knr-region-comment
1695 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
1696 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
1698 **** c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg
1699 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks. Contributed by Kevin
1702 **** c-lineup-argcont
1703 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
1704 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1706 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
1707 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
1708 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
1709 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
1710 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
1711 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
1713 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
1714 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
1715 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
1716 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
1719 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
1720 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
1721 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
1722 happen when macros are involved.
1724 *** Improved the way c-indent-exp chooses the block to indent.
1725 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
1726 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
1727 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
1728 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
1729 line is left untouched.
1731 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
1732 The function c-toggle-syntactic-indentation can be used to toggle
1733 syntactic indentation.
1735 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
1736 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
1739 ** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
1740 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
1743 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1744 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1745 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1748 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
1749 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
1750 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
1753 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1754 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
1755 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1758 ** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
1759 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
1760 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
1761 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
1762 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
1763 from the file name or buffer contents.
1766 ** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
1769 ** New user option `isearch-resume-enabled'.
1770 This option can be disabled, to avoid the normal behavior of isearch
1771 which puts calls to `isearch-resume' in the command history.
1774 ** Lisp mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
1777 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
1780 ** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
1781 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
1782 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
1785 ** F90 mode has new navigation commands `f90-end-of-block',
1786 `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block', `f90-previous-block'.
1788 ** F90 mode now has support for hs-minor-mode (hideshow).
1789 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
1793 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
1794 to support use of font-lock.
1797 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
1798 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
1802 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
1803 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
1804 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
1807 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
1808 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
1809 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
1810 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
1811 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
1812 candidate is a directory.
1815 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
1816 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
1817 it remains unchanged.
1819 ** Enhanced visual feedback in *Completions* buffer.
1821 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
1822 have in common and where they begin to differ.
1824 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
1825 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
1826 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
1827 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
1828 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
1829 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
1830 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
1831 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
1834 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
1835 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
1836 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
1838 ** Compilation mode enhancements:
1840 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1841 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1842 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1843 subprocesses inherit.
1845 *** `next-error' now temporarily highlights the corresponding source line.
1847 ** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1849 *** There's a new separate package grep.el.
1851 *** Grep commands now have their own submenu and customization group.
1853 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1854 `grep-scroll-output' can be used to override the corresponding
1855 compilation mode settings for grep commands.
1857 *** Source line is temporarily highlighted when going to next match.
1859 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1860 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1861 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1862 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1863 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1864 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1868 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
1871 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
1872 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
1873 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
1876 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
1877 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
1880 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
1881 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
1882 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
1883 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
1884 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
1885 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
1886 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
1889 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
1890 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
1891 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
1892 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
1893 sound support for those formats.
1896 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
1897 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
1900 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
1901 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
1902 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
1903 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
1906 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
1907 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in
1908 much the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now
1909 adds these colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu
1910 for the default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground),
1911 and uses some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
1912 `list-colors-display' will show the list of System color names if you
1913 wish to use them in other faces.
1916 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1917 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1918 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1919 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1921 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1922 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1925 ** vc-annotate-mode enhancements
1927 In vc-annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
1928 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
1929 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
1931 P: annotates the previous revision
1932 N: annotates the next revision
1933 J: annotates the revision at line
1934 A: annotates the revision previous to line
1935 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
1936 L: shows the log of the revision at line
1937 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
1940 ** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
1941 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
1945 ** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
1946 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
1947 "checkout", "update" or "commit". That means using cvs diff options
1951 * New modes and packages in Emacs 21.4
1953 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
1954 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
1956 ** The library tree-widget.el provides a new widget to display a set
1957 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
1958 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
1960 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on dired
1961 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
1963 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
1965 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
1968 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1969 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1971 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1974 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1976 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1977 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1978 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1979 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1982 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1984 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1985 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1986 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1987 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1988 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1989 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1991 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1992 rectangle highlighting: Use S-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1993 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1994 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1996 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1997 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1998 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1999 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
2000 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
2001 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
2002 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
2004 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
2005 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
2006 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
2008 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
2009 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
2011 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
2012 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
2013 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
2014 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
2016 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
2017 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
2018 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you may customize the
2019 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
2021 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
2022 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
2023 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
2024 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
2026 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
2027 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
2028 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
2029 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
2030 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
2032 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
2033 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
2034 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
2035 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
2036 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
2037 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
2039 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
2040 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
2041 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
2042 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
2043 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
2044 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
2045 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
2046 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
2047 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
2051 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
2052 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
2054 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
2055 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
2056 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
2057 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
2059 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
2062 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
2063 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
2064 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
2065 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
2066 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
2069 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
2070 the keyboard macro ring.
2072 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
2073 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
2075 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
2076 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
2077 this behaviour via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
2078 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
2080 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
2081 C-x C-k SPC will step through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
2082 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
2085 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2086 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2087 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2088 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2090 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2092 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
2093 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
2094 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
2095 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
2096 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
2097 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
2100 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2102 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
2103 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
2104 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
2105 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
2108 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
2110 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
2111 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
2112 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
2113 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
2114 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
2115 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
2116 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
2117 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
2118 `rsync' to do the copying).
2120 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
2124 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
2125 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
2126 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
2127 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
2128 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method may
2129 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
2132 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
2133 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
2134 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
2138 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
2139 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
2140 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
2141 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
2143 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
2146 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
2147 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
2149 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
2150 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
2151 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
2152 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
2153 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
2154 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
2157 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
2158 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
2159 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
2160 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
2163 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
2164 Emacs will still work on terminals that require magic cookies in order
2165 to use standout mode, however they will not be able to display
2166 mode-lines in inverse-video.
2169 ** cplus-md.el has been removed to avoid problems with Custom.
2171 ** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
2172 timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).
2174 ** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the appearance of fringes.
2176 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
2177 configuration files.
2179 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
2182 ** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
2183 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
2185 ** If a command sets transient-mark-mode to `only', that
2186 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
2187 During that following command, the value of transient-mark-mode
2188 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
2192 ** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
2194 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
2195 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
2198 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
2200 ** The sentinel is now called when a network process is deleted with
2201 delete-process. The status message passed to the sentinel for a
2202 deleted network process is "deleted". The message passed to the
2203 sentinel when the connection is closed by the remote peer has been
2204 changed to "connection broken by remote peer".
2206 ** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
2207 undo-outer-limit, garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
2208 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
2211 ** New function quail-find-key returns a list of keys to type in the
2212 current input method to input a character.
2215 ** New functions posn-at-point and posn-at-x-y return
2216 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
2217 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
2219 ** skip-chars-forward and skip-chars-backward now handle
2220 character classes such as [:alpha:], along with individual characters
2223 ** Function pos-visible-in-window-p now returns the pixel coordinates
2224 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
2227 ** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
2230 ** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
2231 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
2234 ** file-remote-p now returns an identifier for the remote system,
2235 if the file is indeed remote. (Before, the return value was t in
2238 ** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
2239 supported on text terminals.
2241 ** Support for displaying image slices
2243 *** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) may be used with
2244 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
2246 *** Function insert-image has new optional fourth arg to
2247 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
2249 *** New function insert-sliced-image inserts a given image as a
2250 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
2252 ** New line-height and line-spacing properties for newline characters
2254 A newline may now have line-height and line-spacing text or overlay
2255 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
2257 If the line-height property value is 0, the newline does not
2258 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
2259 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a line-spacing property on this
2260 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
2261 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
2263 If the line-height property value is a positive integer, the value
2264 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
2265 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
2267 If the line-height property value is a float, the minimum line height
2268 is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by the
2271 If the line-height property value is a cons (RATIO . FACE), the
2272 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
2273 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
2275 If the line-spacing property value is an positive integer, the value
2276 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
2277 overrides the default frame line-spacing and any buffer local value of
2278 the line-spacing variable.
2280 If the line-spacing property may be a float or cons, the line spacing
2281 is calculated as specified above for the line-height property.
2283 If the line-spacing value is a cons (total . SPACING) where SPACING is
2284 any of the forms described above, the value of SPACING is used as the
2285 total height of the line, i.e. a varying number of pixels are inserted
2286 after each line to make each line exactly that many pixels high.
2289 ** The buffer local line-spacing variable may now have a float value,
2290 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
2292 ** Enhancements to stretch display properties
2294 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
2295 PROPS is a property list now allows pixel based width and height
2296 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
2298 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
2299 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
2302 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
2303 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
2304 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
2305 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
2307 POS ::= left | center | right
2308 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
2311 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
2312 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
2313 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
2314 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
2315 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
2316 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
2317 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
2320 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
2321 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
2322 corresponding area of the window.
2324 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
2325 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
2326 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
2327 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
2328 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
2329 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
2330 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
2331 the width of the area.
2333 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
2334 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
2336 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
2337 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
2338 header-line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
2340 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
2341 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
2342 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
2343 height) of the specified image.
2345 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
2346 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
2348 ** New macro with-local-quit temporarily sets inhibit-quit to nil for use
2349 around potentially blocking or long-running code in timers
2350 and post-command-hooks.
2353 ** New face attribute `min-colors' can be used to tailor the face color
2354 to the number of colors supported by a display, and define the
2355 foreground and background colors accordingly so that they look best on
2356 a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This is now the
2357 preferred method for defining default faces in a way that makes a good
2358 use of the capabilities of the display.
2360 ** New function 'define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to change the
2361 built-in fringe bitmaps, as well as create new fringe bitmaps.
2362 The return value is a number identifying the new fringe bitmap.
2364 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and identify the
2365 bitmap to change with the value of the corresponding symbol, like
2366 `left-truncation-fringe-bitmap' or `continued-line-fringe-bitmap'.
2368 ** New function 'destroy-fringe-bitmap' may be used to destroy a
2369 previously created bitmap, or restore a built-in bitmap.
2371 ** New function 'set-fringe-bitmap-face' can now be used to set a
2372 specific face to be used for a specific fringe bitmap. Normally,
2373 this should be a face derived from the `fringe' face, specifying
2374 the foreground color as the desired color of the bitmap.
2376 ** There are new display properties, left-fringe and right-fringe,
2377 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
2378 bitmap of the display line.
2380 Format is 'display '(left-fringe BITMAP [FACE]), where BITMAP is a
2381 number identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or as returned by
2382 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
2383 for displaying the bitmap.
2385 ** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns a cons (LEFT . RIGHT)
2386 identifying the current fringe bitmaps in the display line at a given
2387 buffer position. A nil value means no bitmap.
2389 ** Multiple overlay arrows can now be defined and managed via the new
2390 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'. It contains a list of
2391 varibles which contain overlay arrow position markers, including
2392 the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
2394 Each variable on this list may have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
2395 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
2396 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
2397 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
2398 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
2399 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
2402 ** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns line number of current
2403 line in current buffer, or if optional buffer position is given, line
2404 number of corresponding line in current buffer.
2406 ** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
2407 variable `sentence-end-without-space' which contains such characters
2408 that end a sentence without following spaces.
2410 ** The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of
2411 the variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil,
2412 then this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
2413 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
2414 `sentence-end-without-space'.
2417 ** The flags, width, and precision options for %-specifications in function
2418 `format' are now documented. Some flags that were accepted but not
2419 implemented (such as "*") are no longer accepted.
2421 ** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
2422 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
2423 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
2424 if no expansion is done, which may be tested using `eq'.
2427 ** New function `delete-dups' destructively removes `equal' duplicates
2428 from a list. Of several `equal' occurrences of an element in the list,
2429 the first one is kept.
2432 ** `declare' is now a macro. This change was made mostly for
2433 documentation purposes and should have no real effect on Lisp code.
2435 ** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
2436 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
2437 tasks, for example; it can be used by the copyright package to make
2438 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
2441 ** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
2442 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
2443 string. The old behavior is available if you call
2444 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
2446 ** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
2447 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
2448 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
2449 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
2450 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
2452 ** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
2453 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
2454 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
2455 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
2456 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
2458 ** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
2459 :pointer image property.
2461 ** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images may now be
2462 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
2464 ** Images may now have an associated image map via the :map property.
2466 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
2467 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
2468 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((x0 . y0) . (x1 . y1))) specifying the
2469 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
2470 A circle is a cons (circle . ((x0 . y0) . r)) specifying the center
2471 and the radius of the circle; r may be a float or integer.
2472 A polygon is a cons (poly . [x0 y0 x1 y1 ...]) where each pair in the
2473 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
2475 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
2476 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
2477 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
2478 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
2479 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable 'void-area-text-pointer'
2480 for possible pointer shapes.
2482 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
2483 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
2484 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
2486 ** Mouse event enhancements:
2488 *** Mouse clicks on fringes now generates left-fringe or right-fringes
2489 events, rather than a text area click event.
2491 *** Mouse clicks in the left and right marginal areas now includes a
2492 sensible buffer position corresponding to the first character in the
2493 corresponding text row.
2495 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
2498 *** Mouse events now includes buffer position for all event types.
2501 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
2504 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
2508 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types.
2511 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns actual glyph coordinates.
2514 *** Mouse events may now include image object in addition to string object.
2517 *** Mouse events include relative x and y pixel coordinates relative to
2518 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
2521 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
2522 (image or character) clicked on.
2525 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', and
2526 'posn-object-width-height' return the image or string object of a mouse
2527 click, the x and y pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner
2528 of that object, and the total width and height of that object.
2530 ** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
2531 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
2532 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
2533 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
2534 forcing an explicit window update.
2536 ** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
2537 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
2540 ** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
2541 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
2542 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
2543 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
2544 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
2547 ** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
2550 ** If optional third argument APPEND to `add-to-list' is non-nil, a
2551 new element gets added at the end of the list instead of at the
2552 beginning. This change actually occurred in Emacs-21.1, but was not
2555 ** Major modes can define `eldoc-print-current-symbol-info-function'
2556 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
2560 ** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
2561 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
2565 ** The argument to forward-word, backward-word, forward-to-indentation
2566 and backward-to-indentation is now optional, and defaults to 1.
2569 ** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
2570 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
2571 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
2573 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
2574 does that, this value may not be accurate.
2577 ** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
2578 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
2579 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
2583 ** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
2584 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
2587 ** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.
2590 ** `select-window' takes an optional second argument `norecord', like
2594 ** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
2595 selected window without impacting the order of buffer-list.
2598 ** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
2599 text-properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
2600 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
2603 ** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
2607 ** VC changes for backends:
2608 *** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
2609 *** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
2610 parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
2611 Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
2612 uses the old `destfile' parameter.
2615 ** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
2616 as a dynamic completion table.
2618 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
2620 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
2621 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
2622 completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
2623 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
2624 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
2625 entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.
2628 ** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
2629 as a lazy completion table.
2631 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
2633 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
2634 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
2635 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
2636 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
2637 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
2638 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
2641 ** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
2644 ** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
2645 for all (existing and future) frames.
2648 ** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
2651 ** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
2654 ** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.
2657 ** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
2658 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
2659 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
2660 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
2661 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
2664 ** The function `number-sequence' returns a list of equally-separated
2665 numbers. For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9).
2666 By default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different separation
2667 as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns (1.5 3.5 5.5).
2670 ** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
2671 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
2672 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
2673 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
2676 ** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
2677 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
2680 ** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character,
2681 unless it is followed by a `-' in a character constant (e.g. ?\s-A),
2682 in which case it is still interpreted as the super modifier.
2683 In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
2686 ** New function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the multibyteness
2687 of a string given to a process's filter.
2690 ** New function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns t if
2691 a string given to a process's filter is multibyte.
