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.
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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
20 ** A Bulgarian translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
22 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
23 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
24 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
27 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
29 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with elisp code.
32 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
33 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
37 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
38 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
39 place for game scores to be stored. This may be controlled by the
40 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
41 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
42 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
43 in each user's home directory.
46 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
47 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
51 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
53 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
54 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
55 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
56 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
59 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
62 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
63 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
64 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
65 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
67 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
70 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
73 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
76 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
77 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
80 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
83 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
86 ** A French translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
87 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
88 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
91 * Changes in Emacs 21.4
94 ** The IELM prompt is now, by default, read-only. This can be
95 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only'.
97 ** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
98 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
100 ** Telnet will now prompt you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
103 ** New command line option -Q.
105 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
106 the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, the blinking
107 cursor, and the fancy startup screen.
109 ** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
110 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
112 ** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
113 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
114 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
116 ** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
117 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
118 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
119 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it will stay at
120 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
121 just put point at the end of the buffer and it will stay there. This
122 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior may
125 ** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
126 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
127 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
128 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
129 mode will only revert a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
130 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
131 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
132 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
133 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
135 ** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
136 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
137 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
138 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
139 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
141 ** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
142 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to `T' in Buffer Menu
145 ** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
147 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
148 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
149 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
150 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
152 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
153 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
154 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
156 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
157 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
158 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
159 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
160 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
162 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
164 ** M-x grep has been adapted to new compile
166 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
167 can be saved and will again be loaded with the new `grep-mode'.
169 ** M-x diff uses diff-mode instead of compilation-mode.
171 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
172 resync points in both windows.
174 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
175 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
176 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
177 using strokes as an input method.
180 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
181 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
182 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
183 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
184 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
185 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
188 ** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
190 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
191 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
192 % emacsclient -s foo file1
193 % emacsclient -s bar file2
195 ** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
196 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
197 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
198 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
199 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
201 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' may be set to nil to
202 revert to the old behaviour of continuing such lines.
204 ** The buffer boundaries (i.e. first and last line in the buffer) may
205 now be marked with angle bitmaps in the fringes. In addition, up and
206 down arrow bitmaps may be shown at the top and bottom of the left or
207 right fringe if the window can be scrolled in either direction.
209 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
210 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
211 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
213 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
214 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp. Any other non-nil value
215 causes the bitmap on the top line to be displayed in the left fringe,
216 and the bitmap on the bottom line in the right fringe.
218 If value is a cons (ANGLES . ARROWS), the car specifies the position
219 of the angle bitmaps, and the cdr specifies the position of the arrow
222 For example, (t . right) places the top angle bitmap in left fringe,
223 the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both arrow bitmaps in
224 right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the left fringe, but
225 no arrow bitmaps, use (left . nil).
227 ** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
228 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
229 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
230 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
231 keyboard oriented alternative.
233 ** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
234 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
235 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
236 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
237 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
239 ** New commands `scan-buf-next-region' and `scan-buf-previous-region'
240 move to the start of the next (previous, respectively) region with
241 non-nil help-echo property and display any help found there in the
242 echo area, using `display-local-help'.
245 ** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
246 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
247 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
248 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
249 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
250 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
251 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node').
253 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
254 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
257 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
258 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
259 an interactively callable function.
264 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
265 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
266 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
267 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
268 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
270 The following values are supported:
272 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
286 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
289 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
290 your .emacs will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
291 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
293 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
295 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
296 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
297 all identifiers ending in "_t" under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
298 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
300 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
301 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
303 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i. Most
304 SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
305 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
307 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
308 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
309 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
310 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
311 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
314 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
315 called with the -E command line argument to use the operating system
316 credentials to authenticate the user.
318 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
319 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
320 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
322 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
323 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
325 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
326 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
329 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
330 appropriate sql-interactive-mode wrapper for the current setting of
333 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
334 with special modes such as Tar mode.
336 ** Enhancements to apropos commands:
338 *** The apropos commands will now accept a list of words to match.
339 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
340 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
343 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
344 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
345 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
346 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
347 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
351 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
352 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
353 the operating system or your X server.
355 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
356 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
357 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
359 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
360 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
364 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
365 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
366 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
368 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' to mark files with
369 different file attributes in two dired buffers.
372 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
373 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
374 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
375 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
376 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
377 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
380 *** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
381 types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
382 what external viewers to use and when.
384 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
389 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
390 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
391 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
393 *** The new command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
394 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
397 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
398 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
399 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
400 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
403 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
406 *** Info-index offers completion.
408 ** Support for the SQLite interpreter has been added to sql.el by calling
412 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
413 *** bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries can take values `plain',
414 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
415 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
416 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
417 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
418 bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil.
420 *** If the new variable bibtex-parse-keys-fast is non-nil,
421 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
423 *** If the new variable bibtex-autoadd-commas is non-nil,
424 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
426 *** The new variable bibtex-autofill-types contains a list of entry
427 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
429 *** The new command bibtex-complete completes word fragment before
430 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
432 *** The new commands bibtex-find-entry and bibtex-find-crossref
433 locate entries and crossref'd entries.
435 *** In BibTeX mode the command fill-paragraph (bound to M-q) fills
436 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
438 ** When display margins are present in a window, the fringes are now
439 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
440 at the edges of the window.
442 ** A window may now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
443 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
445 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
446 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
447 or when the frame is resized.
449 ** New functions frame-current-scroll-bars and window-current-scroll-bars.
451 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
452 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
455 ** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
456 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
457 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
459 ** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
461 ** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which may
462 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
464 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
465 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
467 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
469 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
470 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
472 ** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
473 Emacs will prompt her for confirmation.
475 ** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
477 ** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
478 and other common debugger commands.
482 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
483 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
486 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
487 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
488 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
489 recent list with different symbolic links.
491 To follow naming convention, `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-flag'
492 and `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag' respectively replace the
493 misnamed options `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p' and
494 `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The old names remain available as
495 aliases, but have been marked obsolete.
497 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
502 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
503 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
505 ** partial-completion-mode now does partial completion on directory names.
507 ** skeleton.el now supports using - to mark the skeleton-point without
508 interregion interaction. @ has reverted to only setting
509 skeleton-positions and no longer sets skeleton-point. Skeletons
510 which used @ to mark skeleton-point independent of _ should now use -
511 instead. The updated skeleton-insert docstring explains these new
512 features along with other details of skeleton construction.
516 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.3. There have been major changes since
517 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
520 ** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
521 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given elisp
522 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
524 ** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
527 ** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
528 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
529 appears between the position information and the major mode.
531 ** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
532 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
535 ** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
536 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
537 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
538 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
542 ** There is a new user option `mail-default-directory' that allows you
543 to specify the value of `default-directory' for mail buffers. This
544 directory is used for auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to
548 ** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
549 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
550 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you will in fact be able
553 ** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
554 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
556 ** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
560 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
562 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
563 ps-print, provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF fonts.
564 See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
567 ** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
568 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
569 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
571 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
572 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
573 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories will be
574 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
575 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
577 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
578 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
579 t, and the status is shown.
581 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
582 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
585 ** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
586 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
587 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
590 ** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
591 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
592 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
593 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
594 automatically according to the locale.)
596 ** Indian support has been updated.
597 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
598 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
599 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
603 ** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
604 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
605 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
606 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
607 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
611 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
612 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
613 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
616 ** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
617 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
618 codepage.el, based on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now
619 obsolete and is used only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. windows-1252
620 and windows-1251 are preloaded since the former is so common and the
621 latter is used by GNU locales.
623 ** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
624 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences (mostly representing CJK
625 characters) are simply composed into single quasi-characters. User
626 option `utf-translate-cjk' arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK
627 character sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the
628 Mule-UCS system. This uses significant space, so is not the default.
629 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
630 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
631 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
632 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
633 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
635 ** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
636 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
637 fontset appropriately.
639 ** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
643 ** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
644 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
645 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
646 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
647 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
648 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
649 mule-unicode-... ones.
651 By default this translation will happen automatically on encoding.
652 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
653 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
656 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
657 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
658 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
659 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
660 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
662 ** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
663 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
664 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
665 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
667 ** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
668 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
669 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
673 ** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
674 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
675 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
678 ** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
679 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+ and W32).
682 ** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif pops down when pressing ESC.
685 ** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
686 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
689 ** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
690 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
691 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
695 ** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
696 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
698 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
699 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
700 program files that include other program files.
702 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
703 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
707 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
708 when Emacs visits them.
711 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
713 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
714 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
715 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
717 ** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
718 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
719 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
720 and use the more appropriately result.
723 ** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
724 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
725 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
726 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
728 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
729 hscrolling will scroll the window when point gets too close to the
730 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
731 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
732 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
733 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
735 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
736 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
739 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
741 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
742 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
743 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
744 TeX commands to use at startup.
745 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
746 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
748 *** New major mode doctex-mode for *.dtx files.
751 ** New display feature: focus follows the mouse from one Emacs window
752 to another, even within a frame. If you set the variable
753 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a
754 different Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can
755 be selected only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this
756 feature is not enabled.
758 ** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
759 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
760 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
761 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
762 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
766 ** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
767 description various information about a character, including its
768 encodings and syntax, its text properties, overlays, and widgets at
769 point. You can get more information about some of them, by clicking
770 on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
773 ** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
774 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
775 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
776 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
777 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
780 ** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
781 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
782 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
783 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
784 also disable mouse highlighting.
787 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
788 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
789 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
790 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
791 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
794 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
795 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
796 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
800 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
801 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
802 the mode line of the currently selected window.
804 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
805 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
808 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
809 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
810 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
811 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
812 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
813 current date and time, current line and column number in the
817 ** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
820 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mail
821 in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
822 `display-time-mail-directory'.
825 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
828 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
829 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
830 argument it toggles the mode.
832 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
833 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
836 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
837 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
838 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
839 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
840 `inhibit-splash-screen').
842 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
845 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
846 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
847 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
848 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
849 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
850 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
851 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
852 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
853 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
856 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
857 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
858 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
859 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
863 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
864 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
865 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
866 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
870 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
873 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
875 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
876 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
877 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
878 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
881 ** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
885 ** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
886 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
887 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
888 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
891 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
893 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
895 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
898 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
899 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
901 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
902 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
904 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
906 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
907 run by the key sequence.
909 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
910 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
913 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
914 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
916 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
917 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
919 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
920 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
922 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
923 new-kill-line is on C-k
926 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
927 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
928 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
929 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
932 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
933 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
934 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
935 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
938 ** Occur, Info, and comint-derived modes now support using
939 M-x font-lock-mode to toggle fontification. The variable
940 `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable fontification,
941 remove `turn-on-font-lock' from `Info-mode-hook'.
944 ** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
945 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep will automatically
946 detect whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
947 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
948 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
949 command lines to be used than was possible before.
952 ** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
953 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
954 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
955 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
956 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
957 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
958 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
961 ** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
962 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
963 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
964 under the "[State]" button.
966 ** The new customization type `float' specifies numbers with floating
967 point (no integers are allowed).
970 ** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
971 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
974 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
976 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
977 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
978 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
979 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
980 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
982 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
983 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
984 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
987 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
990 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
991 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
992 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
994 Added Customization Variables
996 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
998 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
999 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
1000 java sources (previous method).
1002 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
1003 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
1008 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
1011 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
1012 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
1013 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
1016 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
1017 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
1018 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
1019 is only rarely needed.
1023 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
1025 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
1026 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
1027 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
1028 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
1030 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
1032 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
1033 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
1034 refontification takes place.
1037 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
1038 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
1039 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region will now be extended
1040 each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC,
1041 for example. This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you
1045 ** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
1046 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
1047 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
1048 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
1049 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
1052 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
1053 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
1054 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
1057 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
1058 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
1059 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
1063 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
1064 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... will cycle through the
1065 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
1068 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1069 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1073 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
1074 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
1075 affects the initial frame.
1078 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
1079 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
1080 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
1084 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1085 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1086 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1087 directory listing into a buffer.
1090 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1091 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1093 ** Unexpected yanking of text due to accidental clicking on the mouse
1094 wheel button (typically mouse-2) during wheel scrolling is now avoided.
1095 This behaviour can be customized via the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1096 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1099 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1100 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1101 may mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1102 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1103 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1104 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1105 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1106 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1109 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
1110 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
1111 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
1112 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
1113 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
1116 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
1117 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
1120 ** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
1121 of the recognized cursor types.
1124 ** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
1125 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
1126 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
1129 ** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
1130 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
1131 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
1132 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
1133 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
1134 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
1135 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
1136 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
1137 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
1140 ** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
1141 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
1142 count backward from the end of the year.
1144 ** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
1145 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
1146 and `diary-header-line-format'.
1149 ** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed: use
1150 the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
1151 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
1152 appt-issue-message, appt-visible, and appt-msg-window.
1154 ** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
1155 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
1156 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
1157 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
1163 *** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
1164 the read-only state of the buffer (toggle-read-only). We made this
1165 change because we held a poll and found that many users were unhappy
1166 with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this behavior, you
1167 can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your .emacs:
1169 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
1171 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
1174 *** There is a new user option `vc-cvs-global-switches' that allows
1175 you to specify switches that are passed to any CVS command invoked
1176 by VC. These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which
1177 means they are inserted before the command name. For example, this
1178 allows you to specify a compression level using the "-z#" option for
1181 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
1186 *** When comparing directories.
1187 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
1188 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
1189 from one directory to another.
1192 *** When comparing files or buffers.
1193 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
1194 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
1195 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
1198 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
1199 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
1200 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
1205 *** New regular expressions features
1207 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
1208 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
1209 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
1210 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
1211 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
1212 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
1213 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
1214 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
1215 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
1216 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
1217 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
1219 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in Gcc.
1220 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
1221 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
1224 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
1225 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
1226 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
1227 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
1229 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
1230 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
1231 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
1233 *** New language parsing features
1235 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
1236 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
1238 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
1239 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
1240 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
1243 **** New language PHP.
1244 Tags are functions, classes and defines.
1245 If the --members option is specified to etags, tags are vars also.
1247 **** New language HTML.
1248 Title and h1, h2, h3 are tagged. Also, tags are generated when name= is
1249 used inside an anchor and whenever id= is used.
1251 **** New default keywords for TeX.
1252 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
1255 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
1256 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
1257 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
1259 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
1261 *** Honour #line directives.
1262 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
1263 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
1264 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
1265 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
1266 writes tags pointing to the source file.
1268 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
1269 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
1270 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
1271 will read from standard input and mark the produced tags as belonging to
1277 *** Font lock support.
1278 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1279 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1280 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1281 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1282 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1283 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1285 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1286 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1287 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1288 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1289 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1290 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1291 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1292 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1293 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1295 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1296 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1297 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1298 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1299 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1300 take the better part of a minute.
1302 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1303 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1304 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1305 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1306 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1307 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1309 **** Support for documentation comments.
1310 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1311 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1312 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1313 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1315 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1316 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
1317 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
1318 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1320 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
1321 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
1322 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
1323 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
1326 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
1327 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
1328 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
1329 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
1330 not as configurable as it ought to be.
1332 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
1333 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
1334 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
1335 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
1336 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
1338 *** Support for the AWK language.
1339 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
1340 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
1341 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
1344 **** Indentation Engine
1345 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
1347 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
1348 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
1349 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
1350 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
1351 definition, or structured statement.
1353 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
1354 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
1355 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
1357 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
1358 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
1359 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
1360 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
1363 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
1364 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
1365 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
1366 the AWK language itself.
1368 **** Comment Commands
1369 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
1370 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
1372 **** Movement Commands
1373 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
1374 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
1375 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
1377 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
1378 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
1379 recognise these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
1382 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
1383 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
1384 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
1385 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
1387 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
1388 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
1389 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
1390 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
1391 composition-close, and incomposition.
1393 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
1394 The functions c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forward can be
1395 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
1396 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1398 *** Better control over require-final-newline.
1399 The variable that controls how to handle a final newline when the
1400 buffer is saved, require-final-newline, is now customizable on a
1401 per-mode basis through c-require-final-newline. The default is to set
1402 it to t only in languages that mandate a final newline in source files
1403 (C, C++ and Objective-C).
1405 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
1406 The elements in the syntactic context returned by c-guess-basic-syntax
1407 and stored in c-syntactic-context has been changed somewhat to allow
1408 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
1409 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
1411 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
1415 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
1417 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
1420 This change might affect code that call c-guess-basic-syntax directly,
1421 and custom lineup functions if they use c-syntactic-context. However,
1422 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
1423 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
1425 *** API changes for derived modes.
1426 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
1427 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
1428 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
1429 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
1430 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
1432 **** New language variable system.
1433 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
1435 **** New initialization functions.
1436 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
1437 give better control: c-basic-common-init, c-font-lock-init, and
1438 c-init-language-vars.
1440 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
1441 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
1442 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
1443 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
1445 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
1446 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
1447 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
1448 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
1449 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1451 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
1452 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
1453 its substatement. E.g:
1459 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
1461 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
1462 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
1463 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
1464 variable c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros. A new syntactic symbol
1465 cpp-define-intro has been added to control the initial indentation
1468 **** New lineup function c-lineup-cpp-define.
1469 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
1470 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
1471 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
1472 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
1473 much line c-lineup-dont-change, which was used earlier, but handles
1474 empty lines within the macro better.
1476 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
1477 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
1478 c-context-line-break and c-context-open-line.
1480 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1481 c-backslash-region tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
1482 variable c-backslash-max-column which put a limit on how far out
1483 backslashes can be moved.
1485 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1486 This is controlled by the new variable c-auto-align-backslashes. It
1487 affects c-context-line-break, c-context-open-line and newlines
1488 inserted in auto-newline mode.
1490 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
1491 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
1492 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
1493 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
1494 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
1495 backslash) in the macro.
1497 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
1498 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
1499 the variable c-indent-comment-alist. The indentation behavior based
1500 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
1501 and #endif but indentation to comment-column in most other cases
1502 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
1504 *** New function c-context-open-line.
1505 It's the open-line equivalent of c-context-line-break.
1507 *** New lineup functions
1509 **** c-lineup-string-cont
1510 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
1513 result = prefix + "A message "
1514 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
1516 **** c-lineup-cascaded-calls
1517 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
1519 **** c-lineup-knr-region-comment
1520 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
1521 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
1523 **** c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg
1524 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks. Contributed by Kevin
1527 **** c-lineup-argcont
1528 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
1529 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1531 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
1532 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
1533 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
1534 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
1535 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
1536 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
1538 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
1539 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
1540 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
1541 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
1544 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
1545 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
1546 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
1547 happen when macros are involved.
1549 *** Improved the way c-indent-exp chooses the block to indent.
1550 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
1551 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
1552 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
1553 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
1554 line is left untouched.
1556 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
1557 The function c-toggle-syntactic-indentation can be used to toggle
1558 syntactic indentation.
1560 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
1561 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
1564 ** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
1565 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
1568 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1569 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1570 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1573 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
1574 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
1575 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
1578 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1579 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
1580 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1583 ** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
1584 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
1585 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
1586 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
1587 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
1588 from the file name or buffer contents.
1591 ** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
1594 ** New user option `isearch-resume-enabled'.
1595 This option can be disabled, to avoid the normal behavior of isearch
1596 which puts calls to `isearch-resume' in the command history.
1599 ** Lisp mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
1602 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
1605 ** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
1606 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
1607 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
1610 ** F90 mode has new navigation commands `f90-end-of-block',
1611 `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block', `f90-previous-block'.
1614 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
1615 to support use of font-lock.
1618 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
1619 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
1623 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
1624 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
1625 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
1628 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
1629 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
1630 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
1631 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
1632 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
1633 candidate is a directory.
1636 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
1637 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
1638 it remains unchanged.
1640 ** Enhanced visual feedback in *Completions* buffer.
1642 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
1643 have in common and where they begin to differ.
1645 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
1646 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
1647 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
1648 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
1649 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
1650 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
1651 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
1652 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
1655 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
1656 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
1657 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
1659 ** Compilation mode enhancements:
1661 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1662 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1663 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1664 subprocesses inherit.
1666 *** `next-error' now temporarily highlights the corresponding source line.
1668 ** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1670 *** Grep commands now have their own submenu and customization group.
1672 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1673 `grep-scroll-output' can be used to override the corresponding
1674 compilation mode settings for grep commands.
1676 *** Source line is temporarily highlighted when going to next match.
1678 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1679 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1680 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1681 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1682 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1683 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1687 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
1690 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
1691 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
1692 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
1695 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
1696 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
1699 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
1700 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
1701 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
1702 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
1703 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
1704 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
1708 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
1709 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
1710 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
1711 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
1712 sound support for those formats.
1715 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
1716 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
1719 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
1720 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
1721 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
1722 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
1725 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
1726 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in
1727 much the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now
1728 adds these colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu
1729 for the default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground),
1730 and uses some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
1731 `list-colors-display' will show the list of System color names if you
1732 wish to use them in other faces.
1735 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1736 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1737 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1738 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1740 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1741 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1744 ** vc-annotate-mode enhancements
1746 In vc-annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
1747 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
1748 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
1750 P: annotates the previous revision
1751 N: annotates the next revision
1752 J: annotates the revision at line
1753 A: annotates the revision previous to line
1754 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
1755 L: shows the log of the revision at line
1756 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
1758 * New modes and packages in Emacs 21.4
1760 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on dired
1761 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
1763 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
1765 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
1768 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1769 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1771 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1774 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1776 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1777 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1778 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1779 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1782 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1784 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1785 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1786 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1787 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1788 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1789 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1791 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1792 rectangle highlighting: Use S-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1793 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1794 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1796 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1797 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1798 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1799 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1800 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1801 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1802 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1804 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1805 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1806 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1808 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1809 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1811 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1812 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1813 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1814 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1816 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1817 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1818 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you may customize the
1819 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1821 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1822 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1823 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1824 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1826 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1827 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1828 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1829 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1830 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1832 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1833 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1834 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1835 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1836 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1837 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1839 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1840 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1841 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1842 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1843 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1844 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1845 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1846 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1847 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1850 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1851 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1853 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1854 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1855 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1856 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1858 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1861 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1862 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1863 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1864 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1865 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1868 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1869 the keyboard macro ring.
1871 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1872 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1874 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1875 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1876 this behaviour via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1877 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1879 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1880 C-x C-k SPC will step through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1881 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1884 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
1885 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
1886 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
1887 C-c C-i b, and so on.
1889 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1891 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1892 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1893 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1894 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1895 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1896 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1899 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1901 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1902 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1903 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1904 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
1907 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1909 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1910 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1911 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1912 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1913 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1914 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1915 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1916 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1917 `rsync' to do the copying).
1919 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1923 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1924 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1925 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1926 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1927 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method may
1928 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1931 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1932 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1933 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1937 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1938 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1939 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1940 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1942 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1945 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1946 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1948 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1949 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1950 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1951 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1952 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1953 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1956 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1957 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1958 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1959 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1962 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
1963 Emacs will still work on terminals that require magic cookies in order
1964 to use standout mode, however they will not be able to display
1965 mode-lines in inverse-video.
1968 ** cplus-md.el has been removed to avoid problems with Custom.
1970 ** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
1971 timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).
1973 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
1974 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
1975 in Indented-Text mode.
1977 ** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
1978 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
1979 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
1981 ** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the apperance of fringes.
1983 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1984 configuration files.
1986 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
1988 ** New functions posn-at-point and posn-at-x-y returns
1989 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
1990 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
1992 ** Function pos-visible-in-window-p now returns the pixel coordinates
1993 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
1996 ** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
1999 ** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
2000 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
2003 ** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
2004 supported on text terminals.
2006 ** Support for displaying image slices
2008 *** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) may be used with
2009 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
2011 *** Function insert-image has new optional fourth arg to
2012 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
2014 *** New function insert-sliced-image inserts a given image as a
2015 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
2017 ** New line-height and line-spacing properties for newline characters
2019 A newline may now have line-height and line-spacing text properties that
2020 control the height of the corresponding display row.
2022 If the line-height property value is 0, the newline does not
2023 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
2024 newline glyph is reduced. This can be used to tile small images or
2025 image slices without adding blank areas between the images.
2027 If the line-height property value is a positive integer, the value
2028 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
2029 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
2031 If the line-height property value is a float, the minimum line height
2032 is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by the
2035 If the line-height property value is a cons (RATIO . FACE), the
2036 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
2037 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
2039 If the line-spacing property value is an positive integer, the value
2040 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
2041 overrides the default frame line-spacing and any buffer local value of
2042 the line-spacing variable.
2044 If the value is a negative integer, the absolute value is used as the
2045 total height of the line, i.e. a varying number of pixels are
2046 inserted after each line to make each line exactly that many pixels high.
2048 If the line-spacing property may be a float or cons, the line spacing
2049 is calculated as specified above for the line-height property.
2051 ** The buffer local line-spacing variable may now have a float value,
2052 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
2054 ** Enhancements to stretch display properties
2056 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
2057 PROPS is a property list now allows pixel based width and height
2058 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
2060 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
2061 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
2064 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
2065 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
2066 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
2067 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
2069 POS ::= left | center | right
2070 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
2073 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
2074 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
2075 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
2076 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
2077 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
2078 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
2079 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
2082 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
2083 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
2084 corresponding area of the window.
2086 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
2087 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
2088 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
2089 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
2090 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
2091 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
2092 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
2093 the width of the area.
2095 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
2096 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
2098 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
2099 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
2100 header-line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
2102 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
2103 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
2104 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
2105 height) of the specified image.
2107 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
2108 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
2110 ** New macro with-local-quit temporarily sets inhibit-quit to nil for use
2111 around potentially blocking or long-running code in timers
2112 and post-command-hooks.
2115 ** New face attribute `min-colors' can be used to tailor the face color
2116 to the number of colors supported by a display, and define the
2117 foreground and background colors accordingly so that they look best on
2118 a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This is now the
2119 preferred method for defining default faces in a way that makes a good
2120 use of the capabilities of the display.
2122 ** New function 'define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to change the
2123 built-in fringe bitmaps, as well as create new fringe bitmaps.
2124 The return value is a number identifying the new fringe bitmap.
2126 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and identify the
2127 bitmap to change with the value of the corresponding symbol, like
2128 `left-truncation-fringe-bitmap' or `continued-line-fringe-bitmap'.
2130 ** New function 'destroy-fringe-bitmap' may be used to destroy a
2131 previously created bitmap, or restore a built-in bitmap.
2133 ** New function 'set-fringe-bitmap-face' can now be used to set a
2134 specific face to be used for a specific fringe bitmap. Normally,
2135 this should be a face derived from the `fringe' face, specifying
2136 the foreground color as the desired color of the bitmap.
2138 ** There are new display properties, left-fringe and right-fringe,
2139 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
2140 bitmap of the display line.
2142 Format is 'display '(left-fringe BITMAP [FACE]), where BITMAP is a
2143 number identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or as returned by
2144 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
2145 for displaying the bitmap.
2147 ** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns a cons (LEFT . RIGHT)
2148 identifying the current fringe bitmaps in the display line at a given
2149 buffer position. A nil value means no bitmap.
2151 ** Multiple overlay arrows can now be defined and managed via the new
2152 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'. It contains a list of
2153 varibles which contain overlay arrow position markers, including
2154 the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
2156 Each variable on this list may have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
2157 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
2158 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
2159 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
2160 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
2161 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
2164 ** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns line number of current
2165 line in current buffer, or if optional buffer position is given, line
2166 number of corresponding line in current buffer.
2168 ** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
2169 variable `sentence-end-without-space' which contains such characters
2170 that end a sentence without following spaces.
2172 ** The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of
2173 the variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil,
2174 then this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
2175 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
2176 `sentence-end-without-space'.
2179 ** The flags, width, and precision options for %-specifications in function
2180 `format' are now documented. Some flags that were accepted but not
2181 implemented (such as "*") are no longer accepted.
2183 ** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
2184 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
2185 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
2186 if no expansion is done, which may be tested using `eq'.
2189 ** New function `delete-dups' destructively removes `equal' duplicates
2190 from a list. Of several `equal' occurrences of an element in the list,
2191 the first one is kept.
2194 ** `declare' is now a macro. This change was made mostly for
2195 documentation purposes and should have no real effect on Lisp code.
2197 ** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
2198 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
2199 tasks, for example; it can be used by the copyright package to make
2200 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
2203 ** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
2204 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
2205 string. The old behavior is available if you call
2206 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
2208 ** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
2209 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
2210 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
2211 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
2212 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
2214 ** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
2215 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
2216 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
2217 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
2218 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
2220 ** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
2221 :pointer image property.
2223 ** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images may now be
2224 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
2226 ** Images may now have an associated image map via the :map property.
2228 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
2229 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
2230 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((x0 . y0) . (x1 . y1))) specifying the
2231 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
2232 A circle is a cons (circle . ((x0 . y0) . r)) specifying the center
2233 and the radius of the circle; r may be a float or integer.
2234 A polygon is a cons (poly . [x0 y0 x1 y1 ...]) where each pair in the
2235 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
2237 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
2238 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
2239 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
2240 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
2241 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable 'void-area-text-pointer'
2242 for possible pointer shapes.
2244 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
2245 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
2246 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
2248 ** Mouse event enhancements:
2250 *** Mouse clicks on fringes now generates left-fringe or right-fringes
2251 events, rather than a text area click event.
2253 *** Mouse clicks in the left and right marginal areas now includes a
2254 sensible buffer position corresponding to the first character in the
2255 corresponding text row.
2257 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
2260 *** Mouse events now includes buffer position for all event types.
2263 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
2266 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
2270 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types.
2273 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns actual glyph coordinates.
2276 *** Mouse events may now include image object in addition to string object.
2279 *** Mouse events include relative x and y pixel coordinates relative to
2280 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
2283 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
2284 (image or character) clicked on.
2287 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', and
2288 'posn-object-width-height' return the image or string object of a mouse
2289 click, the x and y pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner
2290 of that object, and the total width and height of that object.
2292 ** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
2293 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
2294 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
2295 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
2296 forcing an explicit window update.
2298 ** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
2299 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
2302 ** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
2303 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
2304 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
2305 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
2306 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
2309 ** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
2312 ** If optional third argument APPEND to `add-to-list' is non-nil, a
2313 new element gets added at the end of the list instead of at the
2314 beginning. This change actually occurred in Emacs-21.1, but was not
2317 ** Major modes can define `eldoc-print-current-symbol-info-function'
2318 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
2322 ** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
2323 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
2327 ** The argument to forward-word, backward-word, forward-to-indentation
2328 and backward-to-indentation is now optional, and defaults to 1.
2331 ** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
2332 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
2333 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
2335 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
2336 does that, this value may not be accurate.
2339 ** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
2340 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
2341 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
2345 ** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
2346 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
2349 ** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.
2352 ** `select-window' takes an optional second argument `norecord', like
2356 ** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
2357 selected window without impacting the order of buffer-list.
2360 ** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
2361 text-properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
2362 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
2365 ** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
2369 ** VC changes for backends:
2370 *** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
2371 *** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
2372 parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
2373 Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
2374 uses the old `destfile' parameter.
2377 ** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
2378 as a dynamic completion table.
2380 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
2382 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
2383 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
2384 completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
2385 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
2386 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
2387 entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.
2390 ** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
2391 as a lazy completion table.
2393 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
2395 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
2396 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
2397 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
2398 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
2399 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
2400 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
2403 ** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
2406 ** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
2407 for all (existing and future) frames.
2410 ** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
2413 ** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
2416 ** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.
2419 ** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
2420 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
2421 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
2422 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
2423 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
2426 ** The function `number-sequence' returns a list of equally-separated
2427 numbers. For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9).
2428 By default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different separation
2429 as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns (1.5 3.5 5.5).
2432 ** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
2433 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
2434 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
2435 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
2438 ** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
2439 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
2442 ** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character,
2443 unless it is followed by a `-' in a character constant (e.g. ?\s-A),
2444 in which case it is still interpreted as the super modifier.
2445 In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
2448 ** New function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the multibyteness
2449 of a string given to a process's filter.
2452 ** New function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns t if
2453 a string given to a process's filter is multibyte.
2456 ** A filter function of a process is called with a multibyte string if
2457 the filter's multibyteness is t. That multibyteness is decided by the
2458 value of `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is
2459 created and can be changed later by `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
2462 ** If a process's coding system is raw-text or no-conversion and its
2463 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
2464 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
2465 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
2466 which was not compatible with the behaviour of file reading.
2469 ** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
2470 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
2473 ** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
2474 on garbage collection.
2477 ** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
2478 it is read from a file without decoding.
2481 ** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
2484 ** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
2485 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
2486 by calling `select-window'.
2489 ** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
2490 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
2491 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
2492 need to have a name.
2494 ** Byte compiler changes:
2497 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
2498 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
2499 Emacs and XEmacs and may sometimes make the result significantly more
2500 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
2501 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
2505 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
2506 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
2507 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
2508 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
2511 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
2512 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
2514 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
2515 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
2516 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
2517 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
2518 macro expansion), but such tests may be nested. Note that `when' and
2519 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
2522 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
2523 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
2526 ** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
2527 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
2528 be inserted is translated through it.
2531 ** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
2532 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
2533 current file redefined it).
2536 ** New Lisp library testcover.el works with edebug to help you determine
2537 whether you've tested all your Lisp code. Function testcover-start
2538 instruments all functions in a given file. Then test your code. Function
2539 testcover-mark-all adds overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to
2540 show where coverage is lacking. Command testcover-next-mark (bind it to
2541 a key!) will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
2543 *** Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely evaluated;
2544 a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same value. The red
2545 splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly complete their evaluation,
2546 such as `error'. The brown splotches are skipped for forms that are expected
2547 to always evaluate to the same value, such as (setq x 14).
2549 *** For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to help
2550 out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a red splotch.
2551 It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does return. The macro 1value
2552 suppresses a brown splotch for its argument. This macro is a no-op except
2553 during test-coverage -- then it signals an error if the argument actually
2554 returns differing values.
2557 ** New function unsafep returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly
2558 do anything dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be
2559 unsafe (calls dangerous function, alters global variable, etc).
2562 ** The new variable `print-continuous-numbering', when non-nil, says
2563 that successive calls to print functions should use the same
2564 numberings for circular structure references. This is only relevant
2565 when `print-circle' is non-nil.
2567 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
2568 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
2571 ** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
2572 the scroll-bar-width frame parameter value is nil.
2575 ** The new function copy-abbrev-table returns a new abbrev table that
2576 is a copy of a given abbrev table.
2579 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
2580 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
2581 can start with this line:
2583 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
2586 ** A function's docstring can now hold the function's usage info on
2587 its last line. It should match the regexp "\n\n(fn.*)\\'".
2590 ** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
2591 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
2594 ** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional buffer
2595 argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted it defaults to
2599 ** There is a new Warnings facility; see the functions `warn'
2600 and `display-warning'.