2694 ** A filter function of a process is called with a multibyte string if
2695 the filter's multibyteness is t. That multibyteness is decided by the
2696 value of `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is
2697 created and can be changed later by `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
2700 ** If a process's coding system is raw-text or no-conversion and its
2701 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
2702 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
2703 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
2704 which was not compatible with the behaviour of file reading.
2707 ** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
2708 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
2711 ** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
2712 on garbage collection.
2715 ** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
2716 it is read from a file without decoding.
2719 ** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
2722 ** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
2723 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
2724 by calling `select-window'.
2727 ** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
2728 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
2729 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
2730 need to have a name.
2732 ** Byte compiler changes:
2735 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
2736 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
2737 Emacs and XEmacs and may sometimes make the result significantly more
2738 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
2739 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
2743 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
2744 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
2745 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
2746 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
2749 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
2750 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
2752 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
2753 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
2754 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
2755 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
2756 macro expansion), but such tests may be nested. Note that `when' and
2757 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
2760 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
2761 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
2764 ** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
2765 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
2766 be inserted is translated through it.
2769 ** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
2770 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
2771 current file redefined it).
2774 ** New Lisp library testcover.el works with edebug to help you determine
2775 whether you've tested all your Lisp code. Function testcover-start
2776 instruments all functions in a given file. Then test your code. Function
2777 testcover-mark-all adds overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to
2778 show where coverage is lacking. Command testcover-next-mark (bind it to
2779 a key!) will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
2781 *** Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely evaluated;
2782 a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same value. The red
2783 splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly complete their evaluation,
2784 such as `error'. The brown splotches are skipped for forms that are expected
2785 to always evaluate to the same value, such as (setq x 14).
2787 *** For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to help
2788 out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a red splotch.
2789 It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does return. The macro 1value
2790 suppresses a brown splotch for its argument. This macro is a no-op except
2791 during test-coverage -- then it signals an error if the argument actually
2792 returns differing values.
2795 ** New function unsafep returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly
2796 do anything dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be
2797 unsafe (calls dangerous function, alters global variable, etc).
2800 ** The new variable `print-continuous-numbering', when non-nil, says
2801 that successive calls to print functions should use the same
2802 numberings for circular structure references. This is only relevant
2803 when `print-circle' is non-nil.
2805 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
2806 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
2809 ** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
2810 the scroll-bar-width frame parameter value is nil.
2813 ** The new function copy-abbrev-table returns a new abbrev table that
2814 is a copy of a given abbrev table.
2817 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
2818 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
2819 can start with this line:
2821 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
2824 ** A function's docstring can now hold the function's usage info on
2825 its last line. It should match the regexp "\n\n(fn.*)\\'".
2828 ** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
2829 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
2832 ** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional buffer
2833 argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted it defaults to
2837 ** There is a new Warnings facility; see the functions `warn'
2838 and `display-warning'.
2841 ** The functions all-completions and try-completion now accept lists
2842 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
2843 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
2847 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
2848 much pure storage it will approximately need.
2851 ** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
2852 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
2853 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
2854 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
2857 ** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
2858 of one coding system from another coding system.
2861 ** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
2862 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
2863 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
2864 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
2868 ** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
2869 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
2870 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
2871 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
2872 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
2873 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
2875 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
2876 confirmation as before.
2879 ** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
2881 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
2882 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
2883 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
2884 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
2886 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
2887 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
2888 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
2889 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
2890 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
2891 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
2893 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
2894 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
2895 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
2896 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
2899 ** Per-window fringes settings
2901 Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and position
2904 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
2905 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
2906 `set-window-fringes'.
2908 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
2909 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
2910 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
2911 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
2913 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
2914 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
2915 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
2916 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
2917 an update of the display margins.
2920 ** Per-window vertical scroll-bar settings
2922 Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
2923 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
2925 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
2926 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
2927 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
2928 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
2929 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2930 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2931 of the display margins.
2934 ** The function `set-window-buffer' now has an optional third argument
2935 KEEP-MARGINS which will preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
2936 and scroll-bar settings if non-nil.
2939 ** Renamed file hooks to follow the convention:
2940 find-file-hooks to find-file-hook,
2941 find-file-not-found-hooks to find-file-not-found-functions,
2942 write-file-hooks to write-file-functions,
2943 write-contents-hooks to write-contents-functions.
2944 Marked local-write-file-hooks as obsolete (use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook').
2947 ** The new variable `delete-frame-functions' replaces `delete-frame-hook'.
2948 It was renamed to follow the naming conventions for abnormal hooks. The old
2949 name remains available as an alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2952 ** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
2953 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
2954 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
2955 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
2956 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
2959 ** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
2960 to override the internal read-file-name function.
2963 ** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
2964 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
2965 `read-file-name' function.
2968 ** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
2969 `read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
2970 will only show directories.
2973 ** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
2974 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
2975 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
2978 ** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
2979 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
2980 (require 'cl) when loaded.
2983 ** The `defmacro' form may contain declarations specifying how to
2984 indent the macro in Lisp mode and how to debug it with Edebug. The
2985 syntax of defmacro has been extended to
2987 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
2989 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
2990 declaration specifiers supported are:
2993 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
2996 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
2997 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro.
3000 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
3002 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
3003 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
3004 binding and lookup functionality.
3006 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
3007 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
3011 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
3012 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
3013 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
3014 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
3017 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
3018 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
3019 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
3020 map using define-key:
3022 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
3023 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
3025 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
3026 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
3028 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
3029 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
3030 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
3032 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
3034 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3035 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
3036 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
3037 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
3039 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
3040 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
3042 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
3043 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
3045 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
3046 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
3047 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
3048 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
3049 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
3050 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
3052 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
3053 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
3054 command was not remapped.
3057 ** New variable emulation-mode-map-alists.
3059 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
3060 keymap alist separate from minor-mode-map-alist by adding their keymap
3064 ** Atomic change groups.
3066 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3067 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3068 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3070 (atomic-change-group
3072 (delete-region x y))
3074 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3075 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3076 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3077 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3079 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3080 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3082 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3083 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3084 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3085 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3087 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3088 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3091 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3092 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3093 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3094 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3096 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3097 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3098 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3099 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3100 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3101 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3104 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3105 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3106 returned values, like this:
3108 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3109 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3111 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3112 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3113 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3115 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3116 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3117 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3118 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3122 ** New variable char-property-alias-alist.
3124 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
3125 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
3126 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
3127 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
3130 ** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
3132 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
3133 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
3134 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
3135 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
3138 ** New function remove-list-of-text-properties.
3140 The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties' is almost the same
3141 as `remove-text-properties'. The only difference is that it takes
3142 a list of property names as argument rather than a property list.
3145 ** New function insert-for-yank.
3147 This function normally works like `insert' but removes the text
3148 properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list. However, if the
3149 inserted text has a `yank-handler' text property on the first
3150 character of the string, the insertion of the text may be modified in
3151 a number of ways. See the description of `yank-handler' below.
3154 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-as-yank.
3156 This function works like `insert-buffer-substring', but removes the
3157 text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list.
3160 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-no-properties.
3162 This function is like insert-buffer-substring, but removes all
3163 text properties from the inserted substring.
3166 ** New `yank-handler' text property may be used to control how
3167 previously killed text on the kill-ring is reinserted.
3169 The value of the yank-handler property must be a list with one to four
3170 elements with the following format:
3171 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
3173 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
3174 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
3175 element on the kill-ring). If a yank-handler property is found,
3176 the normal behaviour of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
3178 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
3179 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
3180 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
3181 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
3182 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
3184 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
3185 yank-excluded-properties is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
3186 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
3187 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
3188 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
3189 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
3190 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
3191 FUNCTION may set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
3193 *** The functions kill-new, kill-append, and kill-region now have an
3194 optional argument to specify the yank-handler text property to put on
3197 *** The function yank-pop will now use a non-nil value of the variable
3198 `yank-undo-function' (instead of delete-region) to undo the previous
3199 yank or yank-pop command (or a call to insert-for-yank). The function
3200 insert-for-yank automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
3201 element of the string argument's yank-handler text property if present.
3204 ** New function display-supports-face-attributes-p may be used to test
3205 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
3207 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
3208 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
3209 defined with defface.
3211 ** The function face-differs-from-default-p now truly checks whether the
3212 given face displays differently from the default face or not (previously
3213 it did only a very cursory check).
3216 ** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
3217 accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
3218 inheritance is used when determining the value of a face attribute.
3221 ** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
3222 help with handling relative face attributes.
3224 ** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face-list is reversed.
3225 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
3226 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous releases
3227 of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made so that
3228 :inherit face-lists operate identically to face-lists in text `face'
3232 ** Enhancements to process support
3234 *** Function list-processes now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
3235 only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set are listed.
3237 *** New set-process-query-on-exit-flag and process-query-on-exit-flag
3238 functions. The existing process-kill-without-query function is still
3239 supported, but new code should use the new functions.
3241 *** Function signal-process now accepts a process object or process
3242 name in addition to a process id to identify the signalled process.
3244 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
3245 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
3247 The new functions process-get and process-put are used to access, add,
3248 and modify elements on this property list.
3250 The new low-level functions process-plist and set-process-plist are
3251 used to access and replace the entire property list of a process.
3254 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
3256 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
3257 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
3258 very poor performance. This behaviour can be remedied to some extent
3259 by setting the new variable process-adaptive-read-buffering to a
3260 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
3261 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
3262 emacs tries to read it.
3265 ** Enhanced networking support.
3267 *** There is a new `make-network-process' function which supports
3268 opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
3269 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
3271 - A server is started using :server t arg.
3272 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
3273 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
3274 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
3275 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
3276 - The process' property list may be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
3277 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
3278 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
3280 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
3281 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
3283 *** Original open-network-stream is now emulated using make-network-process.
3285 *** New function open-network-stream-nowait.
3287 This function initiates a non-blocking connect and returns immediately
3288 without waiting for the connection to be established. It takes the
3289 filter and sentinel functions as arguments; when the non-blocking
3290 connect completes, the sentinel is called with a status string
3291 matching "open" or "failed".
3293 *** New function open-network-stream-server.
3295 This function creates a network server process for a TCP service.
3296 When a client connects to the specified service, a new subprocess
3297 is created to handle the new connection, and the sentinel function
3298 is called for the new process.
3300 *** New functions process-datagram-address and set-process-datagram-address.
3302 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
3303 and set the current address of the remote partner.
3305 *** New function format-network-address.
3307 This function reformats the lisp representation of a network address
3308 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
3309 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
3310 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
3311 string for other formatting options.
3313 *** By default, the function process-contact still returns (HOST SERVICE)
3314 for a network process. Using the new optional KEY arg, the complete list
3315 of network process properties or a specific property can be selected.
3317 Using :local and :remote as the KEY, the address of the local or
3318 remote end-point is returned. An Inet address is represented as a 5
3319 element vector, where the first 4 elements contain the IP address and
3320 the fifth is the port number.
3322 *** Network processes can now be stopped and restarted with
3323 `stop-process' and `continue-process'. For a server process, no
3324 connections are accepted in the stopped state. For a client process,
3325 no input is received in the stopped state.
3327 *** New function network-interface-list.
3329 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
3330 current network addresses.
3332 *** New function network-interface-info.
3334 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
3335 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
3338 ** New function copy-tree.
3341 ** New function substring-no-properties.
3344 ** New function minibuffer-selected-window.
3347 ** New function `call-process-shell-command'.
3350 ** The dummy function keys made by easymenu
3351 are now always lower case. If you specify the
3352 menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
3353 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
3355 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for
3356 the bindings that were made with easymenu.
3359 ** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional
3360 argument. If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks
3361 for a function that could be called with `call-interactively',
3362 and does not return t for keyboard macros.
3365 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
3366 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
3368 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
3369 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
3370 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
3373 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
3374 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
3377 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
3378 (function (lambda ()
3380 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
3381 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
3382 (function (lambda ()
3383 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
3386 ** File local variables.
3388 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3389 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3392 ** New function window-body-height.
3394 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
3398 ** New function format-mode-line.
3400 This returns the mode-line or header-line of the selected (or a
3401 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
3404 ** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3406 These functions are like `plist-get' and `plist-put' except that they
3407 compare the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3410 ** New function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu'
3412 The `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' must not be used (as previously
3413 recommended) for making entries in the tool bar for local keymaps.
3414 Instead, use the function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu', which lets
3415 you specify the map to use as an argument.
3418 ** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3420 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3421 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3422 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3425 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
3427 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
3428 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
3429 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
3430 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
3431 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
3434 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
3435 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
3436 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
3437 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
3440 ** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
3441 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
3444 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3445 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3446 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3449 ** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
3450 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
3454 ** Indentation of simple and extended loop forms has been added to the
3455 cl-indent package. The new user options
3456 `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation', `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and
3457 `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can be used to customize the
3458 indentation of keywords and forms in loop forms.
3461 ** Indentation of backquoted forms has been made customizable in the
3462 cl-indent package. See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3465 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
3467 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
3468 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
3469 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
3472 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
3474 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
3475 the time it takes to convert the format.
3477 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
3481 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
3482 over minor mode keymaps.
3485 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
3486 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
3489 ** At the end of a command, point moves out from within invisible
3490 text, in the same way it moves out from within text covered by an
3491 image or composition property.
3493 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
3494 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
3495 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
3496 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
3497 post-command-hook and thus does not care about intermediate states.
3500 ** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
3504 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
3505 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
3506 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
3507 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
3511 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3514 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
3517 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
3518 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
3519 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
3520 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
3521 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
3522 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
3525 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
3526 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
3527 bindings of the parent keymap.
3530 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
3531 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
3532 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
3533 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
3534 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
3535 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
3543 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
3544 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
3545 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
3546 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
3549 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
3550 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
3552 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
3553 (the last prior group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
3556 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
3557 it receives a request from emacsclient.
3560 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
3561 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
3562 than 3 levels of nesting.
3565 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
3566 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
3570 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
3571 properties from surrounding text.
3574 ** `(match-data t)' will append the buffer as a final element of the
3575 match data if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data' will
3576 accept this for restoring the match state.
3579 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
3581 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
3582 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
3583 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
3586 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3587 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3591 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
3592 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
3593 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
3594 other properties than `face'.
3595 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
3596 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
3599 ** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
3600 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
3601 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
3602 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
3603 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
3606 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
3607 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
3608 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
3611 ** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
3612 and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.
3615 ** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
3616 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
3619 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
3620 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
3621 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
3624 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
3625 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
3626 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
3629 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
3630 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
3631 accepts a float as UID parameter.
3634 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
3637 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
3640 ** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
3641 character position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form
3642 of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
3643 the output of other GNU tools.
3646 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
3649 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
3652 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
3653 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
3656 ** Variable aliases have been implemented:
3658 *** defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3660 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3661 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3662 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3663 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3665 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3666 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3668 *** indirect-variable VARIABLE
3670 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3671 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3672 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3674 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3675 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3678 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
3679 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
3682 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
3683 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
3686 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
3687 hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3690 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
3691 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
3692 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
3694 ** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-key-sequence and the like, that
3695 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
3696 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
3698 ** New function x-send-client-message sends a client message when
3701 ** Arguments for remove-overlays are now optional, so that you can remove
3702 all overlays in the buffer by just calling (remove-overlay).
3706 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
3707 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
3708 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
3709 state of your program. It separates the input/output of your program from
3710 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
3711 Emacs 21 such as the display margin for breakpoints, and the toolbar.
3713 Use M-x gdba to start GDB-UI.
3715 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
3716 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
3718 *** The new package bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
3719 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
3722 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
3723 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
3725 *** The new package button.el implements simple and fast `clickable buttons'
3726 in emacs buffers. `buttons' are much lighter-weight than the `widgets'
3727 implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that doesn't
3728 require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for such things
3729 as help and apropos buffers.
3732 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
3734 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
3738 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
3740 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
3743 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
3746 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
3749 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
3750 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
3751 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
3752 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
3753 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
3754 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
3755 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
3756 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
3757 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
3758 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
3760 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
3761 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
3763 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
3764 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
3765 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
3766 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behaviour is actually
3767 contrary to the compound text specification.
3770 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
3772 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
3774 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
3777 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
3779 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
3781 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
3782 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
3783 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
3784 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
3785 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
3787 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
3790 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
3791 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
3793 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
3794 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
3795 instead of using default-major-mode.
3797 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
3798 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
3799 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
3800 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
3801 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
3802 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
3803 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
3805 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
3809 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
3811 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
3812 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
3813 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
3815 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
3816 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
3819 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
3821 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
3822 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
3823 charsets in this release.
3825 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
3827 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
3829 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
3830 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
3833 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
3834 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
3835 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
3836 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
3837 necessary changes to unexec.
3839 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
3840 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
3842 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
3843 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
3845 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
3846 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
3848 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
3849 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
3850 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
3851 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
3852 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
3854 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
3855 new display features described below.
3858 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
3860 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
3862 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
3863 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
3864 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
3865 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
3868 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
3870 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
3871 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
3872 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
3873 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
3876 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
3877 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
3878 under Lisp changes, below.
3880 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
3882 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
3883 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
3884 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
3885 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
3886 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
3887 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
3890 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
3891 supported on character terminals.
3893 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
3894 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
3895 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
3896 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
3898 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
3902 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
3903 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
3904 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
3905 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
3908 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
3910 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
3911 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
3912 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
3913 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
3915 - User option: max-mini-window-height
3917 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
3918 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
3919 specifies a number of lines.
3923 - User option: resize-mini-windows
3925 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
3926 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
3927 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
3930 Default is `grow-only'.
3934 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
3935 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
3937 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
3939 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
3940 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
3943 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
3945 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
3946 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
3947 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
3949 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
3951 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
3952 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
3953 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
3954 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
3955 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
3958 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
3959 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
3960 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
3961 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
3962 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
3963 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
3965 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
3966 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
3967 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
3968 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
3969 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
3970 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
3972 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
3973 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
3974 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
3975 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
3976 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
3978 ** Tool bar support.
3980 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
3981 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
3982 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
3983 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
3984 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
3987 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
3988 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
3992 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
3993 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
3994 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
3996 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
3997 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
3998 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
3999 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
4001 ** Automatic Hscrolling
4003 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
4004 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
4007 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
4008 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
4009 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
4010 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
4011 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
4013 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
4014 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
4015 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
4016 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
4017 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
4018 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
4020 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
4021 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
4022 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
4023 customizing face `fringe'.
4025 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
4026 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
4027 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
4028 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
4029 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
4030 the window to be partially obscured.)
4032 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
4033 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
4034 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
4035 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
4037 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
4039 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
4040 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
4041 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
4042 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
4043 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
4046 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
4048 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
4050 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
4052 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
4053 `*') toggles the status.
4055 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
4057 ** Hourglass pointer
4059 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
4060 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
4064 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
4065 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
4066 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
4069 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
4071 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
4072 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
4073 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
4076 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
4077 have to do anything to activate it.
4079 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
4081 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
4082 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
4084 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
4085 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
4086 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
4087 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
4088 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
4089 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
4090 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
4091 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
4093 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
4094 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
4095 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
4096 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
4097 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
4098 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
4100 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
4101 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
4103 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
4104 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
4107 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
4108 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
4109 beginning and end of the buffer.
4111 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
4112 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
4115 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
4116 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
4118 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
4119 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
4122 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
4123 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
4126 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
4128 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
4129 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
4130 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
4132 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
4133 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
4134 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
4136 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
4139 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
4141 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
4142 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
4143 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
4144 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
4145 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
4148 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
4149 all frames except the selected one.
4151 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
4152 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
4154 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
4155 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
4156 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
4157 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
4158 `Info-use-header-line'.
4160 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
4161 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
4162 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
4164 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
4166 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
4167 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
4170 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
4171 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
4172 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
4173 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
4175 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
4177 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
4178 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
4179 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
4180 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
4182 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
4183 point in a pop-up window.
4185 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
4186 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
4187 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
4189 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
4190 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
4192 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
4193 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
4194 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
4195 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
4197 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
4199 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
4200 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
4202 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
4203 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
4204 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
4206 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
4207 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
4210 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
4211 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
4212 file that is already visited under a different name.
4214 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
4215 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
4217 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
4218 and displays information about that.
4220 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
4221 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
4223 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
4224 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
4225 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
4226 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
4227 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
4228 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
4230 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
4231 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
4233 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
4234 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
4235 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
4236 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
4237 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
4238 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
4239 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
4241 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
4242 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
4244 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
4245 system for keyboard input.
4247 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
4248 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
4249 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
4250 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
4251 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
4252 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
4253 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
4254 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
4255 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
4257 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
4258 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
4260 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
4261 displays all characters in that character set.
4263 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
4264 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
4266 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
4267 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
4268 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
4270 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
4271 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
4272 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
4273 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
4274 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
4275 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
4278 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
4279 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
4282 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
4283 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
4284 Lisp Coding Convention".
4286 new command old-binding
4287 --- ------- -----------
4288 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
4289 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
4290 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
4292 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
4293 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
4294 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
4296 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
4297 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
4298 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
4299 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
4300 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
4301 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
4303 ** There are new Leim input methods.
4304 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
4305 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
4308 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
4309 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
4310 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
4311 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
4312 "`", you must type "=q".
4314 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
4315 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
4316 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
4317 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
4318 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
4321 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
4322 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
4323 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
4324 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
4326 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
4327 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
4328 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
4329 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
4331 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
4332 on the display using several methods
4334 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
4335 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
4336 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
4338 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
4339 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
4341 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
4343 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
4344 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
4346 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
4347 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
4348 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
4349 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
4351 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
4352 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
4353 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
4355 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
4356 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
4358 ** New X resources recognized
4360 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
4361 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
4362 is useful for debugging X problems.
4366 emacs.synchronous: true
4368 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
4369 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
4370 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
4371 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
4372 visual class names are
4381 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
4382 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
4385 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
4386 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
4387 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
4392 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
4394 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
4395 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
4396 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
4397 resource values are `true' or `on'.
4401 emacs.privateColormap: true
4403 ** Faces and frame parameters.
4405 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
4406 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
4407 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
4408 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
4409 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
4410 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
4411 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
4413 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
4414 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
4415 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
4416 `default' face and vice versa.
4420 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
4422 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
4424 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
4425 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
4426 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
4427 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
4429 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
4430 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
4431 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
4433 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
4436 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
4438 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
4439 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
4440 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
4441 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
4443 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
4445 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
4447 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
4449 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
4452 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
4455 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
4457 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
4458 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
4459 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
4461 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
4462 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
4464 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
4465 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
4466 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
4468 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
4470 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
4471 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
4472 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
4473 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
4475 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
4476 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
4477 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
4478 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
4480 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
4481 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
4482 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
4485 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
4487 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
4488 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
4489 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
4491 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
4492 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
4493 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
4494 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
4495 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
4496 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
4498 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
4500 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
4501 notably at the end of lines.
4503 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
4504 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
4506 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
4508 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
4509 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
4511 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
4512 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
4513 after each match to get the replacement text.
4515 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
4516 you edit the replacement string.
4518 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
4519 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
4520 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
4522 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
4524 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
4525 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
4527 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
4528 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
4529 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
4530 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
4533 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
4534 read mail from the menu etc.
4536 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
4537 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
4538 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
4539 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
4541 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
4542 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
4544 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
4545 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
4546 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
4547 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
4548 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
4551 ** Customize changes
4553 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
4554 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
4555 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
4556 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
4557 earlier versions of Emacs.
4559 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
4560 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
4563 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
4564 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
4565 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
4566 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
4569 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
4570 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
4571 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
4572 already in your init file.
4574 ** New features in evaluation commands
4576 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
4577 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
4578 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
4579 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
4580 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
4582 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
4583 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
4584 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
4585 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
4588 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
4589 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
4591 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
4592 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
4594 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
4595 code when called with a prefix argument.
4599 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
4600 current user setups (although it's believed that these
4601 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
4602 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
4603 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
4604 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
4607 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
4608 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
4609 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
4612 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
4613 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
4614 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
4615 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
4617 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
4618 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
4620 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
4621 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
4623 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
4624 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
4625 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
4626 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
4628 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
4629 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
4630 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
4631 earlier statement. An example:
4633 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
4635 res += a[i]->offset;
4638 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
4639 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
4640 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
4641 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
4644 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
4647 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
4648 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
4649 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
4650 documentation or other natural language text.
4652 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
4653 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
4654 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
4655 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
4656 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
4657 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
4658 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
4660 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
4661 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
4662 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
4663 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
4665 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
4666 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
4667 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
4668 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
4671 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
4672 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
4673 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
4674 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
4675 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
4676 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
4677 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
4678 is reported afterwards.
4680 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
4681 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
4682 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
4684 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
4685 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
4686 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
4687 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
4688 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
4689 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
4692 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
4693 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
4694 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
4695 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
4696 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
4699 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
4700 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
4701 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
4702 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
4703 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
4704 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
4706 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
4707 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
4708 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
4709 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
4710 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
4711 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
4712 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
4713 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
4715 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
4716 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
4717 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
4718 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
4721 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
4722 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
4723 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
4724 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
4725 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
4726 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
4727 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
4728 function documentation for more info.
4730 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
4731 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
4732 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
4733 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
4734 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
4735 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
4736 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
4737 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
4739 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
4741 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
4742 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
4744 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
4745 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
4746 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
4747 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
4748 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
4751 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
4752 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
4753 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
4756 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
4757 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
4758 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
4759 chapter about this in the manual.
4761 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
4762 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
4763 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
4764 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
4765 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
4767 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
4768 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
4769 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
4771 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
4772 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
4774 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
4775 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
4776 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
4779 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
4780 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
4781 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
4782 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
4785 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
4786 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
4787 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
4788 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
4789 they were before the filling.
4791 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
4792 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
4793 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
4796 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
4797 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
4798 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
4799 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
4802 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
4803 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
4804 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
4805 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
4806 Thanks to Eric Eide.
4808 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
4809 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
4810 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
4812 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
4814 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
4815 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
4816 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
4817 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
4819 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
4820 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
4821 the column specified by comment-column.
4823 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
4824 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
4825 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
4826 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
4827 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
4828 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
4830 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
4831 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
4834 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
4836 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
4837 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
4838 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
4839 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
4842 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
4846 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
4847 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
4848 is, delete only empty directories.
4850 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
4851 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
4852 copy directories recursively.
4854 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
4855 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
4856 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
4858 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
4859 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
4862 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
4863 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
4864 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
4865 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
4866 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
4868 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
4871 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
4872 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
4873 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
4874 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
4878 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
4879 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
4880 internationalization and mail-fetching.
4882 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
4883 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
4885 If you used procmail like in
4887 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
4888 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
4889 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
4890 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
4892 this now has changed to
4895 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
4898 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
4899 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
4901 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
4902 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
4903 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
4904 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
4906 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
4907 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
4908 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
4910 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
4911 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
4912 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
4913 now just a compatibility layer.
4915 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
4918 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
4919 called to position point.
4921 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
4922 summary buffers and NOV files.
4924 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
4925 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
4927 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
4928 subtly different manner.
4930 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
4931 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
4932 ever-changing layouts.
4934 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
4936 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
4938 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
4940 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
4944 -------------------------
4948 C-c C-c q @quotation
4950 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
4953 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
4955 ** Changes in Outline mode.
4957 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
4958 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
4959 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
4961 ** Changes to Emacs Server
4963 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
4964 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
4965 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
4966 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
4967 buffers to kill, as before.
4969 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
4970 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
4973 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
4974 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
4976 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
4978 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
4979 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
4980 use. Default is 1000.
4982 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
4983 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
4985 ** Changes to hideshow.el
4987 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
4989 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
4990 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
4991 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
4992 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
4994 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
4995 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
4996 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
4999 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
5000 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
5001 the normal block-hiding function.
5003 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
5005 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
5006 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
5007 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
5008 for `hs-minor-mode'.
5010 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
5011 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
5013 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
5015 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
5016 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
5017 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
5019 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
5022 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
5025 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
5026 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
5027 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
5028 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
5029 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
5030 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
5032 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
5034 ** Changes to cmuscheme
5036 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
5037 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
5039 ** Changes in Font Lock
5041 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
5042 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
5044 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
5045 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
5047 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
5048 the face used for each string/comment.
5050 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
5051 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
5053 ** Changes to Shell mode
5055 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
5056 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
5057 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
5058 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
5060 ** Comint (subshell) changes
5062 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
5063 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
5065 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
5066 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
5067 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
5068 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
5069 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
5070 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
5072 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
5073 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
5074 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
5075 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
5076 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
5077 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
5078 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
5079 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
5081 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
5082 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
5084 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
5085 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
5086 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
5088 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
5089 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
5090 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
5092 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
5093 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
5094 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
5096 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
5097 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
5098 argument, it appends to the file.
5100 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
5101 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
5104 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
5107 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
5108 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
5109 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
5111 ** Changes to Rmail mode
5113 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
5114 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
5115 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
5116 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
5117 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
5120 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
5121 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
5122 regexp matching your mail addresses.
5124 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
5125 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
5126 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
5127 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
5128 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
5130 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
5133 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
5134 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
5137 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
5138 in which folder to put messages automatically.
5140 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
5141 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
5142 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
5144 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
5145 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
5147 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
5148 use the -f option when sending mail.
5150 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
5151 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
5152 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
5153 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
5154 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
5155 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
5157 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
5158 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
5159 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
5161 ** Changes to TeX mode
5163 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
5166 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
5168 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
5170 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
5172 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5174 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
5175 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
5176 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
5177 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
5178 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
5179 can be edited from that buffer.
5181 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
5182 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
5183 `A' to use all marked entries).
5185 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
5186 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
5188 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
5189 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
5190 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
5193 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
5194 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
5195 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
5196 in column 1 are always made leaves.
5198 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
5199 has the following new features:
5201 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
5202 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
5203 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
5204 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
5206 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
5207 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
5208 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
5209 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
5210 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
5213 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
5218 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
5219 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
5220 spell-checks the current buffer.
5222 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
5225 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
5226 correction is made and re-checked.
5228 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
5230 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
5233 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
5236 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
5239 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
5241 ** Makefile mode changes
5243 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
5245 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
5246 Fontlock mode is active.
5250 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
5251 so that searches can be resumed.
5253 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
5254 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
5255 that started the search.
5257 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
5258 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
5260 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
5262 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
5263 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
5264 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
5265 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
5266 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
5267 `secondary-selection'.
5269 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
5270 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
5271 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
5272 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
5273 usual snappy response.
5275 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
5276 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
5277 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
5278 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
5282 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
5283 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
5284 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
5285 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
5286 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
5287 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
5288 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
5289 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
5290 file is registered in that backend.