2603 ** The functions all-completions and try-completion now accept lists
2604 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
2605 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
2609 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
2610 much pure storage it will approximately need.
2613 ** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
2614 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
2615 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
2616 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
2619 ** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
2620 of one coding system from another coding system.
2623 ** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
2624 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
2625 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
2626 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
2630 ** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
2631 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
2632 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
2633 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
2634 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
2635 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
2637 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
2638 confirmation as before.
2641 ** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
2643 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
2644 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
2645 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
2646 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
2648 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
2649 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
2650 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
2651 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
2652 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
2653 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
2655 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
2656 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
2657 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
2658 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
2661 ** Per-window fringes settings
2663 Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and position
2666 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
2667 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
2668 `set-window-fringes'.
2670 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
2671 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
2672 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
2673 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
2675 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
2676 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
2677 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
2678 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
2679 an update of the display margins.
2682 ** Per-window vertical scroll-bar settings
2684 Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
2685 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
2687 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
2688 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
2689 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
2690 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
2691 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2692 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2693 of the display margins.
2696 ** The function `set-window-buffer' now has an optional third argument
2697 KEEP-MARGINS which will preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
2698 and scroll-bar settings if non-nil.
2701 ** Renamed file hooks to follow the convention:
2702 find-file-hooks to find-file-hook,
2703 find-file-not-found-hooks to find-file-not-found-functions,
2704 write-file-hooks to write-file-functions,
2705 write-contents-hooks to write-contents-functions.
2706 Marked local-write-file-hooks as obsolete (use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook').
2709 ** The new variable `delete-frame-functions' replaces `delete-frame-hook'.
2710 It was renamed to follow the naming conventions for abnormal hooks. The old
2711 name remains available as an alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2714 ** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
2715 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
2716 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
2717 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
2718 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
2721 ** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
2722 to override the internal read-file-name function.
2725 ** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
2726 `read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
2727 will only show directories.
2730 ** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
2731 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
2732 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
2735 ** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
2736 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
2737 (require 'cl) when loaded.
2740 ** The `defmacro' form may contain declarations specifying how to
2741 indent the macro in Lisp mode and how to debug it with Edebug. The
2742 syntax of defmacro has been extended to
2744 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
2746 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
2747 declaration specifiers supported are:
2750 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
2753 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
2754 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro.
2757 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
2759 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
2760 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
2761 binding and lookup functionality.
2763 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
2764 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
2768 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
2769 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
2770 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
2771 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
2774 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
2775 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
2776 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
2777 map using define-key:
2779 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
2780 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
2782 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
2783 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
2785 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
2786 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
2787 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
2789 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
2791 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2792 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
2793 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
2794 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
2796 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
2797 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
2799 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
2800 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
2802 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
2803 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
2804 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
2805 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
2806 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
2807 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
2809 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
2810 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
2811 command was not remapped.
2814 ** New variable emulation-mode-map-alists.
2816 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
2817 keymap alist separate from minor-mode-map-alist by adding their keymap
2821 ** Atomic change groups.
2823 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
2824 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
2825 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
2827 (atomic-change-group
2829 (delete-region x y))
2831 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
2832 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
2833 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
2834 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
2836 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
2837 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
2839 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
2840 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
2841 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
2842 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
2844 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
2845 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
2848 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
2849 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
2850 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
2851 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
2853 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
2854 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
2855 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
2856 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
2857 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
2858 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
2861 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
2862 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
2863 returned values, like this:
2865 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
2866 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
2868 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
2869 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
2870 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
2872 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
2873 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
2874 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
2875 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
2879 ** New variable char-property-alias-alist.
2881 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
2882 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
2883 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
2884 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
2887 ** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
2889 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
2890 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
2891 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
2892 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
2895 ** New function remove-list-of-text-properties.
2897 The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties' is almost the same
2898 as `remove-text-properties'. The only difference is that it takes
2899 a list of property names as argument rather than a property list.
2902 ** New function insert-for-yank.
2904 This function normally works like `insert' but removes the text
2905 properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list. However, if the
2906 inserted text has a `yank-handler' text property on the first
2907 character of the string, the insertion of the text may be modified in
2908 a number of ways. See the description of `yank-handler' below.
2911 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-as-yank.
2913 This function works like `insert-buffer-substring', but removes the
2914 text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list.
2917 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-no-properties.
2919 This function is like insert-buffer-substring, but removes all
2920 text properties from the inserted substring.
2923 ** New `yank-handler' text property may be used to control how
2924 previously killed text on the kill-ring is reinserted.
2926 The value of the yank-handler property must be a list with one to four
2927 elements with the following format:
2928 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
2930 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
2931 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
2932 element on the kill-ring). If a yank-handler property is found,
2933 the normal behaviour of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
2935 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
2936 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
2937 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
2938 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
2939 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
2941 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
2942 yank-excluded-properties is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
2943 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
2944 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
2945 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
2946 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
2947 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
2948 FUNCTION may set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
2950 *** The functions kill-new, kill-append, and kill-region now have an
2951 optional argument to specify the yank-handler text property to put on
2954 *** The function yank-pop will now use a non-nil value of the variable
2955 `yank-undo-function' (instead of delete-region) to undo the previous
2956 yank or yank-pop command (or a call to insert-for-yank). The function
2957 insert-for-yank automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
2958 element of the string argument's yank-handler text property if present.
2961 ** New function display-supports-face-attributes-p may be used to test
2962 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
2964 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
2965 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
2966 defined with defface.
2969 ** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
2970 accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
2971 inheritance is used when determining the value of a face attribute.
2974 ** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
2975 help with handling relative face attributes.
2978 ** Enhancements to process support
2980 *** Function list-processes now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
2981 only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set are listed.
2983 *** New set-process-query-on-exit-flag and process-query-on-exit-flag
2984 functions. The existing process-kill-without-query function is still
2985 supported, but new code should use the new functions.
2987 *** Function signal-process now accepts a process object or process
2988 name in addition to a process id to identify the signalled process.
2990 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
2991 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
2993 The new functions process-get and process-put are used to access, add,
2994 and modify elements on this property list.
2996 The new low-level functions process-plist and set-process-plist are
2997 used to access and replace the entire property list of a process.
3000 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
3002 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
3003 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
3004 very poor performance. This behaviour can be remedied to some extent
3005 by setting the new variable process-adaptive-read-buffering to a
3006 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
3007 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
3008 emacs tries to read it.
3011 ** Enhanced networking support.
3013 *** There is a new `make-network-process' function which supports
3014 opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
3015 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
3017 - A server is started using :server t arg.
3018 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
3019 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
3020 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
3021 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
3022 - The process' property list may be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
3023 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
3024 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
3026 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
3027 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
3029 *** Original open-network-stream is now emulated using make-network-process.
3031 *** New function open-network-stream-nowait.
3033 This function initiates a non-blocking connect and returns immediately
3034 without waiting for the connection to be established. It takes the
3035 filter and sentinel functions as arguments; when the non-blocking
3036 connect completes, the sentinel is called with a status string
3037 matching "open" or "failed".
3039 *** New function open-network-stream-server.
3041 This function creates a network server process for a TCP service.
3042 When a client connects to the specified service, a new subprocess
3043 is created to handle the new connection, and the sentinel function
3044 is called for the new process.
3046 *** New functions process-datagram-address and set-process-datagram-address.
3048 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
3049 and set the current address of the remote partner.
3051 *** New function format-network-address.
3053 This function reformats the lisp representation of a network address
3054 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
3055 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
3056 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
3057 string for other formatting options.
3059 *** By default, the function process-contact still returns (HOST SERVICE)
3060 for a network process. Using the new optional KEY arg, the complete list
3061 of network process properties or a specific property can be selected.
3063 Using :local and :remote as the KEY, the address of the local or
3064 remote end-point is returned. An Inet address is represented as a 5
3065 element vector, where the first 4 elements contain the IP address and
3066 the fifth is the port number.
3068 *** Network processes can now be stopped and restarted with
3069 `stop-process' and `continue-process'. For a server process, no
3070 connections are accepted in the stopped state. For a client process,
3071 no input is received in the stopped state.
3073 *** New function network-interface-list.
3075 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
3076 current network addresses.
3078 *** New function network-interface-info.
3080 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
3081 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
3084 ** New function copy-tree.
3087 ** New function substring-no-properties.
3090 ** New function minibuffer-selected-window.
3093 ** New function `call-process-shell-command'.
3096 ** The dummy function keys made by easymenu
3097 are now always lower case. If you specify the
3098 menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
3099 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
3101 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for
3102 the bindings that were made with easymenu.
3105 ** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional
3106 argument. If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks
3107 for a function that could be called with `call-interactively',
3108 and does not return t for keyboard macros.
3111 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
3112 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
3114 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
3115 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
3116 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
3119 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
3120 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
3123 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
3124 (function (lambda ()
3126 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
3127 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
3128 (function (lambda ()
3129 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
3132 ** File local variables.
3134 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3135 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3138 ** New function window-body-height.
3140 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
3144 ** New function format-mode-line.
3146 This returns the mode-line or header-line of the selected (or a
3147 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
3150 ** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3152 These functions are like `plist-get' and `plist-put' except that they
3153 compare the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3156 ** New function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu'
3158 The `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' must not be used (as previously
3159 recommended) for making entries in the tool bar for local keymaps.
3160 Instead, use the function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu', which lets
3161 you specify the map to use as an argument.
3164 ** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3166 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3167 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3168 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3171 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
3173 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
3174 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
3175 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
3176 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
3177 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
3180 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
3181 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
3182 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
3183 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
3186 ** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
3187 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
3190 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3191 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3192 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3195 ** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
3196 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
3200 ** Indentation of simple and extended loop forms has been added to the
3201 cl-indent package. The new user options
3202 `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation', `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and
3203 `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can be used to customize the
3204 indentation of keywords and forms in loop forms.
3207 ** Indentation of backquoted forms has been made customizable in the
3208 cl-indent package. See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3211 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
3213 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
3214 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
3215 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
3218 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
3220 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
3221 the time it takes to convert the format.
3223 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
3227 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
3228 over minor mode keymaps.
3231 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
3232 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
3235 ** At the end of a command, point moves out from within invisible
3236 text, in the same way it moves out from within text covered by an
3237 image or composition property.
3239 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
3240 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
3241 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
3242 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
3243 post-command-hook and thus does not care about intermediate states.
3246 ** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
3250 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
3251 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
3252 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
3253 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
3257 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3260 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
3263 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
3264 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
3265 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
3266 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
3267 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
3268 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
3271 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
3272 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
3273 bindings of the parent keymap.
3276 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
3277 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
3278 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
3279 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
3280 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
3281 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
3289 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
3290 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
3291 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
3292 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
3295 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
3296 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
3298 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
3299 (the last prior group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
3302 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
3303 it receives a request from emacsclient.
3306 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
3307 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
3308 than 3 levels of nesting.
3311 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
3312 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
3316 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
3317 properties from surrounding text.
3320 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
3322 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
3323 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
3324 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
3327 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3328 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3332 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
3333 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
3334 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
3335 other properties than `face'.
3336 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
3337 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
3340 ** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
3341 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
3342 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
3343 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
3344 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
3347 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
3348 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
3349 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
3352 ** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
3353 and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.
3356 ** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
3357 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
3360 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
3361 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
3362 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
3365 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
3366 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
3367 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
3370 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
3371 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
3372 accepts a float as UID parameter.
3375 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
3378 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
3381 ** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
3382 character position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form
3383 of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
3384 the output of other GNU tools.
3387 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
3390 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
3393 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
3394 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
3397 ** Variable aliases have been implemented:
3399 *** defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3401 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3402 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3403 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3404 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3406 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3407 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3409 *** indirect-variable VARIABLE
3411 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3412 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3413 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3415 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3416 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3419 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
3420 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
3423 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
3424 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
3427 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
3428 hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3431 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
3432 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
3433 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
3435 ** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-key-sequence and the like, that
3436 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
3437 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
3439 ** New function x-send-client-message sends a client message when
3442 ** Arguments for remove-overlays are now optional, so that you can remove
3443 all overlays in the buffer by just calling (remove-overlay).
3447 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
3448 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
3449 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
3450 state of your program. It separates the input/output of your program from
3451 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
3452 Emacs 21 such as the display margin for breakpoints, and the toolbar.
3454 Use M-x gdba to start GDB-UI.
3456 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
3457 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
3459 *** The new package bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
3460 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
3463 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
3464 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
3466 *** The new package button.el implements simple and fast `clickable buttons'
3467 in emacs buffers. `buttons' are much lighter-weight than the `widgets'
3468 implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that doesn't
3469 require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for such things
3470 as help and apropos buffers.
3473 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
3475 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
3479 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
3481 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
3484 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
3485 as mule-utf-8. Coding system `utf-16-le-dos' is useful as the value
3486 of `selection-coding-system' in MS Windows, allowing you to paste
3487 multilingual text from the clipboard. Set it interactively with
3488 C-x RET x or in .emacs with `(set-selection-coding-system 'utf-16-le-dos)'.
3490 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
3493 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
3494 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
3495 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
3496 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
3497 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
3498 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
3499 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
3500 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
3501 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
3502 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
3504 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
3505 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
3507 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
3508 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
3509 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
3510 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behaviour is actually
3511 contrary to the compound text specification.
3514 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
3516 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
3518 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
3521 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
3523 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
3525 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
3526 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
3527 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
3528 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
3529 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
3531 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
3534 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
3535 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
3537 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
3538 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
3539 instead of using default-major-mode.
3541 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
3542 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
3543 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
3544 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
3545 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
3546 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
3547 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
3549 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
3553 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
3555 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
3556 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
3557 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
3559 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
3560 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
3563 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
3565 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
3566 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
3567 charsets in this release.
3569 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
3571 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
3573 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
3574 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
3577 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
3578 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
3579 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
3580 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
3581 necessary changes to unexec.
3583 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
3584 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
3586 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
3587 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
3589 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
3590 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
3592 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
3593 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
3594 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
3595 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
3596 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
3598 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
3599 new display features described below.
3602 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
3604 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
3606 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
3607 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
3608 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
3609 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
3612 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
3614 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
3615 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
3616 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
3617 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
3620 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
3621 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
3622 under Lisp changes, below.
3624 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
3626 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
3627 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
3628 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
3629 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
3630 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
3631 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
3634 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
3635 supported on character terminals.
3637 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
3638 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
3639 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
3640 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
3642 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
3646 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
3647 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
3648 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
3649 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
3652 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
3654 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
3655 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
3656 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
3657 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
3659 - User option: max-mini-window-height
3661 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
3662 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
3663 specifies a number of lines.
3667 - User option: resize-mini-windows
3669 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
3670 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
3671 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
3674 Default is `grow-only'.
3678 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
3679 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
3681 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
3683 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
3684 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
3687 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
3689 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
3690 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
3691 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
3693 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
3695 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
3696 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
3697 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
3698 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
3699 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
3702 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
3703 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
3704 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
3705 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
3706 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
3707 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
3709 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
3710 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
3711 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
3712 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
3713 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
3714 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
3716 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
3717 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
3718 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
3719 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
3720 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
3722 ** Tool bar support.
3724 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
3725 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
3726 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
3727 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
3728 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
3731 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
3732 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
3736 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
3737 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
3738 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
3740 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
3741 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
3742 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
3743 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
3745 ** Automatic Hscrolling
3747 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
3748 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
3751 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
3752 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
3753 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
3754 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
3755 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
3757 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
3758 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
3759 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
3760 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
3761 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
3762 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
3764 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
3765 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
3766 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
3767 customizing face `fringe'.
3769 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
3770 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
3771 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
3772 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
3773 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
3774 the window to be partially obscured.)
3776 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
3777 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
3778 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
3779 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
3781 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3783 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
3784 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
3785 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
3786 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
3787 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
3790 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
3792 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
3794 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
3796 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
3797 `*') toggles the status.
3799 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
3801 ** Hourglass pointer
3803 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
3804 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
3808 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
3809 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
3810 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
3813 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
3815 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
3816 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
3817 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
3820 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
3821 have to do anything to activate it.
3823 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
3825 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
3826 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
3828 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
3829 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
3830 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
3831 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
3832 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
3833 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
3834 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
3835 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
3837 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
3838 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
3839 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
3840 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
3841 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
3842 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
3844 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
3845 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
3847 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
3848 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
3851 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
3852 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
3853 beginning and end of the buffer.
3855 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
3856 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
3859 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
3860 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
3862 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
3863 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
3866 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
3867 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
3870 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
3872 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
3873 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
3874 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
3876 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
3877 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
3878 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
3880 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
3883 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
3885 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
3886 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
3887 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
3888 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
3889 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
3892 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
3893 all frames except the selected one.
3895 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
3896 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
3898 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
3899 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
3900 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
3901 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
3902 `Info-use-header-line'.
3904 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
3905 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
3906 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
3908 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
3910 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
3911 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
3914 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
3915 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
3916 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
3917 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
3919 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
3921 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
3922 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
3923 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
3924 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
3926 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
3927 point in a pop-up window.
3929 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
3930 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
3931 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
3933 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
3934 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
3936 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
3937 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
3938 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
3939 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
3941 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
3943 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
3944 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
3946 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
3947 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
3948 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
3950 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
3951 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
3954 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
3955 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
3956 file that is already visited under a different name.
3958 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
3959 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
3961 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
3962 and displays information about that.
3964 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
3965 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
3967 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
3968 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
3969 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
3970 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
3971 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
3972 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
3974 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
3975 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
3977 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
3978 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
3979 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
3980 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
3981 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
3982 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
3983 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
3985 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
3986 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
3988 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
3989 system for keyboard input.
3991 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
3992 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
3993 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
3994 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
3995 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
3996 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
3997 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
3998 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
3999 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
4001 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
4002 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
4004 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
4005 displays all characters in that character set.
4007 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
4008 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
4010 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
4011 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
4012 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
4014 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
4015 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
4016 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
4017 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
4018 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
4019 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
4022 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
4023 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
4026 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
4027 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
4028 Lisp Coding Convention".
4030 new command old-binding
4031 --- ------- -----------
4032 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
4033 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
4034 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
4036 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
4037 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
4038 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
4040 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
4041 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
4042 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
4043 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
4044 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
4045 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
4047 ** There are new Leim input methods.
4048 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
4049 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
4052 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
4053 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
4054 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
4055 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
4056 "`", you must type "=q".
4058 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
4059 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
4060 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
4061 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
4062 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
4065 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
4066 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
4067 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
4068 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
4070 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
4071 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
4072 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
4073 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
4075 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
4076 on the display using several methods
4078 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
4079 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
4080 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
4082 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
4083 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
4085 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
4087 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
4088 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
4090 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
4091 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
4092 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
4093 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
4095 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
4096 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
4097 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
4099 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
4100 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
4102 ** New X resources recognized
4104 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
4105 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
4106 is useful for debugging X problems.
4110 emacs.synchronous: true
4112 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
4113 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
4114 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
4115 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
4116 visual class names are
4125 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
4126 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
4129 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
4130 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
4131 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
4136 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
4138 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
4139 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
4140 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
4141 resource values are `true' or `on'.
4145 emacs.privateColormap: true
4147 ** Faces and frame parameters.
4149 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
4150 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
4151 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
4152 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
4153 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
4154 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
4155 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
4157 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
4158 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
4159 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
4160 `default' face and vice versa.
4164 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
4166 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
4168 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
4169 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
4170 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
4171 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
4173 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
4174 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
4175 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
4177 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
4180 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
4182 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
4183 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
4184 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
4185 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
4187 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
4189 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
4191 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
4193 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
4196 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
4199 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
4201 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
4202 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
4203 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
4205 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
4206 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
4208 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
4209 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
4210 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
4212 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
4214 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
4215 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
4216 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
4217 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
4219 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
4220 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
4221 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
4222 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
4224 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
4225 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
4226 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
4229 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
4231 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
4232 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
4233 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
4235 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
4236 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
4237 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
4238 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
4239 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
4240 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
4242 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
4244 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
4245 notably at the end of lines.
4247 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
4248 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
4250 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
4252 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
4253 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
4255 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
4256 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
4257 after each match to get the replacement text.
4259 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
4260 you edit the replacement string.
4262 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
4263 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
4264 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
4266 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
4268 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
4269 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
4271 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
4272 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
4273 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
4274 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
4277 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
4278 read mail from the menu etc.
4280 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
4281 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
4282 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
4283 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
4285 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
4286 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
4288 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
4289 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
4290 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
4291 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
4292 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
4295 ** Customize changes
4297 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
4298 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
4299 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
4300 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
4301 earlier versions of Emacs.
4303 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
4304 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
4307 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
4308 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
4309 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
4310 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
4313 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
4314 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
4315 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
4316 already in your init file.
4318 ** New features in evaluation commands
4320 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
4321 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
4322 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
4323 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
4324 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
4326 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
4327 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
4328 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
4329 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
4332 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
4333 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
4335 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
4336 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
4338 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
4339 code when called with a prefix argument.
4343 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
4344 current user setups (although it's believed that these
4345 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
4346 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
4347 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
4348 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
4351 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
4352 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
4353 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
4356 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
4357 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
4358 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
4359 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
4361 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
4362 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
4364 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
4365 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
4367 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
4368 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
4369 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
4370 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
4372 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
4373 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
4374 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
4375 earlier statement. An example:
4377 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
4379 res += a[i]->offset;
4382 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
4383 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
4384 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
4385 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
4388 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
4391 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
4392 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
4393 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
4394 documentation or other natural language text.
4396 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
4397 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
4398 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
4399 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
4400 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
4401 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
4402 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
4404 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
4405 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
4406 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
4407 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
4409 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
4410 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
4411 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
4412 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
4415 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
4416 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
4417 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
4418 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
4419 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
4420 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
4421 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
4422 is reported afterwards.
4424 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
4425 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
4426 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
4428 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
4429 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
4430 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
4431 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
4432 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
4433 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
4436 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
4437 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
4438 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
4439 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
4440 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
4443 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
4444 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
4445 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
4446 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
4447 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
4448 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
4450 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
4451 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
4452 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
4453 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
4454 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
4455 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
4456 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
4457 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
4459 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
4460 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
4461 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
4462 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
4465 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
4466 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
4467 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
4468 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
4469 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
4470 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
4471 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
4472 function documentation for more info.
4474 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
4475 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
4476 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
4477 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
4478 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
4479 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
4480 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
4481 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
4483 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
4485 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
4486 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
4488 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
4489 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
4490 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
4491 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
4492 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
4495 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
4496 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
4497 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
4500 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
4501 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
4502 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
4503 chapter about this in the manual.
4505 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
4506 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
4507 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
4508 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
4509 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
4511 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
4512 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
4513 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
4515 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
4516 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
4518 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
4519 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
4520 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
4523 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
4524 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
4525 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
4526 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
4529 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
4530 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
4531 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
4532 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
4533 they were before the filling.
4535 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
4536 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
4537 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
4540 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
4541 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
4542 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
4543 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
4546 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
4547 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
4548 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
4549 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
4550 Thanks to Eric Eide.
4552 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
4553 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
4554 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
4556 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
4558 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
4559 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
4560 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
4561 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
4563 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
4564 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
4565 the column specified by comment-column.
4567 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
4568 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
4569 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
4570 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
4571 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
4572 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
4574 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
4575 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
4578 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
4580 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
4581 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
4582 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
4583 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
4586 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
4590 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
4591 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
4592 is, delete only empty directories.
4594 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
4595 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
4596 copy directories recursively.
4598 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
4599 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
4600 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
4602 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
4603 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
4606 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
4607 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
4608 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
4609 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
4610 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
4612 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
4615 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
4616 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
4617 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
4618 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
4622 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
4623 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
4624 internationalization and mail-fetching.
4626 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
4627 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
4629 If you used procmail like in
4631 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
4632 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
4633 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
4634 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
4636 this now has changed to
4639 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
4642 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
4643 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
4645 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
4646 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
4647 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
4648 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
4650 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
4651 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
4652 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
4654 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
4655 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
4656 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
4657 now just a compatibility layer.
4659 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
4662 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
4663 called to position point.
4665 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
4666 summary buffers and NOV files.
4668 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
4669 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
4671 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
4672 subtly different manner.
4674 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
4675 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
4676 ever-changing layouts.
4678 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
4680 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
4682 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
4684 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
4688 -------------------------
4692 C-c C-c q @quotation
4694 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
4697 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
4699 ** Changes in Outline mode.
4701 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
4702 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
4703 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
4705 ** Changes to Emacs Server
4707 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
4708 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
4709 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
4710 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
4711 buffers to kill, as before.
4713 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
4714 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
4717 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
4718 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
4720 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
4722 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
4723 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
4724 use. Default is 1000.
4726 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
4727 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
4729 ** Changes to hideshow.el
4731 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
4733 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
4734 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
4735 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
4736 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
4738 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
4739 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
4740 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
4743 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
4744 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
4745 the normal block-hiding function.
4747 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
4749 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
4750 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
4751 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
4752 for `hs-minor-mode'.
4754 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
4755 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
4757 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
4759 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
4760 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
4761 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
4763 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
4766 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
4769 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
4770 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
4771 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
4772 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
4773 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
4774 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
4776 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
4778 ** Changes to cmuscheme
4780 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
4781 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
4783 ** Changes in Font Lock
4785 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
4786 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
4788 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
4789 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
4791 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
4792 the face used for each string/comment.
4794 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
4795 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
4797 ** Changes to Shell mode
4799 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
4800 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
4801 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
4802 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
4804 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4806 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
4807 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
4809 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
4810 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
4811 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
4812 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
4813 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
4814 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
4816 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
4817 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
4818 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
4819 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
4820 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
4821 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
4822 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
4823 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
4825 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
4826 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
4828 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
4829 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
4830 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
4832 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
4833 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
4834 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
4836 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
4837 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
4838 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
4840 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
4841 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
4842 argument, it appends to the file.
4844 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
4845 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
4848 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
4851 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
4852 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
4853 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
4855 ** Changes to Rmail mode
4857 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
4858 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
4859 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
4860 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
4861 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
4864 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
4865 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
4866 regexp matching your mail addresses.
4868 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
4869 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
4870 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
4871 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
4872 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
4874 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
4877 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
4878 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
4881 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
4882 in which folder to put messages automatically.
4884 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
4885 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
4886 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
4888 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
4889 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
4891 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
4892 use the -f option when sending mail.
4894 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
4895 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
4896 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
4897 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
4898 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
4899 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
4901 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
4902 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
4903 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
4905 ** Changes to TeX mode
4907 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
4910 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
4912 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
4914 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
4916 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4918 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
4919 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
4920 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
4921 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
4922 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
4923 can be edited from that buffer.
4925 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
4926 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
4927 `A' to use all marked entries).
4929 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
4930 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
4932 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
4933 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
4934 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
4937 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
4938 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
4939 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
4940 in column 1 are always made leaves.
4942 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
4943 has the following new features:
4945 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
4946 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
4947 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
4948 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
4950 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
4951 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
4952 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
4953 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
4954 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
4957 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
4962 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
4963 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
4964 spell-checks the current buffer.
4966 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
4969 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
4970 correction is made and re-checked.
4972 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
4974 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
4977 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
4980 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
4983 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
4985 ** Makefile mode changes
4987 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
4989 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
4990 Fontlock mode is active.
4994 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
4995 so that searches can be resumed.
4997 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
4998 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
4999 that started the search.
5001 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
5002 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
5004 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
5006 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
5007 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
5008 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
5009 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
5010 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
5011 `secondary-selection'.
5013 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
5014 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
5015 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
5016 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
5017 usual snappy response.
5019 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
5020 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
5021 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
5022 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
5026 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
5027 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
5028 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
5029 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
5030 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
5031 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
5032 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
5033 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
5034 file is registered in that backend.
5036 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
5037 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
5038 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
5039 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
5040 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
5041 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
5043 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
5044 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
5045 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
5046 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
5047 where it doesn't make sense.)
5049 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
5050 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
5051 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
5055 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
5056 checks are always done now.
5058 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
5061 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
5062 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
5063 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
5065 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
5066 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
5067 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
5068 the working file (``merge news'').
5070 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
5071 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
5074 *** Multiple Backends
5076 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
5077 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
5078 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
5079 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
5082 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
5083 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
5084 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
5085 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
5087 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
5088 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
5089 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
5090 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
5091 current revision number from the more remote backend.
5093 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
5094 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
5095 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
5096 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
5098 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
5099 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
5100 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
5101 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
5105 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
5106 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
5107 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
5108 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
5109 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
5110 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
5111 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
5113 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
5114 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
5115 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
5116 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
5117 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
5118 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
5119 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
5120 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
5121 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
5122 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
5123 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
5126 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
5127 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
5128 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
5129 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
5130 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
5131 entire directory tree.
5133 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
5134 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
5135 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
5136 "watched" by other developers.)
5138 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
5139 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
5140 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
5141 starting at the given directory.
5143 *** Lisp Changes in VC
5145 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
5146 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
5147 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
5148 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
5149 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
5150 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
5151 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
5152 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
5153 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
5155 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
5156 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
5157 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
5158 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
5160 ** New modes and packages
5162 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
5163 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
5164 the default is not applicable.
5166 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
5167 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
5168 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
5172 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
5173 drawn, like this: | \ /
5177 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
5178 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
5179 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
5180 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
5181 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
5184 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
5185 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
5187 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
5190 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
5191 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
5192 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
5193 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
5195 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
5196 also do without the mouse.
5198 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
5199 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
5200 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
5201 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
5202 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
5204 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
5206 lines straight-lines
5208 poly-lines straight poly-lines
5210 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
5211 spray-can setting size for spraying
5212 vaporize line vaporize lines
5213 erase characters erase rectangles
5215 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
5216 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
5217 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
5220 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
5221 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
5222 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
5223 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
5225 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
5228 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
5229 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
5230 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
5231 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
5232 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
5233 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
5234 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
5235 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
5236 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
5238 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
5239 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
5240 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
5241 on certain projects.
5243 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
5244 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
5246 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
5248 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
5249 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
5250 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
5251 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
5252 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
5253 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
5254 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
5255 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
5257 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
5260 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
5261 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
5263 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
5264 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
5266 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
5267 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
5268 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
5269 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
5270 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
5272 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
5273 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
5274 separate Texinfo file.
5276 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
5277 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
5278 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
5279 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
5280 enter check-in log messages.
5282 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
5283 without invoking external programs.
5285 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
5286 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
5287 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
5288 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
5289 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
5291 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
5292 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
5294 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
5295 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
5297 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
5298 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
5299 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
5300 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
5301 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
5304 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
5305 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
5306 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
5307 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
5309 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
5310 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
5311 actually modifying content of a buffer.
5313 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
5316 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
5318 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
5320 ; comment (until end of line)
5324 $A default non-terminal
5325 $"C" default terminal
5326 $?C? default special
5327 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
5328 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
5329 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
5330 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
5331 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
5332 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
5333 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
5334 C+ one or more occurrences of C
5335 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
5336 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
5337 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
5338 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
5339 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
5340 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
5341 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
5343 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
5345 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
5346 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
5347 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
5348 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
5349 equal signs of assignments.
5351 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
5352 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
5354 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
5355 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
5356 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
5358 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
5360 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
5361 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
5362 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
5363 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
5364 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
5365 which answers different needs.
5367 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
5368 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
5369 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
5370 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
5371 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
5374 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
5375 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
5377 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
5379 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
5380 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
5381 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
5383 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
5385 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
5386 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
5387 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
5388 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
5389 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
5390 and background colors.
5392 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
5395 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
5398 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
5400 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
5402 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
5403 whitespace in a file.
5405 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
5406 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
5407 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
5408 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
5409 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
5410 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
5411 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
5413 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
5415 Here is an example of columns:
5418 dog pineapple car EXTRA
5419 porcupine strawberry airplane
5421 Doing the following settings:
5423 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
5424 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
5425 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
5426 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
5429 Selecting the lines above and typing:
5431 M-x delimit-columns-region
5435 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
5436 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
5437 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
5439 delim-col has the following options:
5441 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
5444 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
5445 between each column.
5447 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
5450 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
5453 delim-col has the following commands:
5455 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
5456 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
5458 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
5459 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
5460 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
5461 recent file list can be displayed:
5463 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
5464 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
5465 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
5467 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
5468 dynamically change the menu appearance.
5470 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
5473 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
5474 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
5475 specific to Message mode.
5477 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
5478 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
5479 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
5481 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
5482 interface to access directory servers using different directory
5483 protocols. It has a separate manual.
5485 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
5486 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
5488 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
5490 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
5491 minibuffer with completion.
5493 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
5494 with the diary features.
5496 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
5497 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
5499 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
5502 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
5503 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
5504 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
5505 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
5507 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
5508 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
5511 ** Changes in sort.el
5513 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
5514 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
5515 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
5518 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
5520 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
5521 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
5522 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
5524 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
5525 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
5527 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
5528 output ^M at the end of lines.
5530 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
5531 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
5533 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
5534 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
5537 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
5540 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
5541 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
5544 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
5545 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
5546 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
5547 nil -- just delete one character.
5549 Default value is `untabify'.
5551 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
5553 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
5554 symbol, not double-quoted.
5556 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
5557 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
5558 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
5559 moved to lisp/obsolete.
5561 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
5562 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
5563 `auto-compression-mode' command.
5565 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
5566 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
5567 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
5569 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
5570 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
5572 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
5573 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
5575 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
5576 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
5578 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
5579 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
5580 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
5581 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
5582 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
5583 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
5585 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
5586 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
5588 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
5590 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
5591 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
5593 ** Shell script mode changes.
5595 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
5596 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
5597 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
5601 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
5603 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
5604 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
5605 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
5606 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
5607 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
5609 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
5610 declarations when given the --declarations option.
5612 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
5613 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
5615 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
5616 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
5617 `template' keywords.
5619 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
5620 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
5622 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
5625 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
5627 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
5629 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
5632 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
5634 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
5635 variables are tagged.
5637 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
5639 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
5642 ** Changes in etags.el
5644 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
5645 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
5646 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
5648 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
5649 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
5651 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
5652 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
5653 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
5654 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
5656 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
5658 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
5659 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
5661 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
5663 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
5664 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
5665 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
5667 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
5668 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
5670 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
5671 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
5673 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
5674 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
5675 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
5676 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
5677 point will go to the beginning of the file.
5679 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
5680 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
5681 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
5683 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
5684 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
5685 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
5687 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
5688 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
5689 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
5691 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
5693 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
5695 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
5696 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
5697 expression from that list, are not checked.
5699 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
5700 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
5701 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
5702 the buffer, just like for the local files.