5292 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
5293 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
5294 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
5295 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
5296 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
5297 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
5299 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
5300 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
5301 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
5302 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
5303 where it doesn't make sense.)
5305 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
5306 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
5307 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
5311 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
5312 checks are always done now.
5314 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
5317 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
5318 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
5319 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
5321 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
5322 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
5323 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
5324 the working file (``merge news'').
5326 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
5327 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
5330 *** Multiple Backends
5332 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
5333 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
5334 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
5335 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
5338 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
5339 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
5340 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
5341 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
5343 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
5344 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
5345 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
5346 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
5347 current revision number from the more remote backend.
5349 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
5350 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
5351 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
5352 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
5354 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
5355 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
5356 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
5357 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
5361 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
5362 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
5363 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
5364 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
5365 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
5366 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
5367 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
5369 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
5370 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
5371 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
5372 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
5373 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
5374 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
5375 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
5376 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
5377 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
5378 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
5379 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
5382 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
5383 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
5384 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
5385 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
5386 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
5387 entire directory tree.
5389 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
5390 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
5391 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
5392 "watched" by other developers.)
5394 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
5395 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
5396 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
5397 starting at the given directory.
5399 *** Lisp Changes in VC
5401 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
5402 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
5403 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
5404 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
5405 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
5406 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
5407 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
5408 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
5409 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
5411 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
5412 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
5413 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
5414 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
5416 ** New modes and packages
5418 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
5419 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
5420 the default is not applicable.
5422 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
5423 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
5424 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
5428 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
5429 drawn, like this: | \ /
5433 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
5434 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
5435 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
5436 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
5437 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
5440 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
5441 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
5443 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
5446 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
5447 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
5448 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
5449 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
5451 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
5452 also do without the mouse.
5454 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
5455 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
5456 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
5457 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
5458 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
5460 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
5462 lines straight-lines
5464 poly-lines straight poly-lines
5466 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
5467 spray-can setting size for spraying
5468 vaporize line vaporize lines
5469 erase characters erase rectangles
5471 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
5472 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
5473 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
5476 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
5477 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
5478 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
5479 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
5481 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
5484 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
5485 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
5486 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
5487 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
5488 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
5489 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
5490 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
5491 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
5492 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
5494 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
5495 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
5496 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
5497 on certain projects.
5499 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
5500 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
5502 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
5504 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
5505 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
5506 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
5507 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
5508 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
5509 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
5510 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
5511 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
5513 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
5516 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
5517 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
5519 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
5520 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
5522 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
5523 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
5524 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
5525 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
5526 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
5528 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
5529 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
5530 separate Texinfo file.
5532 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
5533 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
5534 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
5535 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
5536 enter check-in log messages.
5538 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
5539 without invoking external programs.
5541 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
5542 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
5543 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
5544 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
5545 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
5547 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
5548 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
5550 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
5551 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
5553 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
5554 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
5555 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
5556 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
5557 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
5560 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
5561 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
5562 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
5563 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
5565 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
5566 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
5567 actually modifying content of a buffer.
5569 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
5572 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
5574 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
5576 ; comment (until end of line)
5580 $A default non-terminal
5581 $"C" default terminal
5582 $?C? default special
5583 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
5584 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
5585 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
5586 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
5587 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
5588 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
5589 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
5590 C+ one or more occurrences of C
5591 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
5592 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
5593 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
5594 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
5595 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
5596 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
5597 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
5599 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
5601 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
5602 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
5603 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
5604 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
5605 equal signs of assignments.
5607 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
5608 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
5610 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
5611 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
5612 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
5614 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
5616 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
5617 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
5618 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
5619 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
5620 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
5621 which answers different needs.
5623 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
5624 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
5625 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
5626 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
5627 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
5630 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
5631 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
5633 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
5635 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
5636 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
5637 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
5639 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
5641 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
5642 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
5643 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
5644 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
5645 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
5646 and background colors.
5648 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
5651 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
5654 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
5656 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
5658 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
5659 whitespace in a file.
5661 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
5662 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
5663 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
5664 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
5665 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
5666 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
5667 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
5669 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
5671 Here is an example of columns:
5674 dog pineapple car EXTRA
5675 porcupine strawberry airplane
5677 Doing the following settings:
5679 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
5680 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
5681 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
5682 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
5685 Selecting the lines above and typing:
5687 M-x delimit-columns-region
5691 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
5692 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
5693 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
5695 delim-col has the following options:
5697 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
5700 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
5701 between each column.
5703 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
5706 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
5709 delim-col has the following commands:
5711 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
5712 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
5714 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
5715 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
5716 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
5717 recent file list can be displayed:
5719 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
5720 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
5721 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
5723 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
5724 dynamically change the menu appearance.
5726 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
5729 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
5730 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
5731 specific to Message mode.
5733 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
5734 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
5735 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
5737 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
5738 interface to access directory servers using different directory
5739 protocols. It has a separate manual.
5741 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
5742 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
5744 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
5746 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
5747 minibuffer with completion.
5749 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
5750 with the diary features.
5752 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
5753 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
5755 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
5758 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
5759 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
5760 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
5761 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
5763 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
5764 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
5767 ** Changes in sort.el
5769 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
5770 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
5771 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
5774 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
5776 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
5777 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
5778 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
5780 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
5781 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
5783 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
5784 output ^M at the end of lines.
5786 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
5787 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
5789 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
5790 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
5793 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
5796 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
5797 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
5800 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
5801 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
5802 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
5803 nil -- just delete one character.
5805 Default value is `untabify'.
5807 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
5809 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
5810 symbol, not double-quoted.
5812 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
5813 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
5814 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
5815 moved to lisp/obsolete.
5817 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
5818 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
5819 `auto-compression-mode' command.
5821 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
5822 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
5823 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
5825 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
5826 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
5828 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
5829 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
5831 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
5832 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
5834 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
5835 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
5836 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
5837 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
5838 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
5839 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
5841 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
5842 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
5844 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
5846 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
5847 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
5849 ** Shell script mode changes.
5851 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
5852 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
5853 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
5857 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
5859 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
5860 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
5861 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
5862 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
5863 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
5865 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
5866 declarations when given the --declarations option.
5868 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
5869 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
5871 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
5872 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
5873 `template' keywords.
5875 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
5876 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
5878 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
5881 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
5883 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
5885 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
5888 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
5890 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
5891 variables are tagged.
5893 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
5895 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
5898 ** Changes in etags.el
5900 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
5901 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
5902 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
5904 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
5905 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
5907 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
5908 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
5909 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
5910 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
5912 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
5914 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
5915 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
5917 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
5919 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
5920 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
5921 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
5923 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
5924 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
5926 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
5927 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
5929 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
5930 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
5931 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
5932 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
5933 point will go to the beginning of the file.
5935 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
5936 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
5937 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
5939 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
5940 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
5941 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
5943 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
5944 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
5945 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
5947 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
5949 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
5951 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
5952 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
5953 expression from that list, are not checked.
5955 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
5956 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
5957 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
5958 the buffer, just like for the local files.
5960 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
5962 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
5963 displays local abbrevs, only.
5965 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
5966 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
5968 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
5969 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
5970 is measured in pixels.
5972 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
5973 to be visited as images.
5975 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
5976 were added to compile.el.
5978 ** Withdrawn packages
5980 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
5981 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
5983 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
5985 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
5988 * Incompatible Lisp changes
5990 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
5991 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
5992 See the sections below for details.
5994 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
5995 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
5996 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
5997 to remove the properties of the copy.
5999 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
6000 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
6001 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
6002 these properties are active.
6004 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
6005 ranges may affect some code.
6007 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
6008 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
6009 make a difference to some code.
6011 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
6012 operates on the minibuffer.
6014 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
6015 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
6016 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
6017 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
6018 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
6019 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
6020 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
6021 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
6022 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
6023 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
6024 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
6025 the buffer as multibyte characters.
6027 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
6028 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
6029 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
6031 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
6032 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
6033 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
6035 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
6036 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
6037 such as `mapconcat'.
6039 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
6042 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
6043 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
6044 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
6045 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
6046 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
6047 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
6048 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
6049 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
6051 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
6052 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
6053 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
6054 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
6055 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
6056 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
6057 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
6058 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
6059 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
6060 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
6063 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
6064 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
6066 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
6068 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
6069 allows the animated display of strings.
6071 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
6072 interactive form of a function.
6074 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
6075 between custom options. Example:
6077 (defcustom default-input-method nil
6078 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
6079 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
6080 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
6082 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
6083 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
6085 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
6086 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
6087 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
6089 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
6090 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
6091 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
6092 (signal or normal termination).
6094 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
6095 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
6097 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
6098 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
6100 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
6101 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
6103 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
6105 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
6106 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
6109 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
6111 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
6112 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
6113 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
6114 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
6115 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
6118 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
6119 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
6122 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
6123 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
6125 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
6126 with the more general `:mask' property.
6128 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
6130 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
6133 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
6134 is running in batch mode. For example,
6136 (message "%s" (read t))
6138 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
6141 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
6142 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
6144 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
6145 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
6148 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
6151 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
6153 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
6154 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
6156 - Function: remq ELT LIST
6158 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
6159 comparison is done with `eq'.
6161 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
6163 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
6164 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
6165 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
6167 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
6168 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
6169 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
6171 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
6172 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
6174 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
6175 function was declared obsolete.
6177 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
6178 retained as an alias).
6180 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
6181 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
6182 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
6184 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
6186 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
6188 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
6189 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
6190 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
6191 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
6192 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
6193 means never include the minibuffer window.
6195 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
6197 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
6199 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
6201 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
6202 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
6203 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
6204 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
6207 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
6208 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
6209 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
6210 minibuffer even if it is active.
6212 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
6213 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
6214 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
6215 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
6216 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
6217 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
6219 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
6220 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
6221 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
6222 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
6223 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
6224 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
6225 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
6227 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
6228 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
6229 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
6231 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
6232 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
6233 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
6234 Default value is nil.
6236 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
6239 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
6240 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
6241 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
6243 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
6244 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
6245 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
6247 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
6248 list of a primitive.
6250 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
6252 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
6253 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
6254 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
6255 than replacing the local map.
6257 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
6258 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
6259 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
6262 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
6264 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
6265 as promised long ago.
6267 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
6269 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
6270 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
6271 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
6274 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
6276 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
6277 regular expressions.
6279 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
6281 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
6285 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
6287 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
6291 matches string STRING literally.
6294 matches character CHAR literally.
6297 matches any character except a newline.
6300 matches any character
6303 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
6304 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
6310 matches any character not in SET
6313 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
6314 in the text being matched
6317 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
6320 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
6321 string being matched against.
6324 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
6325 string being matched against.
6328 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
6329 buffer being matched against.
6332 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
6333 buffer being matched against.
6336 matches the empty string, but only at point.
6339 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
6343 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
6346 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
6349 `(not word-boundary)'
6350 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
6354 matches 0 through 9.
6357 matches ASCII control characters.
6360 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
6363 matches space and tab only.
6366 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
6370 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
6374 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6375 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6378 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6379 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6382 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
6385 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
6388 matches anything lower-case.
6391 matches anything upper-case.
6394 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6395 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
6398 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
6401 matches anything that has word syntax.
6404 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
6405 of the following symbols.
6407 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
6408 `punctuation' (\\s.)
6411 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
6412 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
6413 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
6414 `string-quote' (\\s\")
6415 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
6417 `character-quote' (\\s/)
6418 `comment-start' (\\s<)
6419 `comment-end' (\\s>)
6421 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
6422 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
6424 `(category CATEGORY)'
6425 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
6426 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
6428 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
6430 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
6431 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
6435 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
6437 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
6438 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
6439 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
6440 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
6441 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
6442 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
6443 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
6444 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
6445 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
6446 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
6447 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
6456 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
6460 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
6467 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
6468 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
6470 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6471 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
6473 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6474 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
6475 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
6477 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6478 another name for `submatch'.
6480 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6481 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
6482 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
6485 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
6486 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
6487 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
6488 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
6489 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
6491 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
6492 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
6494 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
6495 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6498 like `zero-or-more'.
6501 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6504 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6506 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
6507 matches one or more occurrences of A.
6513 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6516 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6518 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
6519 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
6525 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6528 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6531 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6534 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6537 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
6541 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
6543 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
6545 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
6546 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
6547 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
6548 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
6550 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
6551 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
6552 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
6553 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
6555 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
6556 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
6557 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
6559 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
6560 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
6561 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
6562 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
6563 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
6564 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
6565 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
6568 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
6570 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
6571 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
6572 character set as previously.
6574 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
6575 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
6576 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
6578 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
6579 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
6580 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
6581 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
6583 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
6584 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
6586 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
6587 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
6590 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
6591 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
6593 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
6594 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
6595 buffers and strings.
6597 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
6598 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
6599 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
6600 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
6601 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
6602 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
6603 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
6606 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
6607 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
6608 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
6610 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
6611 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
6612 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
6613 may differ between buffer and string text.
6615 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
6616 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
6618 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
6619 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
6620 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
6621 `composition' from STRING.
6623 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
6624 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
6626 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
6629 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
6630 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
6632 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
6633 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
6634 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
6635 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
6637 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
6638 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
6639 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
6640 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
6641 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
6642 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
6644 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
6645 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
6646 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
6648 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
6649 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
6650 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
6652 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
6653 have been introduced.
6655 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
6656 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
6657 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
6658 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
6659 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
6660 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
6661 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
6662 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
6663 their multibyte equivalent.
6665 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
6666 that offset in the file before writing.
6668 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
6669 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
6671 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
6672 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
6673 from which the command was issued.
6675 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
6676 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
6677 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
6678 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
6681 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
6682 to `window-buffer-height'.
6684 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
6686 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
6687 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
6688 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
6690 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
6693 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
6694 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
6696 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
6697 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
6698 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
6700 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
6701 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
6702 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
6703 is currently displayed in some window.
6705 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
6706 argument function's results.
6708 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
6709 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
6710 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
6711 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
6714 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
6715 header in the list of headers passed to it.
6717 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
6718 ignores differences in case and text representation.
6720 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
6721 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
6724 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
6725 nil don't display a cursor
6726 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
6727 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
6728 others display a box cursor.
6730 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
6731 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
6732 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
6733 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
6735 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
6736 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
6737 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
6738 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
6742 (string-to-syntax "()")
6745 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
6748 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
6749 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
6756 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
6761 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
6766 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
6773 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
6774 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
6777 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
6778 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
6779 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
6780 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
6782 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
6784 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
6785 for a regexp in a string.
6787 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
6788 `mouse-position-function'.
6790 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
6791 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
6793 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
6794 Keywords are now always considered constants.
6796 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
6799 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
6800 returned by function `recent-keys'.
6802 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
6803 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
6804 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
6805 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
6808 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
6809 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
6811 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
6812 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
6813 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
6814 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
6817 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
6818 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
6819 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
6820 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
6822 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
6823 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
6824 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
6826 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
6827 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
6830 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
6832 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
6833 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
6834 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
6837 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
6838 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
6839 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
6840 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
6841 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
6843 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
6844 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
6846 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
6847 instead of being optional.
6849 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
6850 modify read-only text.
6852 ** New functions and variables for locales.