5704 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
5706 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
5707 displays local abbrevs, only.
5709 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
5710 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
5712 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
5713 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
5714 is measured in pixels.
5716 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
5717 to be visited as images.
5719 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
5720 were added to compile.el.
5722 ** Withdrawn packages
5724 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
5725 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
5727 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
5729 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
5732 * Incompatible Lisp changes
5734 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
5735 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
5736 See the sections below for details.
5738 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
5739 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
5740 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
5741 to remove the properties of the copy.
5743 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
5744 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
5745 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
5746 these properties are active.
5748 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
5749 ranges may affect some code.
5751 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
5752 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
5753 make a difference to some code.
5755 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
5756 operates on the minibuffer.
5758 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
5759 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
5760 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
5761 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
5762 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
5763 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
5764 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
5765 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
5766 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
5767 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
5768 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
5769 the buffer as multibyte characters.
5771 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
5772 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
5773 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
5775 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
5776 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
5777 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
5779 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
5780 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
5781 such as `mapconcat'.
5783 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
5786 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
5787 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
5788 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
5789 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
5790 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
5791 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
5792 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
5793 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
5795 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
5796 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
5797 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
5798 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
5799 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
5800 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
5801 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
5802 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
5803 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
5804 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
5807 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
5808 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
5810 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
5812 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
5813 allows the animated display of strings.
5815 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
5816 interactive form of a function.
5818 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
5819 between custom options. Example:
5821 (defcustom default-input-method nil
5822 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
5823 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
5824 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
5826 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
5827 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
5829 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
5830 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
5831 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
5833 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
5834 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
5835 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
5836 (signal or normal termination).
5838 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
5839 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
5841 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5842 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5844 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
5845 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
5847 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
5849 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
5850 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
5853 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
5855 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
5856 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
5857 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
5858 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
5859 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
5862 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
5863 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
5866 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
5867 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
5869 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
5870 with the more general `:mask' property.
5872 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
5874 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
5877 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
5878 is running in batch mode. For example,
5880 (message "%s" (read t))
5882 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
5885 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
5886 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
5888 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
5889 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
5892 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
5895 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
5897 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
5898 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
5900 - Function: remq ELT LIST
5902 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
5903 comparison is done with `eq'.
5905 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
5907 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
5908 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
5909 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
5911 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
5912 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
5913 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
5915 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
5916 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
5918 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
5919 function was declared obsolete.
5921 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
5922 retained as an alias).
5924 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
5925 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
5926 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
5928 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
5930 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
5932 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
5933 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
5934 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
5935 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
5936 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
5937 means never include the minibuffer window.
5939 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
5941 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
5943 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
5945 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
5946 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
5947 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
5948 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
5951 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
5952 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
5953 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
5954 minibuffer even if it is active.
5956 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
5957 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
5958 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
5959 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
5960 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
5961 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
5963 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
5964 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
5965 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
5966 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
5967 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
5968 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
5969 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
5971 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
5972 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
5973 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
5975 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
5976 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
5977 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
5978 Default value is nil.
5980 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
5983 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
5984 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
5985 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
5987 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
5988 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
5989 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
5991 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
5992 list of a primitive.
5994 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
5996 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
5997 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
5998 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
5999 than replacing the local map.
6001 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
6002 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
6003 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
6006 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
6008 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
6009 as promised long ago.
6011 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
6013 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
6014 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
6015 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
6018 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
6020 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
6021 regular expressions.
6023 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
6025 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
6029 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
6031 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
6035 matches string STRING literally.
6038 matches character CHAR literally.
6041 matches any character except a newline.
6044 matches any character
6047 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
6048 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
6054 matches any character not in SET
6057 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
6058 in the text being matched
6061 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
6064 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
6065 string being matched against.
6068 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
6069 string being matched against.
6072 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
6073 buffer being matched against.
6076 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
6077 buffer being matched against.
6080 matches the empty string, but only at point.
6083 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
6087 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
6090 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
6093 `(not word-boundary)'
6094 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
6098 matches 0 through 9.
6101 matches ASCII control characters.
6104 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
6107 matches space and tab only.
6110 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
6114 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
6118 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6119 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6122 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6123 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6126 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
6129 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
6132 matches anything lower-case.
6135 matches anything upper-case.
6138 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6139 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
6142 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
6145 matches anything that has word syntax.
6148 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
6149 of the following symbols.
6151 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
6152 `punctuation' (\\s.)
6155 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
6156 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
6157 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
6158 `string-quote' (\\s\")
6159 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
6161 `character-quote' (\\s/)
6162 `comment-start' (\\s<)
6163 `comment-end' (\\s>)
6165 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
6166 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
6168 `(category CATEGORY)'
6169 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
6170 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
6172 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
6174 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
6175 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
6179 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
6181 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
6182 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
6183 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
6184 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
6185 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
6186 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
6187 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
6188 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
6189 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
6190 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
6191 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
6200 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
6204 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
6211 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
6212 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
6214 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6215 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
6217 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6218 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
6219 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
6221 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6222 another name for `submatch'.
6224 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6225 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
6226 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
6229 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
6230 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
6231 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
6232 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
6233 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
6235 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
6236 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
6238 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
6239 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6242 like `zero-or-more'.
6245 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6248 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6250 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
6251 matches one or more occurrences of A.
6257 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6260 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6262 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
6263 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
6269 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6272 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6275 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6278 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6281 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
6285 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
6287 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
6289 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
6290 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
6291 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
6292 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
6294 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
6295 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
6296 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
6297 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
6299 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
6300 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
6301 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
6303 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
6304 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
6305 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
6306 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
6307 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
6308 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
6309 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
6312 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
6314 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
6315 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
6316 character set as previously.
6318 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
6319 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
6320 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
6322 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
6323 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
6324 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
6325 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
6327 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
6328 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
6330 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
6331 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
6334 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
6335 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
6337 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
6338 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
6339 buffers and strings.
6341 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
6342 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
6343 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
6344 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
6345 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
6346 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
6347 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
6350 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
6351 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
6352 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
6354 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
6355 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
6356 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
6357 may differ between buffer and string text.
6359 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
6360 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
6362 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
6363 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
6364 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
6365 `composition' from STRING.
6367 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
6368 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
6370 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
6373 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
6374 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
6376 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
6377 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
6378 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
6379 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
6381 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
6382 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
6383 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
6384 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
6385 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
6386 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
6388 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
6389 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
6390 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
6392 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
6393 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
6394 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
6396 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
6397 have been introduced.
6399 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
6400 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
6401 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
6402 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
6403 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
6404 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
6405 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
6406 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
6407 their multibyte equivalent.
6409 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
6410 that offset in the file before writing.
6412 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
6413 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
6415 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
6416 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
6417 from which the command was issued.
6419 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
6420 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
6421 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
6422 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
6425 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
6426 to `window-buffer-height'.
6428 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
6430 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
6431 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
6432 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
6434 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
6437 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
6438 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
6440 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
6441 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
6442 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
6444 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
6445 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
6446 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
6447 is currently displayed in some window.
6449 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
6450 argument function's results.
6452 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
6453 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
6454 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
6455 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
6458 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
6459 header in the list of headers passed to it.
6461 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
6462 ignores differences in case and text representation.
6464 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
6465 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
6468 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
6469 nil don't display a cursor
6470 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
6471 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
6472 others display a box cursor.
6474 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
6475 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
6476 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
6477 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
6479 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
6480 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
6481 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
6482 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
6486 (string-to-syntax "()")
6489 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
6492 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
6493 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
6500 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
6505 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
6510 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
6517 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
6518 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
6521 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
6522 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
6523 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
6524 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
6526 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
6528 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
6529 for a regexp in a string.
6531 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
6532 `mouse-position-function'.
6534 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
6535 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
6537 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
6538 Keywords are now always considered constants.
6540 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
6543 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
6544 returned by function `recent-keys'.
6546 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
6547 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
6548 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
6549 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
6552 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
6553 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
6555 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
6556 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
6557 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
6558 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
6561 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
6562 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
6563 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
6564 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
6566 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
6567 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
6568 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
6570 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
6571 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
6574 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
6576 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
6577 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
6578 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
6581 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
6582 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
6583 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
6584 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
6585 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
6587 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
6588 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
6590 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
6591 instead of being optional.
6593 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
6594 modify read-only text.
6596 ** New functions and variables for locales.
6598 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
6599 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
6600 time functions like strftime. The new variables
6601 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
6602 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
6604 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
6605 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
6606 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
6607 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
6608 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
6609 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
6610 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
6612 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
6613 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
6614 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
6617 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
6618 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
6620 ** New function `propertize'
6622 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
6623 strings with text properties.
6625 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
6627 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
6628 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
6629 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
6630 specified value of that property. Example:
6632 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
6634 ** push and pop macros.
6636 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
6637 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
6638 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
6640 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
6641 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
6642 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
6644 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
6646 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
6647 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
6649 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
6650 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
6651 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
6652 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6654 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
6655 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
6656 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
6657 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6659 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
6660 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
6661 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
6664 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
6665 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
6666 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
6667 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
6668 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
6670 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
6672 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
6673 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6674 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6675 [:alpha:] matches letters.
6676 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6677 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6678 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
6679 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
6680 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
6681 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
6682 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6683 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
6684 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
6685 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
6686 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
6688 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
6690 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
6692 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
6694 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
6695 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
6699 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
6700 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
6701 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
6705 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
6706 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
6708 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
6710 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
6711 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
6712 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
6713 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
6714 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
6716 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
6718 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
6719 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
6720 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
6724 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
6725 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
6726 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
6727 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
6728 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
6730 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
6732 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
6734 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
6736 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
6738 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
6740 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
6743 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
6745 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
6747 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6749 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
6751 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
6753 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
6755 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6757 Returns the size of TABLE.
6759 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
6761 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
6763 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
6765 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
6767 - Function: clrhash TABLE
6771 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
6773 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
6776 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
6778 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
6779 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
6781 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
6783 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
6785 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
6787 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
6788 arguments KEY and VALUE.
6790 - Function: sxhash OBJ
6792 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
6794 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
6796 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
6797 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
6798 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
6799 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
6800 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
6802 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
6804 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
6805 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
6806 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
6808 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
6809 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
6811 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
6812 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
6814 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
6815 (sxhash (upcase a)))
6817 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
6818 'case-fold-string-hash))
6820 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
6822 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
6824 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
6825 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
6826 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
6828 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
6830 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
6831 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
6833 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
6834 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
6835 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
6836 is too short to reach that column.
6838 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
6839 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
6840 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
6841 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
6843 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
6844 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
6845 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
6847 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
6848 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
6850 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
6851 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
6853 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
6854 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
6855 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
6856 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
6857 temporary-file-directory instead.
6859 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
6860 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
6861 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
6862 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
6864 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
6865 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
6867 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
6869 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
6870 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
6871 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
6873 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
6875 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
6876 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
6877 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
6878 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
6879 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
6880 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
6882 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
6883 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
6884 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
6885 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
6887 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
6889 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
6890 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
6891 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
6894 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
6895 string where arguments appear in the result string.
6899 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
6901 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
6902 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
6905 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
6907 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
6909 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
6910 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
6913 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
6915 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
6916 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
6921 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
6922 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
6924 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
6925 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
6926 to enable sound support.
6928 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
6929 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
6930 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
6931 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
6932 sound to play, before playing the sound.
6934 The following sound properties are supported:
6938 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
6939 searched relative to `data-directory'.
6943 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
6944 may be present, but not both.
6948 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
6949 0..1. This property is optional.
6953 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
6954 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
6956 Other properties are ignored.
6958 An alternative interface is called as
6959 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
6961 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
6963 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
6966 ** Changes to garbage collection
6968 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
6969 of live and free strings.
6971 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
6972 strings that have been consed so far.
6975 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
6978 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
6981 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
6982 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
6983 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
6985 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
6987 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
6989 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
6992 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
6994 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
6996 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
6997 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
6998 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
6999 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
7000 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
7002 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
7005 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
7007 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
7008 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
7009 or omitted means use the selected frame.
7011 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
7012 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
7014 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
7017 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
7021 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
7023 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
7024 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
7026 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
7027 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
7028 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
7029 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
7030 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
7031 just display it black instead.
7033 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
7036 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
7040 ** New face implementation.
7042 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
7043 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
7047 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
7049 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
7051 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
7052 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
7054 3. Font height in 1/10pt
7056 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
7058 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
7060 6. Foreground color.
7062 7. Background color.
7064 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
7066 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
7068 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
7070 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
7072 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
7075 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
7076 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
7078 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
7079 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
7080 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
7081 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
7082 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
7083 attributes mentioned above.
7085 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
7086 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
7089 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
7090 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
7095 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
7096 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
7097 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
7098 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
7099 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
7100 results in a fully-specified face.
7102 *** Face realization.
7104 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
7105 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
7106 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
7107 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
7108 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
7109 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
7111 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
7112 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
7113 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
7114 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
7116 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
7117 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
7118 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
7119 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
7120 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
7122 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
7123 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
7124 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
7125 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
7126 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
7129 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
7130 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
7131 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
7132 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
7134 **** Clearing face caches.
7136 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
7137 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
7142 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
7143 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
7144 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
7146 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
7147 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
7148 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
7149 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
7150 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
7152 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
7153 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
7154 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
7156 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
7158 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
7159 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
7160 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
7161 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
7162 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
7163 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
7164 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
7166 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
7167 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
7170 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
7171 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
7174 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
7177 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
7182 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
7183 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
7186 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
7187 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
7188 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
7189 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
7190 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
7193 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
7195 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
7197 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
7199 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
7201 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
7202 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
7203 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
7205 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
7206 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
7207 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
7208 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
7209 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
7210 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
7211 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
7212 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
7213 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
7214 of the face font sort order.
7216 - Function: x-font-family-list
7218 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
7219 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
7220 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
7221 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
7223 - Variable: font-list-limit
7225 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
7226 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
7227 matching font. The default is currently 100.
7229 *** Setting face attributes.
7231 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
7232 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
7233 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
7236 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
7237 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
7239 The following attributes are recognized:
7243 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
7244 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
7245 and `?' are allowed.
7249 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
7250 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
7251 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
7252 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
7256 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
7257 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
7258 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
7259 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
7263 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
7264 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
7265 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
7269 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
7270 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
7273 `:foreground', `:background'
7275 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
7279 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
7280 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
7281 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
7286 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
7287 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
7288 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
7293 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
7294 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
7295 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
7296 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
7300 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
7301 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
7302 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
7303 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
7304 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
7305 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
7306 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
7307 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
7308 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
7309 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
7310 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
7311 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
7312 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
7313 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
7314 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
7315 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
7320 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
7321 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
7325 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
7326 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
7327 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
7328 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
7329 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
7330 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
7332 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
7333 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
7337 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
7338 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
7339 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
7342 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
7343 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
7344 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
7346 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
7351 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
7352 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
7353 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
7355 *** Face attributes and X resources
7357 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
7360 Face attribute X resource class
7361 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
7362 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
7363 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
7364 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
7365 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
7366 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
7367 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
7368 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
7369 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
7370 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
7371 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
7372 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
7373 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
7374 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
7375 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
7376 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
7377 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
7378 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
7379 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
7380 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
7382 *** Text property `face'.
7384 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
7385 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
7386 specification can be
7388 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
7390 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
7391 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
7392 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
7393 for face attribute names.
7395 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
7396 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
7397 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
7399 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
7401 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
7402 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
7403 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
7404 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
7405 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
7406 used to clear the mapping table.
7408 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
7410 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
7411 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
7412 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
7413 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
7414 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
7415 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
7416 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
7417 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
7418 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
7419 modify their color-related behavior.
7421 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
7424 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
7426 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
7427 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
7428 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
7429 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
7430 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
7431 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
7432 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
7433 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
7434 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
7436 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
7437 display can display image files.
7439 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
7441 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
7442 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
7443 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
7444 `Inviolable' option.
7446 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
7447 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
7448 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
7450 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
7452 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
7453 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
7454 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
7456 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
7457 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
7458 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
7459 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
7460 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
7461 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
7462 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
7465 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
7466 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
7467 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
7469 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
7471 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
7473 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
7475 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7476 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
7477 constrained position if that is different.
7479 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
7480 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
7481 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
7482 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
7483 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7484 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
7485 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
7486 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
7487 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
7489 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
7490 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
7491 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
7492 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
7493 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
7495 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
7496 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
7498 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
7500 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
7502 Delete the field surrounding POS.
7503 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7504 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7506 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7508 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
7509 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7510 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7511 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
7512 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
7514 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7516 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
7517 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7518 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7519 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
7520 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
7522 - Function: field-string &optional POS
7524 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
7525 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7526 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7528 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
7530 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
7531 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7532 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7536 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
7537 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
7538 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
7539 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
7541 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
7542 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
7543 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
7544 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
7547 IMAGE is an image specification.
7549 *** Image specifications
7551 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
7552 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
7553 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
7554 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
7555 described below are ignored.
7557 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
7561 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
7562 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
7563 to use for its ascent.
7565 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
7566 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
7568 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
7569 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
7570 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
7571 overlays that apply to the image.
7575 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
7576 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
7577 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
7581 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
7586 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
7588 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
7589 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
7591 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
7592 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
7593 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
7594 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
7595 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
7596 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
7597 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
7598 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
7601 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
7603 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
7605 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
7606 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
7607 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
7608 of the factors' absolute values.
7610 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
7616 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
7622 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
7627 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
7628 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
7629 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
7630 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
7631 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
7632 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
7633 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
7636 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
7637 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
7642 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
7643 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
7644 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
7645 may be present in the image specification.
7649 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
7650 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
7651 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
7652 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
7654 *** Supported image types
7656 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
7658 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
7659 properties supported are:
7663 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7664 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7668 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7669 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7671 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
7672 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
7673 instead of a `:file' property.
7677 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
7681 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
7687 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
7688 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
7690 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
7692 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
7695 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
7696 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
7699 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
7701 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
7702 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
7703 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
7704 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
7706 Additional image properties supported are:
7708 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
7710 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
7711 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
7714 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
7715 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
7717 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
7718 to display compressed images.
7720 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
7722 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
7723 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
7728 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7729 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7733 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7734 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7736 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
7738 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
7739 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7742 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
7744 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
7745 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7748 **** GIF, image type `gif'
7750 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
7751 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
7753 Additional image properties supported are:
7757 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
7758 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
7761 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
7762 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
7763 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
7766 (defun show-anim (file max)
7767 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
7768 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
7770 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
7773 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
7776 (goto-char (point-min))
7777 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
7778 (insert-image img "x"))
7779 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
7781 **** PNG, image type `png'
7783 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
7784 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7787 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
7789 Additional image properties supported are:
7793 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
7794 integer. This is a required property.
7798 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
7799 must be a integer. This is an required property.
7803 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
7804 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
7805 files. This is an required property.
7807 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
7812 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
7813 which are supported in the current configuration.
7815 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
7816 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
7817 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
7818 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
7819 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
7821 *** Simplified image API, image.el
7823 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
7824 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
7825 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
7826 define an image based on available image types. The functions
7827 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
7832 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
7835 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
7836 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
7837 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
7838 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
7839 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
7840 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
7841 of the display margins.
7843 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
7844 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
7845 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
7846 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
7851 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
7852 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
7853 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
7854 that have a `help-echo' property.
7856 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
7857 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
7858 the window in which the help was found.
7860 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
7861 `help-echo' text property was found.
7863 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
7864 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
7866 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
7867 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
7870 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
7871 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
7873 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
7874 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
7875 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
7876 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
7877 used as help string.
7879 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
7880 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
7881 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
7883 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
7885 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
7886 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
7888 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
7889 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
7890 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
7891 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
7894 (global-set-key [A-down]
7897 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7898 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
7899 (global-set-key [A-up]
7902 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7903 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
7905 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
7907 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
7908 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
7909 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
7910 is called with one argument, POS.
7912 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
7913 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
7914 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
7915 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
7916 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
7918 ** Tool bar support.
7920 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
7921 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
7922 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
7923 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
7924 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
7925 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
7927 *** Tool bar item definitions
7929 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
7930 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
7931 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
7933 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
7934 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
7935 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
7936 property (see below).
7938 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
7939 binding are currently ignored.
7941 The following properties are recognized:
7945 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
7950 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
7954 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
7955 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
7956 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
7958 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
7960 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
7961 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
7965 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
7966 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
7967 meaning of each of the four elements:
7969 Index Use when item is
7970 ----------------------------------------
7971 0 enabled and selected
7972 1 enabled and deselected
7973 2 disabled and selected
7974 3 disabled and deselected
7976 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
7977 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
7979 `:help HELP-STRING'.
7981 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
7982 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
7984 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
7985 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
7986 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
7989 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
7990 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
7991 buffer-locally to override the global map.
7993 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
7995 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
7996 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
7997 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
7999 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
8000 raised when the mouse moves over them.
8002 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
8003 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
8004 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
8005 vertical margins . Default is 1.
8007 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
8008 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
8010 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
8012 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
8015 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
8016 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
8017 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
8019 is the original tool bar item definition, then
8021 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
8023 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
8026 ** Mode line changes.
8028 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
8030 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
8031 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
8032 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
8034 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
8035 a `local-map' text property.
8037 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
8038 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
8040 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
8041 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
8042 `local-map' property.
8044 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
8045 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
8048 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
8049 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
8051 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
8052 variable mode-line-format to nil.
8054 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
8056 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
8057 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
8058 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
8059 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
8062 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
8065 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
8066 position in the header-line.
8068 ** Text property `display'
8070 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
8071 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
8072 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
8073 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
8074 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
8076 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
8078 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
8079 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
8081 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
8082 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
8083 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
8084 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
8085 simpler form STRING as property value.
8087 *** Variable width and height spaces
8089 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
8090 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
8091 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
8092 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
8093 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
8094 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
8095 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
8097 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
8098 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
8099 properties described below.
8101 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
8102 characters having the `display' property.
8106 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
8107 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
8109 - :relative-width FACTOR
8111 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
8112 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
8113 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
8114 width of that character by FACTOR.
8118 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
8119 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
8121 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
8125 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
8128 - :relative-height FACTOR
8130 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
8131 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
8135 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
8136 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
8137 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
8140 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
8144 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
8145 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
8146 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
8147 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
8148 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
8149 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
8150 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
8151 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
8152 as display specification.
8154 *** Other display properties
8156 - (space-width FACTOR)
8158 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
8159 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
8164 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
8166 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
8167 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
8168 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
8169 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
8170 a font is available counts as a step.
8172 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
8173 as tall as the frame's default font.
8175 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
8176 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
8178 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
8179 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
8183 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
8184 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
8185 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
8186 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
8187 `height' subproperty.
8189 *** Conditional display properties
8191 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
8192 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
8193 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
8194 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
8195 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
8196 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
8197 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
8198 different when object is a string.
8200 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
8203 ** New menu separator types.
8205 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
8206 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
8207 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
8208 to specify other menu separator types.
8210 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
8212 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
8215 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
8217 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
8219 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
8221 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
8223 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
8225 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
8227 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
8229 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
8231 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
8233 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
8234 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
8236 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
8238 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
8240 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
8242 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
8244 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
8246 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
8248 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
8250 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
8252 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
8254 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
8256 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
8258 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
8260 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
8262 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
8264 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
8265 the corresponding single-line separators.
8267 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
8269 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
8270 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
8271 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
8272 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
8273 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
8274 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
8275 default foreground is black.
8277 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
8278 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
8279 `ScrollBarBackground').
8281 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
8282 settings for scroll bar colors.
8284 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
8285 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
8287 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
8288 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
8289 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
8290 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
8291 the original window start.
8293 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
8294 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
8295 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
8297 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
8299 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
8300 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
8301 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
8302 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
8304 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
8305 fixed-width and fixed-height.
8307 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
8309 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
8310 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
8311 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
8312 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
8313 temporarily to nil, for example
8315 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
8316 (enlarge-window 10))
8318 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
8319 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
8321 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
8322 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
8323 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
8324 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
8325 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
8326 support a vertical-bar cursor).
8330 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
8332 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
8335 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
8337 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
8339 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
8340 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
8341 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
8342 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
8343 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
8345 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
8349 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
8351 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
8355 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
8357 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
8358 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
8360 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
8362 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
8364 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
8365 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
8366 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
8368 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
8369 is the one that is used.
8371 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
8372 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
8373 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
8374 separate from the command's regular output.
8375 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
8376 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
8377 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
8380 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
8381 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
8382 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
8383 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
8385 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
8386 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
8387 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
8388 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
8390 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
8391 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
8392 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
8393 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
8395 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
8396 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
8397 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
8398 they never ignore case.
8400 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
8401 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
8402 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
8403 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
8404 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
8405 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
8406 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
8408 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
8409 the same format that was used in the file before.
8411 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
8412 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
8414 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
8415 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
8416 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
8418 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
8419 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
8420 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
8421 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
8422 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
8423 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
8424 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
8426 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
8427 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
8428 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
8429 format. You can now customize these variables.
8431 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
8432 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
8433 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
8434 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
8436 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
8437 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
8438 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
8440 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
8441 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
8442 doesn't have any effect.
8444 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
8447 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
8448 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
8449 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
8451 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
8452 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
8453 `auto-show-mode' command.
8455 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
8456 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
8457 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
8458 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
8459 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
8461 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
8462 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
8464 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
8465 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
8466 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
8468 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
8469 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
8470 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
8471 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
8473 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
8475 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
8476 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
8477 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
8478 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
8479 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
8481 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
8482 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
8484 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
8485 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
8486 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
8487 `?' on other systems.
8489 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
8490 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
8493 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
8494 current codepage when it starts.
8498 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
8499 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
8500 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
8501 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
8502 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
8503 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
8507 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
8508 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
8510 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
8511 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
8512 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
8513 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
8514 buffer-file-coding-system.
8516 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
8517 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
8520 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
8521 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
8522 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
8523 list of possible coding systems.
8527 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
8528 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
8529 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
8530 docstring for details.
8532 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
8533 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
8534 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
8535 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
8536 lineup functions use this feature currently.
8538 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
8539 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
8541 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
8542 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
8544 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
8545 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
8546 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
8547 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
8550 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
8551 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
8553 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
8554 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
8555 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
8556 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
8558 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
8559 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
8560 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
8561 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
8562 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
8564 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
8566 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
8568 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
8569 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
8571 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
8573 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
8574 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
8575 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
8576 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
8577 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
8581 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
8582 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
8583 Gnus manual for the full story.
8585 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
8586 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
8587 group, which is created automatically.
8589 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
8592 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
8594 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
8595 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
8597 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
8600 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
8602 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
8603 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
8605 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
8607 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
8608 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
8610 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
8611 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
8613 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
8614 control over simplification.
8616 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
8618 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
8621 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
8623 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
8625 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
8626 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
8627 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
8629 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
8630 `a' forces normal posting method.
8632 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
8635 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
8638 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
8639 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
8641 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
8644 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
8646 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
8648 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
8649 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
8651 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
8652 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
8654 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
8656 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
8659 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
8660 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
8662 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
8663 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
8665 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
8667 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
8669 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
8671 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
8673 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
8674 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
8675 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
8677 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
8678 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
8679 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
8680 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
8681 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
8683 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
8684 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
8685 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
8686 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
8688 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
8689 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
8690 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
8693 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
8695 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
8696 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
8698 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
8699 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
8700 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
8701 removed from the label.
8703 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
8704 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
8706 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
8707 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
8709 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
8710 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
8713 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
8715 ** New/deleted modes and packages
8717 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
8718 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
8720 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
8721 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
8722 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
8724 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
8725 changes with a special face.
8727 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
8728 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
8729 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
8731 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
8733 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
8734 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
8735 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
8736 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
8737 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
8739 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
8740 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
8741 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
8743 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
8744 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
8745 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
8746 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
8747 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
8748 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
8749 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
8750 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
8751 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
8753 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
8754 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
8755 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
8756 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
8757 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
8760 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
8761 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
8762 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
8763 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
8764 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
8765 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
8767 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
8768 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
8769 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
8770 was not documented clearly before.
8772 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
8773 This includes Tetris and Snake.
8775 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
8777 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
8778 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
8779 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
8780 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
8782 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
8783 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
8784 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
8786 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
8788 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
8789 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
8791 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
8792 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
8795 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
8796 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
8797 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
8798 file names and attributes are returned.
8800 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
8801 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
8802 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
8803 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
8806 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
8807 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
8809 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
8811 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
8812 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
8813 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
8816 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
8817 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
8820 The new function process-running-child-p
8821 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
8822 terminal to its own child process.
8824 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
8825 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
8826 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
8827 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
8829 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
8830 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
8832 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
8833 :included is an alias for :visible.
8835 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
8836 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
8837 to move or copy menu entries.
8839 ** Multibyte editing changes
8841 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
8842 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
8843 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
8844 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
8845 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
8846 (setq char (sref str idx)
8847 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
8848 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
8850 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
8851 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
8852 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
8854 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
8855 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
8856 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
8858 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
8860 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
8861 across the boundary.
8863 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
8864 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
8865 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
8866 contains 8-bit characters.
8867 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
8868 contains invalid characters.
8870 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
8871 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
8872 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
8873 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
8876 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
8877 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
8878 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
8879 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
8881 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
8882 compose Thai characters in a string.
8884 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
8885 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
8886 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
8887 menus should always use the third argument.
8889 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
8890 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
8891 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
8892 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
8894 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
8895 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
8896 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
8897 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
8899 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
8900 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
8901 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
8904 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
8906 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
8907 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
8908 requested feature cannot be loaded.
8910 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
8911 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
8912 means to clear out that attribute.
8914 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
8915 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
8917 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
8918 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
8919 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
8920 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
8922 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
8923 the gap of the current buffer.
8925 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
8926 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
8929 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
8930 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
8931 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
8932 it back in after any modifications have been made.
8934 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
8936 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
8937 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
8938 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
8939 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
8940 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
8942 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
8943 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
8944 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
8945 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
8946 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
8948 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
8949 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
8950 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
8952 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
8953 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
8954 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
8955 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
8956 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
8959 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
8960 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
8961 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
8962 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
8964 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
8966 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
8967 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
8968 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
8969 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
8971 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
8972 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
8973 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
8974 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
8975 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
8976 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
8977 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
8980 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
8983 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
8984 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
8985 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
8986 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
8987 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
8989 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
8990 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
8991 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
8992 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
8994 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
8995 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
8996 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
8997 something that most users not do.
8999 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
9000 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
9001 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
9004 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
9007 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
9008 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
9009 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
9010 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
9013 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
9014 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
9015 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
9016 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
9017 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
9020 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
9021 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
9022 to be confused by TeX commands.
9024 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
9025 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
9026 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
9027 of various alternative replacements and actions.
9029 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
9030 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
9031 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
9032 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
9033 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
9035 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
9036 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
9038 ** Changes in input method usage.
9040 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
9041 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
9044 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
9046 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
9047 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
9049 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
9050 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
9052 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
9054 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
9056 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
9057 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
9059 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
9060 given in the following case:
9061 o When you are using a complex input method.
9062 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
9064 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
9065 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
9066 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
9067 setting it to t is helpful.
9069 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
9071 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
9073 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
9074 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
9075 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
9076 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
9079 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
9080 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
9081 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
9084 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
9086 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
9088 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
9089 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
9091 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
9092 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
9093 its owner and group.
9095 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
9096 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
9098 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
9099 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
9101 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
9102 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
9103 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
9104 by the left edge of the rectangle.
9106 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
9107 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
9108 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
9109 for writing keyboard macros.
9111 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
9112 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
9113 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
9114 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
9115 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
9118 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
9120 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
9121 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
9124 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
9125 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
9126 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
9127 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
9129 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
9130 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
9131 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
9133 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
9134 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
9135 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
9136 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
9138 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
9139 failure if the command produces no output.
9141 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
9142 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
9145 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
9146 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
9147 function and variable names.
9149 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
9150 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
9151 file-coding-system-alist.
9153 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
9154 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
9155 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
9156 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
9157 according to the current fontset.
9159 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
9161 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
9162 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
9163 nonascii-insert-offset.
9165 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
9166 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
9167 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
9168 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
9170 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
9171 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
9173 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
9174 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
9176 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
9177 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
9180 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
9181 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
9183 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
9184 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
9185 all variables that have documentation.
9187 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
9188 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
9189 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
9190 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
9191 it should show; the default is 20.
9193 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
9194 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
9197 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
9198 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
9199 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
9200 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
9201 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
9202 Newly added options are included as well.
9204 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
9205 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
9206 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
9208 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
9211 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
9212 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
9214 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
9215 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
9218 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
9219 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
9222 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
9223 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
9224 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
9225 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
9228 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
9230 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
9231 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
9232 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
9234 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
9235 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
9236 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
9241 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
9242 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
9244 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
9245 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
9247 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
9248 read and post multi-lingual articles.
9250 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
9251 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
9252 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
9253 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
9254 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
9255 made invisible again.
9257 ** Mail reading and sending changes
9259 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
9260 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
9261 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
9264 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
9265 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
9266 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
9267 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
9268 rmail-default-body-file.
9270 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
9271 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
9272 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
9274 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
9275 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
9276 is evaluated to insert the signature.
9278 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
9279 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
9280 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
9281 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
9282 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
9283 especially interested in trying feedmail.
9285 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
9286 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
9287 provided by feedmail are:
9289 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
9290 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
9291 there is also a queue for draft messages
9293 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
9294 be prompted for confirmation
9296 **** does smart filling of address headers
9298 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
9299 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
9300 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
9302 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
9303 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
9304 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
9305 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
9309 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
9310 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
9312 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
9313 run Dired on the directory name at point.
9315 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
9316 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
9317 for a specified regexp.
9321 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
9324 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
9325 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
9328 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
9329 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
9330 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
9331 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
9333 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
9334 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
9335 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
9336 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
9337 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
9339 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
9340 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
9341 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
9342 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
9343 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
9345 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
9346 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
9347 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
9348 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
9350 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
9351 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
9352 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
9354 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
9355 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
9356 session to resolve them.
9358 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
9359 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
9360 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
9363 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
9364 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
9365 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
9366 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
9367 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
9368 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
9371 ** Changes in Font Lock
9373 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
9374 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
9375 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
9376 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
9377 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
9379 ** Frame name display changes
9381 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
9382 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
9383 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
9384 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
9386 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
9387 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
9390 ** Comint (subshell) changes
9392 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
9393 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
9394 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
9396 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
9398 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
9399 that is, the line after the last line you got.
9400 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
9402 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
9403 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
9406 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
9407 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
9408 previously sent input.
9410 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
9411 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
9412 as the search string.