6854 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
6855 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
6856 time functions like strftime. The new variables
6857 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
6858 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
6860 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
6861 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
6862 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
6863 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
6864 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
6865 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
6866 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
6868 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
6869 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
6870 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
6873 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
6874 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
6876 ** New function `propertize'
6878 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
6879 strings with text properties.
6881 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
6883 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
6884 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
6885 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
6886 specified value of that property. Example:
6888 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
6890 ** push and pop macros.
6892 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
6893 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
6894 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
6896 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
6897 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
6898 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
6900 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
6902 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
6903 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
6905 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
6906 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
6907 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
6908 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6910 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
6911 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
6912 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
6913 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6915 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
6916 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
6917 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
6920 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
6921 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
6922 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
6923 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
6924 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
6926 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
6928 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
6929 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6930 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6931 [:alpha:] matches letters.
6932 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6933 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6934 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
6935 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
6936 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
6937 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
6938 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6939 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
6940 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
6941 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
6942 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
6944 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
6946 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
6948 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
6950 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
6951 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
6955 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
6956 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
6957 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
6961 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
6962 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
6964 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
6966 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
6967 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
6968 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
6969 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
6970 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
6972 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
6974 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
6975 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
6976 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
6980 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
6981 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
6982 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
6983 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
6984 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
6986 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
6988 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
6990 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
6992 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
6994 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
6996 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
6999 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
7001 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
7003 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
7005 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
7007 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
7009 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
7011 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
7013 Returns the size of TABLE.
7015 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
7017 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
7019 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
7021 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
7023 - Function: clrhash TABLE
7027 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
7029 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
7032 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
7034 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
7035 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
7037 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
7039 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
7041 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
7043 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
7044 arguments KEY and VALUE.
7046 - Function: sxhash OBJ
7048 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
7050 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
7052 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
7053 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
7054 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
7055 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
7056 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
7058 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
7060 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
7061 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
7062 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
7064 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
7065 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
7067 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
7068 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
7070 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
7071 (sxhash (upcase a)))
7073 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
7074 'case-fold-string-hash))
7076 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
7078 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
7080 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
7081 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
7082 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
7084 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
7086 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
7087 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
7089 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
7090 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
7091 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
7092 is too short to reach that column.
7094 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
7095 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
7096 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
7097 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
7099 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
7100 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
7101 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
7103 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
7104 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
7106 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
7107 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
7109 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
7110 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
7111 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
7112 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
7113 temporary-file-directory instead.
7115 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
7116 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
7117 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
7118 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
7120 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
7121 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
7123 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
7125 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
7126 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
7127 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
7129 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
7131 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
7132 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
7133 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
7134 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
7135 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
7136 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
7138 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
7139 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
7140 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
7141 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
7143 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
7145 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
7146 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
7147 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
7150 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
7151 string where arguments appear in the result string.
7155 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
7157 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
7158 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
7161 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
7163 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
7165 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
7166 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
7169 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
7171 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
7172 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
7177 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
7178 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
7180 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
7181 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
7182 to enable sound support.
7184 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
7185 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
7186 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
7187 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
7188 sound to play, before playing the sound.
7190 The following sound properties are supported:
7194 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
7195 searched relative to `data-directory'.
7199 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
7200 may be present, but not both.
7204 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
7205 0..1. This property is optional.
7209 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
7210 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
7212 Other properties are ignored.
7214 An alternative interface is called as
7215 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
7217 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
7219 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
7222 ** Changes to garbage collection
7224 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
7225 of live and free strings.
7227 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
7228 strings that have been consed so far.
7231 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
7234 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
7237 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
7238 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
7239 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
7241 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
7243 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
7245 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
7248 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
7250 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
7252 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
7253 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
7254 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
7255 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
7256 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
7258 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
7261 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
7263 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
7264 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
7265 or omitted means use the selected frame.
7267 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
7268 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
7270 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
7273 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
7277 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
7279 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
7280 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
7282 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
7283 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
7284 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
7285 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
7286 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
7287 just display it black instead.
7289 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
7292 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
7296 ** New face implementation.
7298 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
7299 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
7303 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
7305 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
7307 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
7308 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
7310 3. Font height in 1/10pt
7312 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
7314 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
7316 6. Foreground color.
7318 7. Background color.
7320 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
7322 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
7324 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
7326 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
7328 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
7331 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
7332 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
7334 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
7335 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
7336 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
7337 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
7338 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
7339 attributes mentioned above.
7341 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
7342 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
7345 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
7346 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
7351 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
7352 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
7353 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
7354 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
7355 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
7356 results in a fully-specified face.
7358 *** Face realization.
7360 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
7361 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
7362 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
7363 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
7364 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
7365 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
7367 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
7368 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
7369 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
7370 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
7372 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
7373 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
7374 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
7375 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
7376 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
7378 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
7379 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
7380 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
7381 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
7382 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
7385 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
7386 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
7387 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
7388 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
7390 **** Clearing face caches.
7392 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
7393 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
7398 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
7399 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
7400 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
7402 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
7403 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
7404 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
7405 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
7406 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
7408 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
7409 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
7410 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
7412 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
7414 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
7415 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
7416 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
7417 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
7418 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
7419 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
7420 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
7422 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
7423 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
7426 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
7427 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
7430 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
7433 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
7438 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
7439 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
7442 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
7443 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
7444 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
7445 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
7446 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
7449 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
7451 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
7453 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
7455 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
7457 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
7458 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
7459 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
7461 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
7462 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
7463 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
7464 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
7465 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
7466 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
7467 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
7468 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
7469 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
7470 of the face font sort order.
7472 - Function: x-font-family-list
7474 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
7475 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
7476 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
7477 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
7479 - Variable: font-list-limit
7481 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
7482 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
7483 matching font. The default is currently 100.
7485 *** Setting face attributes.
7487 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
7488 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
7489 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
7492 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
7493 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
7495 The following attributes are recognized:
7499 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
7500 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
7501 and `?' are allowed.
7505 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
7506 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
7507 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
7508 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
7512 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
7513 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
7514 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
7515 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
7519 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
7520 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
7521 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
7525 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
7526 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
7529 `:foreground', `:background'
7531 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
7535 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
7536 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
7537 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
7542 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
7543 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
7544 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
7549 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
7550 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
7551 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
7552 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
7556 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
7557 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
7558 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
7559 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
7560 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
7561 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
7562 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
7563 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
7564 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
7565 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
7566 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
7567 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
7568 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
7569 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
7570 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
7571 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
7576 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
7577 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
7581 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
7582 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
7583 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
7584 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
7585 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
7586 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
7588 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
7589 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
7593 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
7594 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
7595 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
7598 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
7599 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
7600 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
7602 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
7607 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
7608 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
7609 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
7611 *** Face attributes and X resources
7613 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
7616 Face attribute X resource class
7617 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
7618 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
7619 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
7620 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
7621 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
7622 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
7623 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
7624 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
7625 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
7626 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
7627 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
7628 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
7629 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
7630 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
7631 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
7632 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
7633 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
7634 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
7635 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
7636 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
7638 *** Text property `face'.
7640 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
7641 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
7642 specification can be
7644 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
7646 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
7647 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
7648 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
7649 for face attribute names.
7651 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
7652 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
7653 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
7655 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
7657 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
7658 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
7659 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
7660 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
7661 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
7662 used to clear the mapping table.
7664 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
7666 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
7667 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
7668 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
7669 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
7670 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
7671 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
7672 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
7673 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
7674 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
7675 modify their color-related behavior.
7677 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
7680 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
7682 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
7683 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
7684 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
7685 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
7686 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
7687 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
7688 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
7689 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
7690 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
7692 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
7693 display can display image files.
7695 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
7697 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
7698 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
7699 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
7700 `Inviolable' option.
7702 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
7703 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
7704 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
7706 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
7708 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
7709 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
7710 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
7712 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
7713 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
7714 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
7715 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
7716 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
7717 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
7718 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
7721 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
7722 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
7723 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
7725 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
7727 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
7729 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
7731 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7732 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
7733 constrained position if that is different.
7735 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
7736 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
7737 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
7738 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
7739 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7740 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
7741 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
7742 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
7743 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
7745 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
7746 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
7747 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
7748 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
7749 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
7751 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
7752 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
7754 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
7756 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
7758 Delete the field surrounding POS.
7759 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7760 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7762 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7764 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
7765 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7766 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7767 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
7768 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
7770 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7772 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
7773 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7774 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7775 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
7776 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
7778 - Function: field-string &optional POS
7780 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
7781 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7782 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7784 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
7786 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
7787 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7788 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7792 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
7793 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
7794 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
7795 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
7797 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
7798 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
7799 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
7800 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
7803 IMAGE is an image specification.
7805 *** Image specifications
7807 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
7808 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
7809 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
7810 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
7811 described below are ignored.
7813 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
7817 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
7818 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
7819 to use for its ascent.
7821 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
7822 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
7824 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
7825 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
7826 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
7827 overlays that apply to the image.
7831 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
7832 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
7833 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
7837 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
7842 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
7844 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
7845 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
7847 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
7848 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
7849 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
7850 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
7851 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
7852 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
7853 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
7854 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
7857 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
7859 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
7861 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
7862 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
7863 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
7864 of the factors' absolute values.
7866 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
7872 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
7878 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
7883 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
7884 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
7885 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
7886 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
7887 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
7888 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
7889 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
7892 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
7893 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
7898 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
7899 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
7900 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
7901 may be present in the image specification.
7905 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
7906 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
7907 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
7908 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
7910 *** Supported image types
7912 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
7914 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
7915 properties supported are:
7919 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7920 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7924 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7925 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7927 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
7928 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
7929 instead of a `:file' property.
7933 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
7937 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
7943 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
7944 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
7946 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
7948 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
7951 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
7952 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
7955 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
7957 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
7958 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
7959 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
7960 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
7962 Additional image properties supported are:
7964 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
7966 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
7967 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
7970 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
7971 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
7973 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
7974 to display compressed images.
7976 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
7978 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
7979 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
7984 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7985 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7989 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7990 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7992 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
7994 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
7995 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7998 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
8000 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
8001 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
8004 **** GIF, image type `gif'
8006 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
8007 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
8009 Additional image properties supported are:
8013 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
8014 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
8017 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
8018 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
8019 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
8022 (defun show-anim (file max)
8023 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
8024 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
8026 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
8029 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
8032 (goto-char (point-min))
8033 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
8034 (insert-image img "x"))
8035 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
8037 **** PNG, image type `png'
8039 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
8040 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
8043 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
8045 Additional image properties supported are:
8049 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
8050 integer. This is a required property.
8054 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
8055 must be a integer. This is an required property.
8059 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
8060 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
8061 files. This is an required property.
8063 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
8068 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
8069 which are supported in the current configuration.
8071 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
8072 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
8073 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
8074 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
8075 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
8077 *** Simplified image API, image.el
8079 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
8080 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
8081 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
8082 define an image based on available image types. The functions
8083 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
8088 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
8091 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
8092 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
8093 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
8094 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
8095 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
8096 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
8097 of the display margins.
8099 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
8100 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
8101 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
8102 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
8107 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
8108 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
8109 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
8110 that have a `help-echo' property.
8112 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
8113 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
8114 the window in which the help was found.
8116 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
8117 `help-echo' text property was found.
8119 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
8120 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
8122 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
8123 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
8126 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
8127 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
8129 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
8130 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
8131 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
8132 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
8133 used as help string.
8135 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
8136 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
8137 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
8139 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
8141 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
8142 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
8144 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
8145 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
8146 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
8147 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
8150 (global-set-key [A-down]
8153 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
8154 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
8155 (global-set-key [A-up]
8158 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
8159 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
8161 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
8163 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
8164 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
8165 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
8166 is called with one argument, POS.
8168 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
8169 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
8170 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
8171 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
8172 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
8174 ** Tool bar support.
8176 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
8177 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
8178 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
8179 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
8180 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
8181 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
8183 *** Tool bar item definitions
8185 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
8186 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
8187 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
8189 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
8190 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
8191 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
8192 property (see below).
8194 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
8195 binding are currently ignored.
8197 The following properties are recognized:
8201 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
8206 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
8210 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
8211 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
8212 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
8214 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
8216 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
8217 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
8221 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
8222 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
8223 meaning of each of the four elements:
8225 Index Use when item is
8226 ----------------------------------------
8227 0 enabled and selected
8228 1 enabled and deselected
8229 2 disabled and selected
8230 3 disabled and deselected
8232 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
8233 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
8235 `:help HELP-STRING'.
8237 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
8238 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
8240 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
8241 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
8242 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
8245 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
8246 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
8247 buffer-locally to override the global map.
8249 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
8251 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
8252 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
8253 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
8255 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
8256 raised when the mouse moves over them.
8258 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
8259 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
8260 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
8261 vertical margins . Default is 1.
8263 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
8264 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
8266 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
8268 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
8271 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
8272 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
8273 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
8275 is the original tool bar item definition, then
8277 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
8279 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
8282 ** Mode line changes.
8284 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
8286 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
8287 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
8288 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
8290 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
8291 a `local-map' text property.
8293 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
8294 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
8296 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
8297 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
8298 `local-map' property.
8300 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
8301 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
8304 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
8305 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
8307 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
8308 variable mode-line-format to nil.
8310 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
8312 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
8313 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
8314 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
8315 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
8318 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
8321 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
8322 position in the header-line.
8324 ** Text property `display'
8326 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
8327 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
8328 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
8329 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
8330 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
8332 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
8334 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
8335 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
8337 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
8338 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
8339 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
8340 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
8341 simpler form STRING as property value.
8343 *** Variable width and height spaces
8345 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
8346 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
8347 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
8348 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
8349 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
8350 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
8351 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
8353 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
8354 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
8355 properties described below.
8357 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
8358 characters having the `display' property.
8362 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
8363 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
8365 - :relative-width FACTOR
8367 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
8368 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
8369 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
8370 width of that character by FACTOR.
8374 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
8375 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
8377 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
8381 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
8384 - :relative-height FACTOR
8386 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
8387 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
8391 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
8392 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
8393 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
8396 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
8400 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
8401 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
8402 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
8403 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
8404 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
8405 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
8406 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
8407 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
8408 as display specification.
8410 *** Other display properties
8412 - (space-width FACTOR)
8414 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
8415 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
8420 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
8422 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
8423 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
8424 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
8425 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
8426 a font is available counts as a step.
8428 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
8429 as tall as the frame's default font.
8431 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
8432 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
8434 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
8435 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
8439 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
8440 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
8441 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
8442 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
8443 `height' subproperty.
8445 *** Conditional display properties
8447 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
8448 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
8449 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
8450 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
8451 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
8452 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
8453 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
8454 different when object is a string.
8456 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
8459 ** New menu separator types.
8461 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
8462 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
8463 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
8464 to specify other menu separator types.
8466 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
8468 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
8471 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
8473 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
8475 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
8477 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
8479 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
8481 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
8483 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
8485 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
8487 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
8489 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
8490 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
8492 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
8494 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
8496 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
8498 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
8500 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
8502 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
8504 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
8506 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
8508 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
8510 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
8512 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
8514 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
8516 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
8518 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
8520 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
8521 the corresponding single-line separators.
8523 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
8525 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
8526 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
8527 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
8528 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
8529 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
8530 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
8531 default foreground is black.
8533 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
8534 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
8535 `ScrollBarBackground').
8537 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
8538 settings for scroll bar colors.