9414 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
9415 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
9419 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
9420 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
9421 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
9424 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
9425 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
9426 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
9427 style is still the default however.
9429 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
9431 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
9432 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
9433 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
9435 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
9436 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
9438 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
9439 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
9441 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
9442 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
9444 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
9445 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
9447 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
9448 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
9449 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
9450 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
9452 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
9454 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
9455 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
9456 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
9458 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
9459 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
9460 expanding dynamically.
9462 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
9463 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
9465 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
9466 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
9467 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
9468 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
9470 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
9472 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
9474 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
9475 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
9476 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
9477 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
9478 against the first word in the title.
9480 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
9481 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
9482 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
9483 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
9484 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
9485 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
9487 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
9488 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
9489 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
9490 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
9492 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
9494 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
9495 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
9496 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
9497 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
9498 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
9499 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
9501 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
9502 Editing group once the package is loaded.
9504 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
9505 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
9506 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
9508 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
9509 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
9513 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
9514 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
9515 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
9517 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
9518 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
9519 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
9520 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
9523 o URLs are automatically skipped
9524 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
9526 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
9528 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
9530 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
9531 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
9532 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
9533 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
9535 *** New recursive parser.
9537 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
9538 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
9539 recursive parser scans the individual files.
9541 *** Parsing only part of a document.
9543 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
9544 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
9545 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
9547 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
9549 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
9551 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
9553 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
9555 *** Using multiple selection buffers
9557 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
9558 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
9560 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
9562 *** References to external documents.
9564 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
9565 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
9566 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
9567 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
9568 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
9569 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
9570 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
9572 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
9574 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
9575 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
9577 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
9578 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
9580 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
9582 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
9583 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
9585 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
9587 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
9588 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
9589 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
9590 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
9591 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
9592 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
9595 *** Support for the varioref package
9597 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
9601 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
9602 and citations are created. These hooks are
9603 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
9604 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
9606 *** Citations outside LaTeX
9608 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
9609 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
9611 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
9613 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
9614 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
9617 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
9619 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
9620 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
9621 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
9622 directories that contain the same file name.
9624 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
9625 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
9626 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
9627 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
9628 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
9629 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
9630 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
9633 ** New modes and packages
9635 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
9636 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
9637 it, but some do not.
9639 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
9642 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
9643 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
9646 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
9648 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
9649 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
9650 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
9651 established system of notation similar to Chess.
9653 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
9654 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
9655 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
9657 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
9658 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
9659 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
9660 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
9661 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
9664 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
9665 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
9667 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
9668 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
9669 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
9670 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
9672 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
9674 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
9675 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
9676 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
9677 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
9678 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
9679 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
9680 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
9681 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
9682 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
9683 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
9684 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
9686 Platform-specific modes:
9688 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
9689 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
9690 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
9691 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
9692 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
9693 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
9694 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
9695 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
9696 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
9698 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9700 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
9701 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
9702 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
9703 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
9705 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
9706 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
9707 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
9709 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
9710 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
9711 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
9712 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
9714 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
9715 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
9716 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
9719 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
9720 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
9721 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
9722 current input method for reading this one event.
9724 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
9725 now control whether to output certain characters as
9726 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
9727 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
9728 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
9729 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
9731 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9733 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
9734 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
9736 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
9737 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
9738 always increases point by 1.
9740 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
9741 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
9743 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
9745 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
9746 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
9747 default value changed. For example,
9749 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
9754 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
9757 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
9758 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
9759 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
9760 `:version' in the top level group.
9762 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
9764 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
9765 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
9767 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
9768 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
9769 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
9772 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
9773 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
9776 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
9777 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
9778 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
9780 ** Frame-local variables.
9782 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
9783 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
9784 local bindings for that variable.
9786 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
9787 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
9788 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
9791 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
9792 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
9793 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
9794 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
9796 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
9797 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
9798 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
9799 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
9801 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
9802 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
9803 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
9804 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
9805 See the documentation in sregex.el.
9807 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
9808 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
9809 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
9810 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
9812 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
9813 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
9815 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
9816 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
9817 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
9819 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
9820 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
9821 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
9822 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
9824 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
9825 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
9828 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
9829 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
9830 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
9831 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
9832 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
9834 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
9835 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
9836 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
9837 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
9839 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
9840 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
9841 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
9842 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
9843 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
9845 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
9846 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
9847 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
9848 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
9850 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
9851 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
9852 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
9854 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
9855 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
9856 was directed to display this buffer.
9858 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
9859 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
9860 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
9861 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
9862 set-window-configuration.
9864 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
9865 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
9866 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
9867 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
9869 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
9870 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
9871 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
9873 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
9874 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
9875 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
9877 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
9878 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
9880 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
9881 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
9883 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
9884 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
9885 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
9887 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
9888 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
9889 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
9890 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
9894 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
9895 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
9898 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
9899 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
9900 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
9901 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
9902 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
9904 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
9906 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
9907 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
9908 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
9909 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
9912 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
9913 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
9914 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
9915 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
9916 The supported properties include
9918 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9920 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9921 item should appear in the menu.
9923 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
9924 which will be REAL-BINDING.
9925 It should return a binding to use instead.
9927 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
9928 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
9929 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
9930 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
9931 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
9934 This means that the command normally has no
9935 keyboard equivalent.
9936 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
9937 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
9938 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
9939 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
9940 value says whether this button is currently selected.
9942 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
9943 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
9945 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
9949 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
9950 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
9951 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
9952 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
9954 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
9956 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9957 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
9958 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
9959 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
9960 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
9961 forward, away from the user.
9963 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9965 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
9966 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
9967 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
9968 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
9969 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
9971 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
9973 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9974 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
9975 that were dragged and dropped.
9977 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9979 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
9981 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
9982 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
9983 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
9985 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
9986 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
9987 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
9989 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
9990 in Emacs 19 and before.
9992 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
9993 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
9995 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
9996 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
9997 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
9998 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
10000 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
10001 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
10002 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
10003 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
10004 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
10006 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
10007 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
10008 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
10009 consistent with the new representation.
10011 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
10012 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
10013 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
10014 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
10016 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
10017 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
10018 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
10020 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
10021 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
10022 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
10024 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
10025 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
10026 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
10028 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
10029 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
10031 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
10032 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
10034 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
10035 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
10036 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
10037 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
10039 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
10040 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
10042 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
10043 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
10044 buffer or string being searched.
10046 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
10047 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
10048 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
10049 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
10050 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
10051 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
10052 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
10054 *** Structure of coding system changed.
10056 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
10057 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
10058 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
10059 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
10060 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
10061 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
10062 define-coding-system-alias.
10064 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
10065 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
10066 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
10067 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
10068 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
10069 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
10070 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
10073 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
10074 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
10075 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
10076 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
10078 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
10079 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
10080 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
10081 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
10083 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
10084 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
10085 This function requires a user interaction.
10087 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
10088 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
10089 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
10090 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
10091 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
10092 select-safe-coding-system.
10094 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
10095 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
10096 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
10099 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
10100 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
10101 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
10103 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
10104 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
10105 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
10106 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
10108 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
10109 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
10110 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
10113 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
10114 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
10116 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
10117 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
10118 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
10119 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
10120 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
10121 range of characters.
10123 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
10124 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
10126 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
10127 in the current buffer at position POS.
10129 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
10130 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
10131 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
10132 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
10133 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
10134 binding input-method-function to nil.
10136 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
10137 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
10138 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
10139 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
10140 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
10142 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
10143 subsequent events of a key sequence.
10145 *** You can customize any language environment by using
10146 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
10148 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
10149 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
10150 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
10151 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
10152 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
10154 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
10156 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
10157 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
10158 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
10161 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
10162 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
10164 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
10165 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
10166 in your .emacs file.)
10168 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
10169 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
10171 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
10172 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
10174 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
10175 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
10178 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
10179 delete the character before point, as usual.
10181 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
10182 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
10183 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
10185 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
10186 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
10187 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
10188 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
10189 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
10192 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
10193 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
10194 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
10195 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
10196 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
10198 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
10199 and is an alias for it.
10201 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
10202 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
10204 ** Scrolling changes
10206 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
10207 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
10209 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
10210 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
10213 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
10214 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
10215 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
10216 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
10218 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
10219 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
10220 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
10221 recenters the window.
10223 ** International character set support (MULE)
10225 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
10226 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
10227 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
10228 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
10229 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
10230 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
10232 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
10233 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
10234 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
10235 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
10236 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
10238 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
10239 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
10240 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
10241 language, to make it possible to type them.
10243 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
10244 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
10246 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
10247 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
10249 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
10251 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
10253 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
10254 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
10255 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
10256 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
10257 characters for their work until they want to change.
10261 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
10262 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
10263 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
10264 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
10265 support several input methods.
10267 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
10268 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
10271 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
10272 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
10273 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
10274 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
10275 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
10278 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
10279 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
10280 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
10281 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
10282 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
10284 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
10285 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
10286 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
10287 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
10289 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
10290 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
10291 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
10292 the first guess is wrong.
10294 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
10295 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
10297 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
10298 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
10299 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
10300 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
10302 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
10303 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
10304 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
10305 translate automatically to and from either one.
10307 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
10309 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
10310 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
10311 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
10314 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
10315 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
10316 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
10317 multibyte characters in that buffer.
10319 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
10320 character conversion as well.
10322 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
10324 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
10325 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
10326 requires using many fonts.
10328 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
10329 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
10331 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
10332 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
10333 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
10334 you would use a font.
10336 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
10337 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
10338 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
10340 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
10341 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
10344 *** Defining fontsets.
10346 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
10347 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
10348 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
10350 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
10351 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
10352 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
10353 standard fontset are created automatically.
10355 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
10356 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
10357 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
10358 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
10359 name is `fontset-startup'.
10361 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
10362 The resource value should have this form:
10363 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
10364 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
10365 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
10366 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
10367 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
10368 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
10369 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
10370 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
10371 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
10373 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
10374 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
10375 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
10377 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
10378 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
10379 following resource,
10380 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
10381 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
10382 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
10383 Here is the substitution rule:
10384 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
10385 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
10386 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
10387 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
10388 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
10390 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
10391 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
10392 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
10394 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
10395 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
10396 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
10397 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
10400 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
10401 defaults for a particular choice of language.
10403 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
10404 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
10405 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
10406 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
10407 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
10408 system for new files that you create.
10410 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
10411 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
10412 whole Emacs session.
10414 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
10415 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
10416 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
10418 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
10419 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
10420 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
10421 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
10422 coding systems that Emacs supports.
10424 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
10425 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
10426 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
10427 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
10428 is used for *the immediately following command*.
10430 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
10431 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
10433 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
10434 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
10436 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
10437 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
10439 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
10440 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
10441 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
10442 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
10445 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
10446 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
10447 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
10448 translated into that character code.
10450 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
10451 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
10453 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
10455 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
10456 the coding system for keyboard input.
10458 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
10459 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
10460 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
10462 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
10464 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
10465 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
10466 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
10467 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
10468 designed to work with terminals.
10470 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
10471 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
10472 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
10473 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
10474 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
10475 in the corresponding buffer.
10477 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
10479 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
10480 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
10481 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
10483 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
10484 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
10485 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
10488 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
10489 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
10491 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
10492 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
10493 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
10494 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
10496 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
10497 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
10498 related information.
10500 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
10501 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
10504 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
10505 information about the support for a particular language.
10506 You specify the language as an argument.
10508 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
10509 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
10512 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
10513 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
10514 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
10515 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
10517 A alternativnyj (Russian)
10519 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
10520 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
10521 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
10522 E euc-japan (Japanese)
10523 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10524 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
10525 K euc-korea (Korean)
10528 S shift_jis (Japanese)
10531 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
10532 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10533 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
10534 v viqr (Vietnamese)
10537 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
10538 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
10539 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
10540 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
10542 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
10543 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
10545 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
10546 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
10547 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
10548 Rmail files themselves.
10550 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
10551 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
10553 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
10556 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
10557 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
10558 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
10559 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
10560 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
10562 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
10563 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
10564 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
10567 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
10568 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
10569 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
10570 without any conversion.
10572 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
10573 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
10574 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
10575 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
10577 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
10578 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
10580 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
10581 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
10583 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
10584 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
10586 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
10587 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
10588 in the buffer before point.
10590 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
10591 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
10594 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
10595 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
10597 ** File locking works with NFS now.
10599 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
10600 in the same directory as FILENAME.
10602 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
10603 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
10604 can become a bottleneck.
10606 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
10607 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
10608 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
10609 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
10610 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
10611 so useful that the change is worth while.
10613 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
10614 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
10615 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
10616 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
10618 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
10619 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
10622 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
10623 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
10624 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
10626 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
10627 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
10628 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
10630 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
10631 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
10632 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
10634 ** Changes in View mode.
10636 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
10637 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
10639 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
10640 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
10642 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
10645 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
10646 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
10648 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
10649 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
10650 not just the selected window.
10652 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
10653 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
10654 turns View mode on or off.
10656 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
10657 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
10658 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
10660 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
10661 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
10663 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
10664 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
10665 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
10666 which version to compare with.
10668 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
10669 blocks if a match is inside the block.
10671 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
10672 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
10673 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
10674 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
10676 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
10677 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
10678 blocks, all of them or none.
10680 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
10681 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
10682 confirmation first.
10684 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
10685 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
10686 However, the mode will not be changed if
10687 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
10688 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
10689 not suitable for ordinary files, or
10690 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
10692 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
10694 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
10695 these commands do not change the major mode.
10697 ** M-x occur changes.
10699 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
10700 it performs a case-sensitive search.
10702 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
10703 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
10704 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
10706 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
10707 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
10708 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
10709 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
10710 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
10712 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
10713 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
10714 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
10715 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
10717 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
10718 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
10719 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
10721 ** Outline mode changes.
10723 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
10725 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
10727 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
10728 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
10729 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
10730 was already active.
10732 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
10733 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
10734 get confused by it.
10736 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
10737 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
10739 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
10741 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
10742 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
10743 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
10744 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
10746 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
10747 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
10748 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
10750 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
10751 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
10754 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
10755 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
10756 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
10757 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
10759 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
10760 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
10761 can be. The default value is 30.
10763 ** Changes in Mail mode.
10765 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
10766 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
10767 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
10768 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
10769 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
10772 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
10773 compose-mail-other-frame.
10775 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
10776 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
10777 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
10778 buffer that shows the original message.
10780 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
10781 with separator lines around the contents.
10783 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
10784 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
10785 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
10786 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
10788 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
10790 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
10791 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
10792 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
10793 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
10795 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
10796 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
10799 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
10800 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
10803 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
10804 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
10805 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
10806 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
10808 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
10809 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
10810 be taken to be magic.
10812 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
10813 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
10814 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
10816 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
10817 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
10819 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
10820 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
10822 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
10824 new key dired.el binding old key
10825 ------- ---------------- -------
10826 * c dired-change-marks c
10828 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
10829 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
10830 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
10832 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
10833 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
10834 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
10835 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
10836 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
10837 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
10841 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
10842 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
10843 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
10844 each time you run it.
10846 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
10847 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
10849 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
10850 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
10851 means to move in the opposite direction.
10853 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
10854 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
10856 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
10857 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
10858 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
10859 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
10864 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
10866 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
10869 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
10870 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
10872 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
10875 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
10877 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
10879 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
10881 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
10882 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
10883 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
10885 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
10887 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
10889 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
10890 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
10892 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
10893 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
10894 used to pick articles.
10896 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
10897 another have been added.
10899 `M-x gnus-change-server'
10901 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
10902 generating lines in buffers.
10904 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
10907 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
10909 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
10911 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
10913 *** Scores can be decayed.
10915 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
10917 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
10918 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
10920 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
10923 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
10925 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
10926 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
10928 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
10930 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
10931 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
10933 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
10934 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
10936 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
10939 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
10940 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
10942 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
10944 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
10946 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
10948 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
10950 Use the `Y c' command.
10952 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
10954 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
10956 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
10958 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
10959 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
10961 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
10963 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
10965 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
10966 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
10968 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
10970 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
10971 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
10972 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
10973 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
10976 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
10977 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
10978 particular news group. This can be done by:
10980 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
10982 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
10983 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
10984 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
10985 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
10986 for reading and posting).
10988 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
10989 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
10990 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
10991 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
10994 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
10995 default. Here are some of these default settings:
10997 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
10998 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
10999 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
11000 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
11001 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
11003 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
11004 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
11006 ** CC mode changes.
11008 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
11009 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
11010 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
11011 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
11012 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
11015 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
11016 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
11017 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
11018 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
11019 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
11020 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
11022 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
11023 of the current buffer.
11025 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
11026 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
11027 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
11029 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
11030 style that the Python developers like.
11032 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
11033 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
11034 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
11036 ** VC Changes [new]
11038 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
11039 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
11040 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
11042 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
11043 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
11046 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
11047 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
11049 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
11050 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
11051 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
11052 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
11054 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
11055 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
11057 ** Calendar changes.
11059 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
11060 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
11061 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
11062 following/previous years.
11064 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
11065 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
11066 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
11067 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
11068 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
11069 supposed attribute of God.
11071 ** ps-print changes
11073 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
11076 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
11078 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
11079 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
11080 printer system has this behavior, set variable
11081 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
11083 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
11084 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
11085 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
11087 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
11088 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
11090 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
11091 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
11092 printing for your printer.
11094 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
11095 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
11097 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
11098 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
11100 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
11101 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
11102 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
11103 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
11104 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
11105 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
11106 The default value is nil.
11108 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
11109 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
11111 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
11112 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
11113 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
11114 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
11115 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
11116 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
11117 color). The default is 0 ("black").
11119 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
11120 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
11122 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
11123 The default is 0 ("black").
11125 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
11126 The default is 0 ("black").
11128 border-width Specify the border width.
11129 The default is 0.4.
11131 Any other property is ignored.
11133 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
11134 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
11137 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
11138 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
11139 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
11140 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
11141 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
11142 controlling headers.
11144 *** Color management (subgroup)
11146 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
11149 *** Face Management (subgroup)
11151 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
11152 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
11153 background should be used. Valid values are:
11155 t always use face background color.
11156 nil never use face background color.
11157 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
11159 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
11161 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
11164 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
11165 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
11167 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
11170 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
11171 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
11172 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
11174 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
11178 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
11182 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
11186 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
11190 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
11192 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
11194 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
11197 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
11198 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
11199 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
11201 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
11202 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11203 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11204 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11205 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11209 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11210 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11211 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11214 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11215 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11216 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
11217 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
11218 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
11219 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11220 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11221 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11222 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
11223 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
11224 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
11227 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11229 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
11232 *** Printer management (subgroup)
11234 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
11235 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
11236 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
11237 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
11240 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
11241 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
11242 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
11244 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
11245 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
11248 *** Page settings (subgroup)
11250 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
11251 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
11252 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
11253 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
11254 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
11255 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
11258 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
11259 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
11260 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
11262 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
11263 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
11264 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
11265 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
11266 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
11267 its TO, are ignored.
11269 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
11270 pages. Valid values are:
11272 nil print all pages.
11274 `even-page' print only even pages.
11276 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
11278 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
11279 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
11280 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
11281 print only the even sheet of paper.
11283 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
11284 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
11285 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
11286 only the odd sheet of paper.
11288 Any other value is treated as nil.
11290 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
11291 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
11292 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
11294 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
11296 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
11297 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
11299 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
11300 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
11301 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
11302 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
11303 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
11304 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
11305 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
11307 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
11308 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
11309 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
11310 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
11311 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
11312 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
11313 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
11315 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
11317 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
11318 messages should be sent.
11320 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
11321 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
11322 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
11324 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
11326 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
11327 points for line numbers.
11329 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
11330 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
11332 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
11333 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
11334 to 2, the printing will look like:
11346 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
11347 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
11350 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
11351 zebra stripe is to be printed.
11353 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
11355 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
11356 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
11357 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
11358 3, the output will look like:
11372 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
11373 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
11375 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
11376 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
11379 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
11380 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
11383 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
11385 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
11386 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
11388 ** hideshow changes.
11390 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
11393 *** Support for java-mode added.
11395 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
11396 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
11398 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
11399 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
11400 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
11402 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
11403 robust and a lot faster.
11405 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
11407 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
11408 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
11409 documentation for more details.
11411 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
11413 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
11414 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
11415 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
11416 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
11417 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
11419 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
11420 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
11421 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
11422 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
11428 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
11429 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
11430 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
11431 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
11432 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
11433 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
11435 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
11437 *** Maximum decoration
11439 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
11440 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
11441 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
11442 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
11443 to get the old behavior.
11447 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
11449 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
11450 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
11452 *** Configurable support
11454 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
11455 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
11456 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
11457 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
11458 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
11459 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
11460 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
11462 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
11463 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
11464 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
11466 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
11468 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
11469 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
11472 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
11474 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
11480 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
11481 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
11482 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
11483 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
11485 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
11487 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
11488 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
11489 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
11491 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
11493 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
11494 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
11495 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
11496 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
11497 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
11498 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
11499 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
11501 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
11502 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
11503 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
11504 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
11505 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
11506 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
11508 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
11510 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
11511 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
11512 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
11513 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
11515 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
11518 ** Ada mode changes.
11520 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
11521 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
11522 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
11523 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
11526 *** There are two new commands:
11527 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
11528 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
11530 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
11531 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
11532 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
11534 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
11535 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
11536 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
11538 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
11539 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
11540 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
11541 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
11543 ** Scheme mode changes.
11545 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
11546 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
11547 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
11548 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
11551 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
11552 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
11553 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
11554 variables as buffer-local variables.
11556 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
11557 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
11559 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
11561 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
11562 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
11563 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
11564 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
11566 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
11567 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
11570 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
11571 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
11572 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
11573 option takes precedence.
11575 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
11576 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
11577 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
11579 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
11580 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
11583 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
11584 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
11586 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
11587 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
11590 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
11591 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
11592 these register values no longer become completely useless.
11593 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
11594 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
11595 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
11597 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
11598 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
11599 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
11600 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
11602 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
11603 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
11604 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
11605 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
11606 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
11608 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
11609 since it applies only to the current frame.
11611 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
11612 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
11613 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
11615 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
11616 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
11617 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
11618 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
11619 instead of just the file you are editing.
11623 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
11624 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
11625 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
11626 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
11627 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
11630 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
11631 knows which kind of label is needed.
11633 C-c ) reftex-reference
11634 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
11635 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
11637 C-c [ reftex-citation
11638 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
11639 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
11641 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
11642 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
11645 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
11646 can quickly jump to every section.
11648 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
11649 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
11650 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
11651 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
11652 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
11654 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11656 *** Info documentation is now available.
11658 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
11659 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
11661 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
11662 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
11664 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
11665 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
11667 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
11668 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
11669 appropriate functions.
11671 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
11672 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
11674 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
11677 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
11678 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
11680 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
11681 shall be delimited.
11683 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
11684 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
11685 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
11687 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
11688 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
11689 prefixed with `ALT'.
11691 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
11692 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
11693 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
11696 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
11697 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
11698 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
11700 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
11701 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
11703 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
11704 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
11705 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
11707 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
11709 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
11711 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
11712 from alien sources.
11714 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
11715 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
11718 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
11721 *** Added support for imenu.
11723 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
11724 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
11725 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
11726 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
11728 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
11729 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
11731 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
11733 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
11735 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
11736 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
11737 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
11740 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
11741 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
11743 ** browse-url changes
11745 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
11746 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
11747 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
11748 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
11749 customization variables.
11751 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
11753 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
11754 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
11755 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
11757 ** Changes in Ediff
11759 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
11760 pops up the Info file for this command.
11762 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
11763 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
11764 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
11767 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
11768 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
11769 files in the same directory.
11771 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
11772 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
11773 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
11775 ** Changes in Viper
11777 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
11778 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
11780 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
11781 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
11782 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
11783 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
11784 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
11785 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
11786 color when Viper is in insert state.
11787 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
11788 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
11789 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
11793 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
11794 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
11795 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
11796 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
11797 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
11799 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
11801 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
11802 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
11804 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
11805 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
11806 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
11808 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
11809 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
11810 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
11811 methods and protocols.
11813 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
11814 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
11815 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
11818 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
11819 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
11820 at least M times and as many as N times.
11822 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
11823 in files has changed slightly.
11825 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
11826 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
11827 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
11828 with old time-stamp-format values.
11830 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
11831 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
11832 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
11835 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
11836 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
11837 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
11838 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
11839 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
11840 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
11842 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
11843 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
11844 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
11846 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
11847 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
11848 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
11849 recommended now will continue to work then.
11851 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
11854 ** There are some additional major modes:
11856 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
11857 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
11858 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
11860 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
11861 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
11864 ** New Lisp packages include:
11866 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
11868 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
11869 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
11871 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
11873 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
11876 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
11877 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
11880 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
11881 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
11882 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
11883 strings or comments.
11885 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
11886 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
11887 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
11888 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
11891 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
11892 can visit them by short forms of their names.
11894 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
11895 Emacs Lisp function at point.
11897 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
11899 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
11900 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
11902 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
11904 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
11906 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
11908 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
11909 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
11911 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
11912 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
11913 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
11914 original place after inserting the copy.
11916 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
11919 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
11920 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
11921 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
11923 Enable mouse-drag with:
11924 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
11926 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
11928 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
11929 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
11931 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
11932 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
11936 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
11937 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
11938 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
11939 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
11940 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
11941 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
11942 instance) and vice versa.
11944 To use this package load it using
11945 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
11946 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
11947 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
11948 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
11949 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
11950 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
11952 *** Interface to ph.
11954 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
11956 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
11957 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
11960 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
11962 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
11963 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
11964 while the real cursor does not move.
11966 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
11967 for visiting your favorite web sites.
11969 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
11970 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
11974 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
11975 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
11976 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
11977 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
11979 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
11981 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
11983 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
11985 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
11986 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
11987 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
11988 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
11989 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
11991 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
11992 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
11993 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
11994 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
11995 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
11996 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
11998 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
12000 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
12001 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
12002 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
12003 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
12005 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
12006 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
12008 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
12009 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
12012 ** Basic Lisp changes
12014 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
12015 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
12017 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
12018 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
12021 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
12023 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
12025 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
12026 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
12028 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
12029 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
12032 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
12034 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
12036 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
12038 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
12039 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
12040 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
12043 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
12044 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
12045 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
12047 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
12048 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
12049 adding one of these suffixes.
12051 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
12052 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
12053 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
12055 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
12056 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
12058 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
12060 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
12061 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
12063 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
12064 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
12066 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
12068 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
12069 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
12071 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
12072 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
12073 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
12074 works using `save-current-buffer'.
12076 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
12077 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
12080 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
12081 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
12082 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
12085 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
12086 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
12089 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
12091 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
12092 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
12093 Then it returns that string.
12095 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
12097 (with-output-to-string
12098 (princ "The buffer is ")
12099 (princ (buffer-name)))
12101 returns "The buffer is foo".
12103 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
12106 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
12107 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
12108 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
12110 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
12111 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
12113 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
12114 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
12115 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
12116 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
12117 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
12118 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
12120 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
12121 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
12122 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
12125 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
12126 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
12127 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
12128 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
12129 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
12131 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
12132 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
12133 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
12134 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
12136 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
12137 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
12139 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
12141 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
12142 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
12143 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
12144 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
12147 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
12148 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
12151 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
12153 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
12154 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
12155 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
12156 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
12157 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
12159 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
12161 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
12162 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
12163 more than the number of characters.
12165 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
12166 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
12167 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
12168 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
12169 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
12170 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
12172 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
12173 and returns a string containing those characters.
12175 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
12176 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
12177 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
12178 character, sref signals an error.
12180 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
12181 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
12182 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
12184 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
12185 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
12186 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
12188 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
12189 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
12190 to a vector of the characters in it.
12192 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
12193 of a string. You call it as follows:
12195 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
12197 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
12198 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
12199 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
12200 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
12201 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
12203 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
12204 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
12206 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
12207 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
12209 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
12210 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
12211 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
12212 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
12214 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
12216 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
12218 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
12219 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
12220 are not included in the resulting value.
12222 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
12223 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
12224 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
12225 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
12227 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
12228 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
12229 character extends across that column), then the padding character
12230 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
12231 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
12232 column START-COLUMN.
12234 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
12235 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
12236 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
12237 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
12238 changed text, before the change.
12240 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
12241 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
12242 one character set for each script, not for each language.
12244 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
12246 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
12248 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
12249 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
12251 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
12252 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
12253 which identify the character within that character set.
12255 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
12256 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
12257 opposite of split-char.
12259 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
12260 of all the characters between BEG and END.
12262 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
12263 of all the characters in a string.
12265 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
12266 and specifying coding systems.
12268 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
12269 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
12270 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
12271 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
12272 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
12273 as what to do about code conversion.)
12275 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
12276 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
12278 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
12279 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
12280 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
12282 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
12283 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
12284 to match against a file name.
12286 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
12287 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
12288 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
12289 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
12290 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
12291 specifies the coding system for encoding.
12293 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
12294 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
12296 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
12297 the coding system to use for network sockets.
12299 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
12300 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
12301 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
12304 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
12305 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
12306 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
12307 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
12308 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
12309 specifies the coding system for encoding.
12311 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
12312 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
12314 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
12315 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
12316 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
12317 start the subprocess.
12319 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
12320 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
12321 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
12322 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
12323 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
12325 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
12326 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
12329 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
12330 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
12331 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
12332 connection permanently or until overridden.
12334 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
12335 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
12336 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
12337 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
12338 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
12339 system for one operation at a time.
12341 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
12342 files, subprocesses or network connections.
12344 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
12345 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
12346 The value is a cons cell,
12347 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
12348 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
12349 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
12350 input to the subprocess.
12352 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
12353 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
12355 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
12356 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
12357 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
12359 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
12360 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
12361 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
12362 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
12365 Thus, instead of writing
12367 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
12368 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
12370 you would now write this:
12372 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
12373 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
12377 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
12378 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
12379 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
12380 for a description of them.
12382 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
12383 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
12385 (defgroup ispell nil
12386 "Spell checking using Ispell."
12389 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
12390 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
12391 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
12392 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
12393 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
12395 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
12396 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
12397 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
12398 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
12399 first-level subgroups.
12401 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
12403 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
12404 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
12408 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
12409 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
12410 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
12411 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
12412 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
12413 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
12415 ** Text property changes
12417 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
12420 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
12421 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
12422 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
12423 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
12424 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
12426 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
12427 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
12428 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
12429 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
12431 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
12432 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
12433 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
12435 ** Changes in invisibility features
12437 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
12438 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
12439 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
12440 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
12441 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
12442 make the overlay visible.
12444 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
12445 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
12446 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
12447 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
12448 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
12449 t when it should hide it.
12451 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
12453 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
12454 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
12455 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
12456 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
12457 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
12458 Here is an example of how to do this:
12460 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
12461 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12462 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
12463 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12466 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
12469 ;; When done with the overlays:
12470 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12471 ;; Or respectively:
12472 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12474 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
12476 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
12477 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
12478 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
12479 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
12481 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
12482 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
12483 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
12485 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
12486 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
12488 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
12489 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
12491 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
12492 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
12493 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
12495 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
12496 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
12497 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
12498 determine the syntax type of the character.
12500 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
12501 of the current buffer.
12503 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
12504 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
12505 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
12507 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
12508 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
12509 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
12510 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
12511 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
12513 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
12516 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
12517 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
12518 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
12520 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
12521 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
12522 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
12523 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
12524 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
12526 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
12527 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
12528 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
12530 ** Changes in face features
12532 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
12533 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
12535 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
12536 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
12538 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
12539 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
12541 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
12542 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
12544 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
12545 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
12546 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
12547 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
12550 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
12551 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
12553 ** Changes in file-handling functions
12555 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
12556 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
12557 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
12558 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
12560 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
12563 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
12564 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
12566 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
12567 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
12569 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
12570 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
12572 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
12573 character code conversion as well as other things.
12575 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
12576 (formerly it did not).
12578 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
12579 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
12581 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
12582 instead of constant strings.
12584 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
12585 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
12586 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
12588 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
12589 in the same way as before.
12591 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
12592 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
12593 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
12595 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
12596 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
12597 else, and returns nil.
12599 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
12600 directory cannot be listed.
12602 ** Changes in minibuffer input
12604 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
12605 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
12606 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
12607 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
12610 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
12611 It is available through the history command M-n.
12613 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
12614 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
12615 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
12616 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
12617 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
12619 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
12620 argument in this way.
12622 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
12623 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
12624 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
12626 ** Echo area features
12628 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
12629 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
12630 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
12631 after the echo area is cleared.
12633 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
12634 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
12636 ** Keyboard input features
12638 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
12639 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
12641 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
12642 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
12643 by keyboard macros.
12645 ** Frame-related changes
12647 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
12648 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
12649 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
12651 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
12652 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
12653 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
12655 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12656 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
12657 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
12658 in the selected frame.
12660 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
12661 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
12662 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
12664 ** X Windows features
12666 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
12667 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
12668 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
12670 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
12671 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
12673 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
12674 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
12675 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
12677 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
12678 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
12680 ** Subprocess features
12682 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
12683 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
12686 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
12687 and returns the output from the command as a string.
12689 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
12690 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
12692 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
12693 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
12695 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
12696 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
12697 goes after the other menu items.
12699 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
12700 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
12701 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
12704 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
12705 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
12707 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
12708 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
12711 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
12712 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
12713 but its hook is still run.
12715 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
12716 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
12718 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
12719 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
12720 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
12722 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
12723 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
12724 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
12727 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
12728 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
12730 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
12731 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
12732 functions like display-time.
12734 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
12735 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
12737 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
12738 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
12739 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
12741 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
12742 if there is an error in compilation.
12744 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
12745 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
12746 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
12747 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
12749 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
12750 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
12751 the *scratch* buffer.
12753 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
12754 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
12755 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
12756 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
12758 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
12759 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
12760 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
12762 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
12763 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
12764 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
12765 and compose-mail-other-frame.
12767 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
12768 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
12769 full name of the specified user will be returned.
12771 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
12772 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
12773 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
12774 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
12775 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
12778 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
12779 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
12780 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
12781 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
12783 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
12784 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
12785 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
12786 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
12788 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
12790 ** imenu.el changes.
12792 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
12793 item from menu created by imenu.
12795 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
12796 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
12797 select one of those items.
12799 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
12801 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
12802 Copyright information:
12804 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
12806 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
12807 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
12808 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
12809 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
12811 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
12812 of this document, or of portions of it,
12813 under the above conditions, provided also that they
12814 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
12818 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
12821 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793