8540 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
8541 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
8543 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
8544 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
8545 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
8546 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
8547 the original window start.
8549 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
8550 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
8551 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
8553 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
8555 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
8556 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
8557 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
8558 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
8560 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
8561 fixed-width and fixed-height.
8563 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
8565 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
8566 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
8567 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
8568 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
8569 temporarily to nil, for example
8571 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
8572 (enlarge-window 10))
8574 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
8575 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
8577 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
8578 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
8579 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
8580 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
8581 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
8582 support a vertical-bar cursor).
8586 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
8588 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
8591 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
8593 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
8595 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
8596 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
8597 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
8598 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
8599 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
8601 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
8605 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
8607 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
8611 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
8613 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
8614 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
8616 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
8618 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
8620 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
8621 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
8622 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
8624 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
8625 is the one that is used.
8627 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
8628 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
8629 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
8630 separate from the command's regular output.
8631 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
8632 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
8633 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
8636 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
8637 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
8638 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
8639 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
8641 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
8642 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
8643 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
8644 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
8646 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
8647 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
8648 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
8649 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
8651 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
8652 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
8653 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
8654 they never ignore case.
8656 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
8657 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
8658 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
8659 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
8660 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
8661 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
8662 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
8664 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
8665 the same format that was used in the file before.
8667 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
8668 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
8670 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
8671 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
8672 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
8674 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
8675 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
8676 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
8677 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
8678 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
8679 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
8680 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
8682 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
8683 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
8684 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
8685 format. You can now customize these variables.
8687 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
8688 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
8689 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
8690 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
8692 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
8693 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
8694 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
8696 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
8697 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
8698 doesn't have any effect.
8700 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
8703 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
8704 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
8705 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
8707 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
8708 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
8709 `auto-show-mode' command.
8711 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
8712 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
8713 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
8714 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
8715 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
8717 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
8718 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
8720 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
8721 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
8722 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
8724 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
8725 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
8726 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
8727 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
8729 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
8731 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
8732 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
8733 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
8734 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
8735 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
8737 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
8738 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
8740 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
8741 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
8742 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
8743 `?' on other systems.
8745 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
8746 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
8749 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
8750 current codepage when it starts.
8754 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
8755 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
8756 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
8757 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
8758 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
8759 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
8763 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
8764 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
8766 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
8767 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
8768 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
8769 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
8770 buffer-file-coding-system.
8772 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
8773 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
8776 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
8777 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
8778 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
8779 list of possible coding systems.
8783 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
8784 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
8785 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
8786 docstring for details.
8788 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
8789 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
8790 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
8791 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
8792 lineup functions use this feature currently.
8794 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
8795 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
8797 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
8798 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
8800 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
8801 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
8802 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
8803 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
8806 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
8807 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
8809 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
8810 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
8811 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
8812 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
8814 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
8815 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
8816 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
8817 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
8818 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
8820 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
8822 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
8824 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
8825 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
8827 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
8829 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
8830 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
8831 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
8832 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
8833 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
8837 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
8838 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
8839 Gnus manual for the full story.
8841 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
8842 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
8843 group, which is created automatically.
8845 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
8848 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
8850 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
8851 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
8853 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
8856 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
8858 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
8859 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
8861 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
8863 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
8864 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
8866 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
8867 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
8869 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
8870 control over simplification.
8872 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
8874 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
8877 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
8879 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
8881 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
8882 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
8883 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
8885 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
8886 `a' forces normal posting method.
8888 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
8891 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
8894 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
8895 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
8897 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
8900 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
8902 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
8904 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
8905 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
8907 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
8908 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
8910 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
8912 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
8915 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
8916 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
8918 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
8919 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
8921 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
8923 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
8925 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
8927 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
8929 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
8930 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
8931 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
8933 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
8934 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
8935 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
8936 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
8937 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
8939 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
8940 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
8941 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
8942 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
8944 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
8945 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
8946 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
8949 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
8951 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
8952 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
8954 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
8955 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
8956 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
8957 removed from the label.
8959 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
8960 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
8962 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
8963 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
8965 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
8966 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
8969 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
8971 ** New/deleted modes and packages
8973 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
8974 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
8976 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
8977 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
8978 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
8980 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
8981 changes with a special face.
8983 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
8984 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
8985 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
8987 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
8989 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
8990 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
8991 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
8992 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
8993 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
8995 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
8996 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
8997 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
8999 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
9000 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
9001 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
9002 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
9003 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
9004 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
9005 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
9006 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
9007 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
9009 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
9010 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
9011 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
9012 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
9013 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
9016 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
9017 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
9018 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
9019 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
9020 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
9021 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
9023 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
9024 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
9025 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
9026 was not documented clearly before.
9028 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
9029 This includes Tetris and Snake.
9031 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
9033 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
9034 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
9035 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
9036 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
9038 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
9039 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
9040 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
9042 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
9044 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
9045 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
9047 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
9048 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
9051 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
9052 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
9053 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
9054 file names and attributes are returned.
9056 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
9057 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
9058 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
9059 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
9062 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
9063 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
9065 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
9067 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
9068 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
9069 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
9072 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
9073 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
9076 The new function process-running-child-p
9077 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
9078 terminal to its own child process.
9080 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
9081 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
9082 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
9083 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
9085 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
9086 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
9088 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
9089 :included is an alias for :visible.
9091 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
9092 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
9093 to move or copy menu entries.
9095 ** Multibyte editing changes
9097 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
9098 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
9099 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
9100 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
9101 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
9102 (setq char (sref str idx)
9103 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
9104 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
9106 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
9107 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
9108 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
9110 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
9111 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
9112 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
9114 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
9116 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
9117 across the boundary.
9119 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
9120 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
9121 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
9122 contains 8-bit characters.
9123 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
9124 contains invalid characters.
9126 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
9127 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
9128 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
9129 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
9132 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
9133 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
9134 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
9135 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
9137 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
9138 compose Thai characters in a string.
9140 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
9141 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
9142 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
9143 menus should always use the third argument.
9145 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
9146 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
9147 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
9148 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
9150 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
9151 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
9152 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
9153 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
9155 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
9156 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
9157 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
9160 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
9162 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
9163 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
9164 requested feature cannot be loaded.
9166 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
9167 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
9168 means to clear out that attribute.
9170 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
9171 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
9173 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
9174 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
9175 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
9176 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
9178 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
9179 the gap of the current buffer.
9181 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
9182 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
9185 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
9186 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
9187 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
9188 it back in after any modifications have been made.
9190 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
9192 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
9193 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
9194 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
9195 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
9196 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
9198 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
9199 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
9200 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
9201 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
9202 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
9204 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
9205 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
9206 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
9208 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
9209 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
9210 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
9211 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
9212 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
9215 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
9216 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
9217 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
9218 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
9220 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
9222 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
9223 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
9224 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
9225 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
9227 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
9228 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
9229 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
9230 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
9231 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
9232 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
9233 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
9236 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
9239 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
9240 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
9241 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
9242 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
9243 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
9245 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
9246 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
9247 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
9248 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
9250 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
9251 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
9252 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
9253 something that most users not do.
9255 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
9256 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
9257 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
9260 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
9263 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
9264 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
9265 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
9266 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
9269 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
9270 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
9271 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
9272 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
9273 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
9276 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
9277 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
9278 to be confused by TeX commands.
9280 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
9281 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
9282 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
9283 of various alternative replacements and actions.
9285 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
9286 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
9287 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
9288 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
9289 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
9291 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
9292 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
9294 ** Changes in input method usage.
9296 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
9297 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
9300 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
9302 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
9303 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
9305 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
9306 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
9308 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
9310 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
9312 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
9313 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
9315 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
9316 given in the following case:
9317 o When you are using a complex input method.
9318 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
9320 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
9321 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
9322 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
9323 setting it to t is helpful.
9325 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
9327 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
9329 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
9330 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
9331 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
9332 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
9335 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
9336 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
9337 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
9340 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
9342 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
9344 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
9345 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
9347 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
9348 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
9349 its owner and group.
9351 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
9352 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
9354 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
9355 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
9357 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
9358 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
9359 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
9360 by the left edge of the rectangle.
9362 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
9363 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
9364 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
9365 for writing keyboard macros.
9367 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
9368 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
9369 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
9370 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
9371 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
9374 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
9376 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
9377 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
9380 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
9381 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
9382 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
9383 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
9385 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
9386 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
9387 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
9389 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
9390 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
9391 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
9392 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
9394 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
9395 failure if the command produces no output.
9397 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
9398 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
9401 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
9402 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
9403 function and variable names.
9405 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
9406 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
9407 file-coding-system-alist.
9409 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
9410 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
9411 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
9412 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
9413 according to the current fontset.
9415 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
9417 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
9418 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
9419 nonascii-insert-offset.
9421 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
9422 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
9423 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
9424 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
9426 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
9427 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
9429 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
9430 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
9432 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
9433 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
9436 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
9437 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
9439 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
9440 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
9441 all variables that have documentation.
9443 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
9444 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
9445 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
9446 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
9447 it should show; the default is 20.
9449 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
9450 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
9453 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
9454 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
9455 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
9456 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
9457 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
9458 Newly added options are included as well.
9460 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
9461 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
9462 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
9464 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
9467 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
9468 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
9470 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
9471 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
9474 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
9475 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
9478 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
9479 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
9480 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
9481 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
9484 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
9486 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
9487 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
9488 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
9490 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
9491 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
9492 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
9497 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
9498 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
9500 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
9501 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
9503 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
9504 read and post multi-lingual articles.
9506 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
9507 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
9508 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
9509 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
9510 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
9511 made invisible again.
9513 ** Mail reading and sending changes
9515 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
9516 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
9517 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
9520 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
9521 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
9522 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
9523 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
9524 rmail-default-body-file.
9526 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
9527 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
9528 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
9530 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
9531 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
9532 is evaluated to insert the signature.
9534 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
9535 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
9536 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
9537 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
9538 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
9539 especially interested in trying feedmail.
9541 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
9542 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
9543 provided by feedmail are:
9545 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
9546 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
9547 there is also a queue for draft messages
9549 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
9550 be prompted for confirmation
9552 **** does smart filling of address headers
9554 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
9555 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
9556 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
9558 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
9559 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
9560 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
9561 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
9565 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
9566 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
9568 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
9569 run Dired on the directory name at point.
9571 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
9572 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
9573 for a specified regexp.
9577 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
9580 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
9581 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
9584 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
9585 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
9586 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
9587 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
9589 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
9590 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
9591 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
9592 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
9593 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
9595 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
9596 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
9597 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
9598 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
9599 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
9601 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
9602 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
9603 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
9604 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
9606 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
9607 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
9608 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
9610 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
9611 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
9612 session to resolve them.
9614 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
9615 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
9616 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
9619 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
9620 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
9621 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
9622 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
9623 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
9624 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
9627 ** Changes in Font Lock
9629 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
9630 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
9631 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
9632 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
9633 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
9635 ** Frame name display changes
9637 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
9638 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
9639 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
9640 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
9642 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
9643 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
9646 ** Comint (subshell) changes
9648 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
9649 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
9650 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
9652 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
9654 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
9655 that is, the line after the last line you got.
9656 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
9658 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
9659 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
9662 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
9663 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
9664 previously sent input.
9666 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
9667 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
9668 as the search string.
9670 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
9671 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
9675 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
9676 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
9677 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
9680 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
9681 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
9682 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
9683 style is still the default however.
9685 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
9687 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
9688 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
9689 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
9691 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
9692 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
9694 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
9695 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
9697 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
9698 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
9700 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
9701 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
9703 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
9704 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
9705 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
9706 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
9708 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
9710 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
9711 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
9712 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
9714 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
9715 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
9716 expanding dynamically.
9718 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
9719 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
9721 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
9722 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
9723 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
9724 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
9726 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
9728 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
9730 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
9731 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
9732 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
9733 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
9734 against the first word in the title.
9736 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
9737 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
9738 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
9739 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
9740 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
9741 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
9743 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
9744 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
9745 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
9746 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
9748 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
9750 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
9751 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
9752 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
9753 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
9754 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
9755 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
9757 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
9758 Editing group once the package is loaded.
9760 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
9761 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
9762 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
9764 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
9765 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
9769 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
9770 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
9771 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
9773 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
9774 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
9775 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
9776 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
9779 o URLs are automatically skipped
9780 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
9782 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
9784 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
9786 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
9787 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
9788 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
9789 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
9791 *** New recursive parser.
9793 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
9794 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
9795 recursive parser scans the individual files.
9797 *** Parsing only part of a document.
9799 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
9800 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
9801 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
9803 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
9805 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
9807 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
9809 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
9811 *** Using multiple selection buffers
9813 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
9814 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
9816 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
9818 *** References to external documents.
9820 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
9821 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
9822 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
9823 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
9824 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
9825 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
9826 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
9828 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
9830 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
9831 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
9833 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
9834 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
9836 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
9838 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
9839 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
9841 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
9843 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
9844 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
9845 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
9846 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
9847 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
9848 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
9851 *** Support for the varioref package
9853 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
9857 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
9858 and citations are created. These hooks are
9859 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
9860 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
9862 *** Citations outside LaTeX
9864 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
9865 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
9867 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
9869 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
9870 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
9873 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
9875 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
9876 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
9877 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
9878 directories that contain the same file name.
9880 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
9881 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
9882 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
9883 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
9884 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
9885 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
9886 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
9889 ** New modes and packages
9891 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
9892 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
9893 it, but some do not.
9895 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
9898 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
9899 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
9902 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
9904 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
9905 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
9906 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
9907 established system of notation similar to Chess.
9909 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
9910 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
9911 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
9913 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
9914 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
9915 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
9916 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
9917 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
9920 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
9921 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
9923 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
9924 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
9925 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
9926 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
9928 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
9930 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
9931 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
9932 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
9933 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
9934 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
9935 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
9936 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
9937 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
9938 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
9939 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
9940 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
9942 Platform-specific modes:
9944 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
9945 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
9946 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
9947 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
9948 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
9949 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
9950 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
9951 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
9952 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
9954 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9956 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
9957 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
9958 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
9959 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
9961 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
9962 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
9963 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
9965 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
9966 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
9967 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
9968 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
9970 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
9971 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
9972 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
9975 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
9976 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
9977 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
9978 current input method for reading this one event.
9980 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
9981 now control whether to output certain characters as
9982 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
9983 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
9984 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
9985 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
9987 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9989 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
9990 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
9992 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
9993 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
9994 always increases point by 1.
9996 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
9997 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
9999 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
10001 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
10002 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
10003 default value changed. For example,
10005 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
10010 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
10013 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
10014 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
10015 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
10016 `:version' in the top level group.
10018 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
10020 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
10021 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
10023 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
10024 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
10025 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
10028 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
10029 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
10032 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
10033 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
10034 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
10036 ** Frame-local variables.
10038 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
10039 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
10040 local bindings for that variable.
10042 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
10043 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
10044 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
10047 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
10048 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
10049 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
10050 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
10052 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
10053 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
10054 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
10055 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
10057 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
10058 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
10059 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
10060 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
10061 See the documentation in sregex.el.
10063 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
10064 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
10065 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
10066 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
10068 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
10069 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
10071 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
10072 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
10073 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
10075 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
10076 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
10077 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
10078 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
10080 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
10081 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
10084 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
10085 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
10086 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
10087 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
10088 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
10090 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
10091 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
10092 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
10093 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
10095 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
10096 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
10097 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
10098 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
10099 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
10101 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
10102 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
10103 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
10104 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
10106 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
10107 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
10108 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
10110 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
10111 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
10112 was directed to display this buffer.
10114 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
10115 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
10116 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
10117 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
10118 set-window-configuration.
10120 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
10121 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
10122 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
10123 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
10125 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
10126 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
10127 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
10129 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
10130 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
10131 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
10133 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
10134 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
10136 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
10137 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
10139 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
10140 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
10141 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
10143 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
10144 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
10145 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
10146 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
10150 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
10151 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
10154 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
10155 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
10156 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
10157 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
10158 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
10160 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
10162 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
10163 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
10164 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
10165 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
10168 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
10169 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
10170 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
10171 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
10172 The supported properties include
10174 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
10176 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
10177 item should appear in the menu.
10179 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
10180 which will be REAL-BINDING.
10181 It should return a binding to use instead.
10183 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
10184 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
10185 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
10186 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
10187 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
10190 This means that the command normally has no
10191 keyboard equivalent.
10192 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
10193 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
10194 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
10195 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
10196 value says whether this button is currently selected.
10198 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
10199 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
10201 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
10205 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
10206 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
10207 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
10208 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
10210 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
10212 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
10213 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
10214 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
10215 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
10216 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
10217 forward, away from the user.
10219 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
10221 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
10222 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
10223 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
10224 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
10225 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
10227 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
10229 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
10230 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
10231 that were dragged and dropped.
10233 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
10235 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
10237 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
10238 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
10239 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
10241 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
10242 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
10243 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
10245 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
10246 in Emacs 19 and before.
10248 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
10249 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
10251 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
10252 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
10253 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
10254 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
10256 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
10257 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
10258 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
10259 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
10260 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
10262 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
10263 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
10264 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
10265 consistent with the new representation.
10267 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
10268 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
10269 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
10270 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
10272 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
10273 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
10274 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
10276 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
10277 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
10278 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
10280 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
10281 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
10282 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
10284 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
10285 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
10287 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
10288 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
10290 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
10291 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
10292 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
10293 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
10295 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
10296 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
10298 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
10299 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
10300 buffer or string being searched.
10302 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
10303 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
10304 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
10305 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
10306 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
10307 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
10308 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
10310 *** Structure of coding system changed.
10312 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
10313 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
10314 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
10315 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
10316 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
10317 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
10318 define-coding-system-alias.
10320 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
10321 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
10322 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
10323 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
10324 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
10325 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
10326 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
10329 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
10330 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
10331 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
10332 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
10334 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
10335 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
10336 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
10337 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
10339 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
10340 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
10341 This function requires a user interaction.
10343 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
10344 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
10345 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
10346 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
10347 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
10348 select-safe-coding-system.
10350 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
10351 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
10352 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
10355 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
10356 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
10357 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
10359 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
10360 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
10361 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
10362 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
10364 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
10365 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
10366 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
10369 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
10370 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
10372 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
10373 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
10374 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
10375 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
10376 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
10377 range of characters.
10379 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
10380 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
10382 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
10383 in the current buffer at position POS.
10385 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
10386 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
10387 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
10388 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
10389 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
10390 binding input-method-function to nil.
10392 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
10393 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
10394 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
10395 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
10396 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
10398 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
10399 subsequent events of a key sequence.
10401 *** You can customize any language environment by using
10402 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
10404 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
10405 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
10406 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
10407 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
10408 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
10410 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
10412 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
10413 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
10414 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
10417 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
10418 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
10420 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
10421 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
10422 in your .emacs file.)
10424 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
10425 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
10427 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
10428 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
10430 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
10431 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
10434 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
10435 delete the character before point, as usual.
10437 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
10438 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
10439 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
10441 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
10442 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
10443 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
10444 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
10445 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
10448 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
10449 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
10450 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
10451 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
10452 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
10454 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
10455 and is an alias for it.
10457 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
10458 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
10460 ** Scrolling changes
10462 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
10463 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
10465 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
10466 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
10469 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
10470 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
10471 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
10472 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
10474 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
10475 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
10476 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
10477 recenters the window.
10479 ** International character set support (MULE)
10481 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
10482 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
10483 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
10484 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
10485 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
10486 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
10488 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
10489 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
10490 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
10491 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
10492 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
10494 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
10495 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
10496 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
10497 language, to make it possible to type them.
10499 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
10500 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
10502 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
10503 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
10505 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
10507 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
10509 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
10510 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
10511 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
10512 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
10513 characters for their work until they want to change.
10517 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
10518 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
10519 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
10520 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
10521 support several input methods.
10523 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
10524 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
10527 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
10528 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
10529 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
10530 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
10531 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
10534 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
10535 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
10536 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
10537 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
10538 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
10540 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
10541 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
10542 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
10543 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
10545 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
10546 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
10547 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
10548 the first guess is wrong.
10550 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
10551 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
10553 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
10554 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
10555 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
10556 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
10558 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
10559 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
10560 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
10561 translate automatically to and from either one.
10563 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
10565 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
10566 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
10567 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
10570 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
10571 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
10572 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
10573 multibyte characters in that buffer.
10575 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
10576 character conversion as well.
10578 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
10580 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
10581 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
10582 requires using many fonts.
10584 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
10585 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
10587 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
10588 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
10589 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
10590 you would use a font.
10592 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
10593 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
10594 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
10596 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
10597 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
10600 *** Defining fontsets.
10602 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
10603 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
10604 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
10606 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
10607 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
10608 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
10609 standard fontset are created automatically.
10611 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
10612 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
10613 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
10614 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
10615 name is `fontset-startup'.
10617 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
10618 The resource value should have this form:
10619 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
10620 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
10621 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
10622 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
10623 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
10624 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
10625 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
10626 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
10627 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
10629 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
10630 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
10631 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
10633 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
10634 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
10635 following resource,
10636 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
10637 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
10638 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
10639 Here is the substitution rule:
10640 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
10641 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
10642 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
10643 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
10644 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
10646 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
10647 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
10648 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
10650 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
10651 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
10652 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
10653 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
10656 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
10657 defaults for a particular choice of language.
10659 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
10660 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
10661 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
10662 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
10663 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
10664 system for new files that you create.
10666 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
10667 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
10668 whole Emacs session.
10670 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
10671 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
10672 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
10674 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
10675 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
10676 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
10677 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
10678 coding systems that Emacs supports.
10680 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
10681 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
10682 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
10683 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
10684 is used for *the immediately following command*.
10686 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
10687 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
10689 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
10690 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
10692 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
10693 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
10695 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
10696 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
10697 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
10698 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
10701 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
10702 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
10703 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
10704 translated into that character code.
10706 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
10707 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
10709 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
10711 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
10712 the coding system for keyboard input.
10714 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
10715 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
10716 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
10718 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
10720 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
10721 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
10722 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
10723 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
10724 designed to work with terminals.
10726 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
10727 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
10728 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
10729 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
10730 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
10731 in the corresponding buffer.
10733 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
10735 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
10736 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
10737 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
10739 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
10740 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
10741 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
10744 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
10745 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
10747 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
10748 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
10749 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
10750 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
10752 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
10753 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
10754 related information.
10756 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
10757 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
10760 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
10761 information about the support for a particular language.
10762 You specify the language as an argument.
10764 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
10765 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
10768 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
10769 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
10770 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
10771 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
10773 A alternativnyj (Russian)
10775 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
10776 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
10777 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
10778 E euc-japan (Japanese)
10779 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10780 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
10781 K euc-korea (Korean)
10784 S shift_jis (Japanese)
10787 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
10788 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10789 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
10790 v viqr (Vietnamese)
10793 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
10794 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
10795 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
10796 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
10798 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
10799 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
10801 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
10802 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
10803 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
10804 Rmail files themselves.
10806 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
10807 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
10809 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
10812 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
10813 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
10814 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
10815 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
10816 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
10818 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
10819 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
10820 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
10823 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
10824 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
10825 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
10826 without any conversion.
10828 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
10829 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
10830 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
10831 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
10833 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
10834 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
10836 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
10837 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
10839 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
10840 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
10842 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
10843 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
10844 in the buffer before point.
10846 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
10847 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
10850 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
10851 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
10853 ** File locking works with NFS now.
10855 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
10856 in the same directory as FILENAME.
10858 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
10859 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
10860 can become a bottleneck.
10862 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
10863 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
10864 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
10865 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
10866 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
10867 so useful that the change is worth while.
10869 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
10870 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
10871 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
10872 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
10874 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
10875 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
10878 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
10879 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
10880 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
10882 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
10883 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
10884 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
10886 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
10887 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
10888 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
10890 ** Changes in View mode.
10892 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
10893 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
10895 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
10896 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
10898 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
10901 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
10902 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
10904 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
10905 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
10906 not just the selected window.
10908 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
10909 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
10910 turns View mode on or off.
10912 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
10913 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
10914 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
10916 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
10917 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
10919 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
10920 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
10921 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
10922 which version to compare with.
10924 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
10925 blocks if a match is inside the block.
10927 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
10928 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
10929 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
10930 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
10932 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
10933 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
10934 blocks, all of them or none.
10936 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
10937 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
10938 confirmation first.
10940 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
10941 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
10942 However, the mode will not be changed if
10943 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
10944 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
10945 not suitable for ordinary files, or
10946 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
10948 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
10950 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
10951 these commands do not change the major mode.
10953 ** M-x occur changes.
10955 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
10956 it performs a case-sensitive search.
10958 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
10959 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
10960 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
10962 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
10963 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
10964 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
10965 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
10966 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
10968 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
10969 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
10970 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
10971 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
10973 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
10974 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
10975 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
10977 ** Outline mode changes.
10979 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
10981 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
10983 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
10984 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
10985 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
10986 was already active.
10988 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
10989 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
10990 get confused by it.
10992 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
10993 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
10995 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
10997 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
10998 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
10999 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
11000 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
11002 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
11003 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
11004 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
11006 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
11007 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
11010 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
11011 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
11012 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
11013 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
11015 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
11016 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
11017 can be. The default value is 30.
11019 ** Changes in Mail mode.
11021 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
11022 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
11023 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
11024 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
11025 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
11028 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
11029 compose-mail-other-frame.
11031 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
11032 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
11033 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
11034 buffer that shows the original message.
11036 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
11037 with separator lines around the contents.
11039 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
11040 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
11041 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
11042 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
11044 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
11046 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
11047 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
11048 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
11049 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
11051 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
11052 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
11055 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
11056 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
11059 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
11060 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
11061 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
11062 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
11064 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
11065 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
11066 be taken to be magic.
11068 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
11069 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
11070 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
11072 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
11073 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
11075 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
11076 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
11078 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
11080 new key dired.el binding old key
11081 ------- ---------------- -------
11082 * c dired-change-marks c
11084 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
11085 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
11086 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
11088 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
11089 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
11090 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
11091 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
11092 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
11093 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
11097 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
11098 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
11099 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
11100 each time you run it.
11102 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
11103 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
11105 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
11106 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
11107 means to move in the opposite direction.
11109 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
11110 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
11112 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
11113 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
11114 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
11115 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
11120 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
11122 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
11125 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
11126 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
11128 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
11131 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
11133 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
11135 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
11137 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
11138 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
11139 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
11141 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
11143 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
11145 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
11146 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
11148 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
11149 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
11150 used to pick articles.
11152 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
11153 another have been added.
11155 `M-x gnus-change-server'
11157 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
11158 generating lines in buffers.
11160 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
11163 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
11165 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
11167 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
11169 *** Scores can be decayed.
11171 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
11173 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
11174 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
11176 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
11179 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
11181 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
11182 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
11184 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
11186 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
11187 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
11189 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
11190 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
11192 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
11195 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
11196 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
11198 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
11200 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
11202 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
11204 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
11206 Use the `Y c' command.
11208 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
11210 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
11212 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
11214 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
11215 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
11217 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
11219 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
11221 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
11222 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
11224 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
11226 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
11227 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
11228 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
11229 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
11232 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
11233 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
11234 particular news group. This can be done by:
11236 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
11238 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
11239 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
11240 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
11241 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
11242 for reading and posting).
11244 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
11245 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
11246 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
11247 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
11250 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
11251 default. Here are some of these default settings:
11253 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
11254 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
11255 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
11256 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
11257 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
11259 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
11260 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
11262 ** CC mode changes.
11264 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
11265 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
11266 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
11267 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
11268 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
11271 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
11272 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
11273 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
11274 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
11275 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
11276 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
11278 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
11279 of the current buffer.
11281 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
11282 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
11283 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
11285 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
11286 style that the Python developers like.
11288 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
11289 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
11290 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
11292 ** VC Changes [new]
11294 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
11295 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
11296 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
11298 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
11299 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
11302 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
11303 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
11305 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
11306 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
11307 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
11308 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
11310 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
11311 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
11313 ** Calendar changes.
11315 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
11316 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
11317 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
11318 following/previous years.
11320 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
11321 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
11322 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
11323 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
11324 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
11325 supposed attribute of God.
11327 ** ps-print changes
11329 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
11332 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
11334 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
11335 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
11336 printer system has this behavior, set variable
11337 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
11339 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
11340 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
11341 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
11343 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
11344 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
11346 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
11347 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
11348 printing for your printer.
11350 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
11351 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
11353 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
11354 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
11356 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
11357 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
11358 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
11359 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
11360 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
11361 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
11362 The default value is nil.
11364 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
11365 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
11367 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
11368 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
11369 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
11370 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
11371 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
11372 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
11373 color). The default is 0 ("black").
11375 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
11376 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
11378 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
11379 The default is 0 ("black").
11381 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
11382 The default is 0 ("black").
11384 border-width Specify the border width.
11385 The default is 0.4.
11387 Any other property is ignored.
11389 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
11390 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
11393 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
11394 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
11395 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
11396 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
11397 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
11398 controlling headers.
11400 *** Color management (subgroup)
11402 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
11405 *** Face Management (subgroup)
11407 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
11408 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
11409 background should be used. Valid values are:
11411 t always use face background color.
11412 nil never use face background color.
11413 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
11415 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
11417 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
11420 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
11421 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
11423 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
11426 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
11427 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
11428 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
11430 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
11434 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
11438 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
11442 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
11446 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
11448 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
11450 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
11453 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
11454 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
11455 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
11457 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
11458 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11459 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11460 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11461 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11465 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11466 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11467 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11470 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11471 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11472 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
11473 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
11474 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
11475 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11476 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11477 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11478 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
11479 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
11480 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
11483 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11485 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
11488 *** Printer management (subgroup)
11490 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
11491 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
11492 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
11493 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
11496 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
11497 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
11498 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
11500 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
11501 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
11504 *** Page settings (subgroup)
11506 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
11507 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
11508 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
11509 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
11510 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
11511 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
11514 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
11515 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
11516 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
11518 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
11519 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
11520 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
11521 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
11522 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
11523 its TO, are ignored.
11525 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
11526 pages. Valid values are:
11528 nil print all pages.
11530 `even-page' print only even pages.
11532 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
11534 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
11535 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
11536 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
11537 print only the even sheet of paper.
11539 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
11540 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
11541 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
11542 only the odd sheet of paper.
11544 Any other value is treated as nil.
11546 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
11547 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
11548 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
11550 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
11552 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
11553 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
11555 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
11556 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
11557 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
11558 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
11559 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
11560 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
11561 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
11563 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
11564 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
11565 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
11566 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
11567 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
11568 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
11569 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
11571 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
11573 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
11574 messages should be sent.
11576 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
11577 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
11578 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
11580 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
11582 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
11583 points for line numbers.
11585 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
11586 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
11588 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
11589 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
11590 to 2, the printing will look like:
11602 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
11603 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
11606 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
11607 zebra stripe is to be printed.
11609 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
11611 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
11612 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
11613 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
11614 3, the output will look like:
11628 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
11629 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
11631 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
11632 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
11635 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
11636 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
11639 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
11641 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
11642 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
11644 ** hideshow changes.
11646 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
11649 *** Support for java-mode added.
11651 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
11652 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
11654 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
11655 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
11656 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
11658 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
11659 robust and a lot faster.
11661 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
11663 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
11664 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
11665 documentation for more details.
11667 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
11669 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
11670 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
11671 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
11672 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
11673 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
11675 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
11676 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
11677 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
11678 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
11684 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
11685 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
11686 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
11687 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
11688 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
11689 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
11691 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
11693 *** Maximum decoration
11695 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
11696 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
11697 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
11698 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
11699 to get the old behavior.
11703 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
11705 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
11706 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
11708 *** Configurable support
11710 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
11711 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
11712 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
11713 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
11714 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
11715 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
11716 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
11718 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
11719 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
11720 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
11722 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
11724 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
11725 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
11728 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
11730 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
11736 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
11737 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
11738 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
11739 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
11741 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
11743 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
11744 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
11745 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
11747 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
11749 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
11750 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
11751 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
11752 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
11753 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
11754 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
11755 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
11757 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
11758 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
11759 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
11760 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
11761 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
11762 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
11764 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
11766 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
11767 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
11768 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
11769 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
11771 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
11774 ** Ada mode changes.
11776 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
11777 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
11778 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
11779 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
11782 *** There are two new commands:
11783 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
11784 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
11786 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
11787 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
11788 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
11790 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
11791 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
11792 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
11794 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
11795 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
11796 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
11797 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
11799 ** Scheme mode changes.
11801 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
11802 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
11803 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
11804 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
11807 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
11808 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
11809 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
11810 variables as buffer-local variables.
11812 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
11813 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
11815 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
11817 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
11818 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
11819 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
11820 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
11822 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
11823 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
11826 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
11827 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
11828 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
11829 option takes precedence.
11831 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
11832 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
11833 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
11835 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
11836 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
11839 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
11840 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
11842 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
11843 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
11846 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
11847 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
11848 these register values no longer become completely useless.
11849 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
11850 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
11851 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
11853 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
11854 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
11855 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
11856 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
11858 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
11859 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
11860 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
11861 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
11862 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
11864 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
11865 since it applies only to the current frame.
11867 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
11868 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
11869 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
11871 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
11872 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
11873 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
11874 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
11875 instead of just the file you are editing.
11879 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
11880 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
11881 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
11882 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
11883 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
11886 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
11887 knows which kind of label is needed.
11889 C-c ) reftex-reference
11890 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
11891 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
11893 C-c [ reftex-citation
11894 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
11895 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
11897 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
11898 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
11901 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
11902 can quickly jump to every section.
11904 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
11905 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
11906 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
11907 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
11908 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
11910 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11912 *** Info documentation is now available.
11914 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
11915 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
11917 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
11918 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
11920 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
11921 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
11923 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
11924 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
11925 appropriate functions.
11927 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
11928 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
11930 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
11933 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
11934 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
11936 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
11937 shall be delimited.
11939 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
11940 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
11941 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
11943 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
11944 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
11945 prefixed with `ALT'.
11947 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
11948 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
11949 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
11952 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
11953 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
11954 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
11956 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
11957 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
11959 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
11960 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
11961 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
11963 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
11965 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
11967 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
11968 from alien sources.
11970 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
11971 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
11974 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
11977 *** Added support for imenu.
11979 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
11980 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
11981 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
11982 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
11984 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
11985 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
11987 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
11989 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
11991 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
11992 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
11993 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
11996 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
11997 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
11999 ** browse-url changes
12001 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
12002 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
12003 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
12004 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
12005 customization variables.
12007 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
12009 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
12010 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
12011 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
12013 ** Changes in Ediff
12015 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
12016 pops up the Info file for this command.
12018 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
12019 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
12020 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
12023 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
12024 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
12025 files in the same directory.
12027 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
12028 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
12029 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
12031 ** Changes in Viper
12033 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
12034 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
12036 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
12037 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
12038 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
12039 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
12040 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
12041 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
12042 color when Viper is in insert state.
12043 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
12044 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
12045 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
12049 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
12050 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
12051 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
12052 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
12053 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
12055 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
12057 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
12058 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
12060 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
12061 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
12062 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
12064 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
12065 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
12066 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
12067 methods and protocols.
12069 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
12070 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
12071 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
12074 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
12075 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
12076 at least M times and as many as N times.
12078 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
12079 in files has changed slightly.
12081 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
12082 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
12083 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
12084 with old time-stamp-format values.
12086 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
12087 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
12088 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
12091 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
12092 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
12093 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
12094 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
12095 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
12096 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
12098 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
12099 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
12100 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
12102 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
12103 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
12104 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
12105 recommended now will continue to work then.
12107 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
12110 ** There are some additional major modes:
12112 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
12113 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
12114 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
12116 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
12117 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
12120 ** New Lisp packages include:
12122 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
12124 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
12125 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
12127 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
12129 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
12132 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
12133 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
12136 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
12137 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
12138 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
12139 strings or comments.
12141 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
12142 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
12143 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
12144 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
12147 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
12148 can visit them by short forms of their names.
12150 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
12151 Emacs Lisp function at point.
12153 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
12155 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
12156 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
12158 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
12160 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
12162 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
12164 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
12165 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
12167 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
12168 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
12169 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
12170 original place after inserting the copy.
12172 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
12175 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
12176 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
12177 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
12179 Enable mouse-drag with:
12180 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
12182 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
12184 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
12185 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
12187 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
12188 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
12192 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
12193 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
12194 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
12195 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
12196 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
12197 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
12198 instance) and vice versa.
12200 To use this package load it using
12201 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
12202 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
12203 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
12204 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
12205 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
12206 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
12208 *** Interface to ph.
12210 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
12212 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
12213 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
12216 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
12218 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
12219 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
12220 while the real cursor does not move.
12222 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
12223 for visiting your favorite web sites.
12225 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
12226 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
12230 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
12231 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
12232 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
12233 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
12235 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
12237 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
12239 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
12241 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
12242 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
12243 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
12244 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
12245 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
12247 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
12248 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
12249 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
12250 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
12251 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
12252 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
12254 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
12256 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
12257 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
12258 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
12259 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
12261 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
12262 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
12264 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
12265 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
12268 ** Basic Lisp changes
12270 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
12271 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
12273 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
12274 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
12277 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
12279 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
12281 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
12282 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
12284 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
12285 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
12288 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
12290 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
12292 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
12294 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
12295 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
12296 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
12299 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
12300 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
12301 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
12303 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
12304 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
12305 adding one of these suffixes.
12307 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
12308 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
12309 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
12311 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
12312 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
12314 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
12316 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
12317 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
12319 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
12320 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
12322 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
12324 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
12325 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
12327 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
12328 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
12329 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
12330 works using `save-current-buffer'.
12332 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
12333 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
12336 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
12337 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
12338 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
12341 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
12342 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
12345 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
12347 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
12348 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
12349 Then it returns that string.
12351 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
12353 (with-output-to-string
12354 (princ "The buffer is ")
12355 (princ (buffer-name)))
12357 returns "The buffer is foo".
12359 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
12362 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
12363 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
12364 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
12366 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
12367 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
12369 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
12370 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
12371 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
12372 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
12373 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
12374 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
12376 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
12377 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
12378 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
12381 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
12382 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
12383 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
12384 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
12385 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
12387 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
12388 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
12389 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
12390 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
12392 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
12393 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
12395 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
12397 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
12398 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
12399 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
12400 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
12403 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
12404 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
12407 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
12409 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
12410 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
12411 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
12412 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
12413 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
12415 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
12417 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
12418 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
12419 more than the number of characters.
12421 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
12422 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
12423 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
12424 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
12425 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
12426 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
12428 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
12429 and returns a string containing those characters.
12431 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
12432 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
12433 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
12434 character, sref signals an error.
12436 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
12437 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
12438 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
12440 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
12441 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
12442 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
12444 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
12445 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
12446 to a vector of the characters in it.
12448 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
12449 of a string. You call it as follows:
12451 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
12453 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
12454 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
12455 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
12456 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
12457 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
12459 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
12460 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
12462 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
12463 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
12465 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
12466 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
12467 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
12468 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
12470 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
12472 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
12474 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
12475 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
12476 are not included in the resulting value.
12478 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
12479 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
12480 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
12481 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
12483 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
12484 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
12485 character extends across that column), then the padding character
12486 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
12487 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
12488 column START-COLUMN.
12490 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
12491 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
12492 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
12493 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
12494 changed text, before the change.
12496 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
12497 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
12498 one character set for each script, not for each language.
12500 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
12502 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
12504 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
12505 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
12507 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
12508 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
12509 which identify the character within that character set.
12511 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
12512 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
12513 opposite of split-char.
12515 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
12516 of all the characters between BEG and END.
12518 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
12519 of all the characters in a string.
12521 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
12522 and specifying coding systems.
12524 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
12525 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
12526 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
12527 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
12528 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
12529 as what to do about code conversion.)
12531 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
12532 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
12534 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
12535 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
12536 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
12538 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
12539 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
12540 to match against a file name.
12542 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
12543 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
12544 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
12545 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
12546 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
12547 specifies the coding system for encoding.
12549 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
12550 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
12552 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
12553 the coding system to use for network sockets.
12555 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
12556 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
12557 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
12560 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
12561 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
12562 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
12563 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
12564 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
12565 specifies the coding system for encoding.
12567 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
12568 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
12570 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
12571 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
12572 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
12573 start the subprocess.
12575 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
12576 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
12577 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
12578 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
12579 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
12581 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
12582 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
12585 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
12586 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
12587 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
12588 connection permanently or until overridden.
12590 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
12591 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
12592 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
12593 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
12594 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
12595 system for one operation at a time.
12597 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
12598 files, subprocesses or network connections.
12600 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
12601 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
12602 The value is a cons cell,
12603 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
12604 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
12605 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
12606 input to the subprocess.
12608 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
12609 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
12611 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
12612 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
12613 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
12615 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
12616 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
12617 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
12618 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
12621 Thus, instead of writing
12623 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
12624 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
12626 you would now write this:
12628 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
12629 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
12633 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
12634 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
12635 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
12636 for a description of them.
12638 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
12639 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
12641 (defgroup ispell nil
12642 "Spell checking using Ispell."
12645 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
12646 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
12647 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
12648 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
12649 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
12651 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
12652 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
12653 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
12654 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
12655 first-level subgroups.
12657 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
12659 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
12660 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
12664 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
12665 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
12666 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
12667 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
12668 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
12669 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
12671 ** Text property changes
12673 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
12676 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
12677 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
12678 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
12679 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
12680 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
12682 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
12683 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
12684 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
12685 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
12687 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
12688 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
12689 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
12691 ** Changes in invisibility features
12693 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
12694 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
12695 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
12696 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
12697 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
12698 make the overlay visible.
12700 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
12701 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
12702 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
12703 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
12704 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
12705 t when it should hide it.
12707 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
12709 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
12710 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
12711 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
12712 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
12713 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
12714 Here is an example of how to do this:
12716 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
12717 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12718 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
12719 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12722 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
12725 ;; When done with the overlays:
12726 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12727 ;; Or respectively:
12728 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12730 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
12732 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
12733 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
12734 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
12735 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
12737 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
12738 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
12739 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
12741 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
12742 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
12744 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
12745 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
12747 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
12748 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
12749 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
12751 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
12752 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
12753 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
12754 determine the syntax type of the character.
12756 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
12757 of the current buffer.
12759 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
12760 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
12761 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
12763 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
12764 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
12765 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
12766 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
12767 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
12769 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
12772 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
12773 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
12774 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
12776 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
12777 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
12778 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
12779 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
12780 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
12782 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
12783 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
12784 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
12786 ** Changes in face features
12788 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
12789 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
12791 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
12792 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
12794 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
12795 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
12797 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
12798 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
12800 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
12801 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
12802 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
12803 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
12806 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
12807 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
12809 ** Changes in file-handling functions
12811 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
12812 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
12813 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
12814 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
12816 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
12819 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
12820 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
12822 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
12823 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
12825 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
12826 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
12828 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
12829 character code conversion as well as other things.
12831 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
12832 (formerly it did not).
12834 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
12835 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
12837 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
12838 instead of constant strings.
12840 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
12841 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
12842 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
12844 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
12845 in the same way as before.
12847 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
12848 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
12849 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
12851 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
12852 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
12853 else, and returns nil.
12855 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
12856 directory cannot be listed.
12858 ** Changes in minibuffer input
12860 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
12861 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
12862 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
12863 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
12866 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
12867 It is available through the history command M-n.
12869 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
12870 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
12871 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
12872 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
12873 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
12875 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
12876 argument in this way.
12878 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
12879 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
12880 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
12882 ** Echo area features
12884 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
12885 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
12886 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
12887 after the echo area is cleared.
12889 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
12890 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
12892 ** Keyboard input features
12894 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
12895 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
12897 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
12898 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
12899 by keyboard macros.
12901 ** Frame-related changes
12903 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
12904 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
12905 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
12907 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
12908 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
12909 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
12911 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12912 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
12913 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
12914 in the selected frame.
12916 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
12917 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
12918 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
12920 ** X Windows features
12922 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
12923 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
12924 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
12926 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
12927 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
12929 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
12930 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
12931 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
12933 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
12934 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
12936 ** Subprocess features
12938 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
12939 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
12942 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
12943 and returns the output from the command as a string.
12945 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
12946 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
12948 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
12949 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
12951 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
12952 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
12953 goes after the other menu items.
12955 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
12956 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
12957 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
12960 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
12961 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
12963 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
12964 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
12967 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
12968 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
12969 but its hook is still run.
12971 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
12972 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
12974 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
12975 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
12976 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
12978 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
12979 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
12980 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
12983 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
12984 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
12986 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
12987 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
12988 functions like display-time.
12990 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
12991 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
12993 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
12994 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
12995 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
12997 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
12998 if there is an error in compilation.
13000 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
13001 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
13002 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
13003 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
13005 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
13006 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
13007 the *scratch* buffer.
13009 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
13010 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
13011 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
13012 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
13014 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
13015 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
13016 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
13018 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
13019 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
13020 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
13021 and compose-mail-other-frame.
13023 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
13024 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
13025 full name of the specified user will be returned.
13027 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
13028 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
13029 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
13030 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
13031 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
13034 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
13035 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
13036 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
13037 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
13039 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
13040 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
13041 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
13042 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
13044 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
13046 ** imenu.el changes.
13048 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
13049 item from menu created by imenu.
13051 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
13052 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
13053 select one of those items.
13055 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
13057 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
13058 Copyright information:
13060 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
13062 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
13063 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
13064 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
13065 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
13067 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
13068 of this document, or of portions of it,
13069 under the above conditions, provided also that they
13070 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
13074 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
13077 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793