1 GNUS NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
3 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send Gnus bug reports to bugs@gnus.org.
7 For older news, see Gnus info node "New Features".
10 * Changes in Oort Gnus
12 ** `F' (`gnus-article-followup-with-original') and `R'
13 (`gnus-article-reply-with-original') only yank the text in the region if the
16 ** `gnus-group-read-ephemeral-group' can be called interactively, using `G M'.
18 ** In draft groups, `e' is now bound to `gnus-draft-edit-message'.
19 Use `B w' for `gnus-summary-edit-article' instead.
21 ** The revised Gnus FAQ is included in the manual.
22 See the info node "Frequently Asked Questions".
24 ** Upgrading from previous (stable) version if you have used Oort.
26 If you have tried Oort (the unstable Gnus branch leading to this
27 release) but went back to a stable version, be careful when upgrading
28 to this version. In particular, you will probably want to remove all
29 .marks (nnml) and .mrk (nnfolder) files, so that flags are read from
30 your ~/.newsrc.eld instead of from the .marks/.mrk file where this
31 release store flags. See a later entry for more information about
32 marks. Note that downgrading isn't safe in general.
36 More buttons for URLs, mail addresses, Message-IDs, Info links, man pages and
37 Emacs or Gnus related references, see the info node "Article Buttons". The
38 variables `gnus-button-*-level' can be used to control the appearance of all
39 article buttons, see the info node "Article Button Levels".
43 `gnus-dired-minor-mode' installs key bindings in dired buffers to send a file
44 as an attachment (`C-c C-m C-a'), open a file using the approriate mailcap
45 entry (`C-c C-m C-l'), and print a file using the mailcap entry (`C-c C-m
46 C-p'). See the info node "Other modes".
49 ** Gnus can display RSS newsfeeds as a newsgroup. To get started do `B
50 nnrss RET RET' in the Group buffer.
52 ** Single-part yenc encoded attachments can be decoded.
55 The picons code has been reimplemented to work in Emacs 21 -- some of
56 the previous options have been removed or renamed.
58 Picons are small "personal icons" representing users, domain and
59 newsgroups, which can be displayed in the Article buffer. To enable
60 picons, install the picons database from
62 http://www.cs.indiana.edu/picons/ftp/index.html
64 and point `gnus-picon-databases' to that location.
66 ** If the new option `gnus-treat-body-boundary' is `head', a boundary
67 line is drawn at the end of the headers.
69 ** Retrieval of charters and control messages
70 There are new commands for fetching newsgroup charters (`H c') and
71 control messages (`H C').
74 You can delay the sending of a message with `C-c C-j' in the Message
75 buffer. The messages are delivered at specified time. This is useful
76 for sending yourself reminders. Setup with (gnus-delay-initialize).
78 ** If `auto-compression-mode' is enabled, attachments are automatically
79 decompressed when activated.
81 ** If the new option `nnml-use-compressed-files' is non-nil,
82 the nnml back end allows compressed message files.
84 ** Signed article headers (X-PGP-Sig) can be verified with `W p'.
86 ** The Summary Buffer uses an arrow in the fringe to indicate the
87 current article in Emacs 21 running on a graphical display. Customize
88 `gnus-summary-display-arrow' to disable it.
90 ** Warn about email replies to news
91 Do you often find yourself replying to news by email by mistake? Then
92 the new option `gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news' is just the thing for
95 ** If the new option `gnus-summary-display-while-building' is non-nil,
96 the summary buffer is shown and updated as it's being built.
98 ** The new `recent' mark "." indicates newly arrived messages (as
99 opposed to old but unread messages).
101 ** The new option `gnus-gcc-mark-as-read' automatically marks
102 Gcc articles as read.
104 ** The nndoc back end now supports mailman digests and exim bounces.
106 ** Gnus supports RFC 2369 mailing list headers, and adds a number of
107 related commands in mailing list groups.
109 ** The Date header can be displayed in a format that can be read aloud
110 in English, see `gnus-treat-date-english'.
112 ** The envelope sender address can be customized when using Sendmail, see
113 `message-sendmail-envelope-from'.
115 ** diffs are automatically highlighted in groups matching
116 `mm-uu-diff-groups-regexp'
118 ** TLS wrapper shipped with Gnus
120 TLS/SSL is now supported in IMAP and NNTP via tls.el and GNUTLS. The
121 old TLS/SSL support via (external third party) ssl.el and OpenSSL
124 ** New make.bat for compiling and installing Gnus under MS Windows
126 Use make.bat if you want to install Gnus under MS Windows, the first
127 argument to the batch-program should be the directory where xemacs.exe
128 respectively emacs.exe is located, iff you want to install Gnus after
129 compiling it, give make.bat /copy as the second parameter.
131 `make.bat' has been rewritten from scratch, it now features automatic
132 recognition of XEmacs and GNU Emacs, generates gnus-load.el, checks if
133 errors occur while compilation and generation of info files and reports
134 them at the end of the build process. It now uses makeinfo if it is
135 available and falls back to infohack.el otherwise. `make.bat' should now
136 install all files which are necessary to run Gnus and be generally a
137 complete replacement for the "configure; make; make install" cycle used
140 The new make.bat makes make-x.bat superfluous, so it has been removed.
142 ** Support for non-ASCII domain names
144 Message supports non-ASCII domain names in From:, To: and Cc: and will
145 encode them when you try to send a message. The variable
146 `message-use-idna' controls this. Gnus will also decode non-ASCII
147 domain names in From:, To: and Cc: when you view a message. The
148 variable `gnus-use-idna' controls this.
150 ** Better handling of Microsoft citation styles
152 Gnus now tries to recognize the mangled header block that some Microsoft
153 mailers use to indicate that the rest of the message is a citation, even
154 though it is not quoted in any way. The variable
155 `gnus-cite-unsightly-citation-regexp' matches the start of these
158 ** gnus-article-skip-boring
160 If you set `gnus-article-skip-boring' to t, then Gnus will not scroll
161 down to show you a page that contains only boring text, which by
162 default means cited text and signature. You can customize what is
163 skippable using `gnus-article-boring-faces'.
165 This feature is especially useful if you read many articles that
166 consist of a little new content at the top with a long, untrimmed
169 ** The format spec %C for positioning point has changed to %*.
171 ** The new variable `gnus-parameters' can be used to set group parameters.
173 Earlier this was done only via `G p' (or `G c'), which stored the
174 parameters in ~/.newsrc.eld, but via this variable you can enjoy the
175 powers of customize, and simplified backups since you set the variable
176 in ~/.emacs instead of ~/.newsrc.eld. The variable maps regular
177 expressions matching group names to group parameters, a'la:
179 (setq gnus-parameters
181 (gnus-show-threads nil)
182 (gnus-use-scoring nil))
183 ("^nnimap:\\(foo.bar\\)$"
184 (to-group . "\\1"))))
186 ** Smileys (":-)", ";-)" etc) are now iconized for Emacs too.
188 Customize `gnus-treat-display-smileys' to disable it.
190 ** Gnus no longer generates the Sender: header automatically.
192 Earlier it was generated iff the user configurable email address was
193 different from the Gnus guessed default user address. As the guessing
194 algorithm is rarely correct these days, and (more controversially) the
195 only use of the Sender: header was to check if you are entitled to
196 cancel/supersede news (which is now solved by Cancel Locks instead,
197 see another entry), generation of the header has been disabled by
198 default. See the variables `message-required-headers',
199 `message-required-news-headers', and `message-required-mail-headers'.
201 ** Features from third party message-utils.el added to message.el.
203 Message now asks if you wish to remove "(was: <old subject>)" from
204 subject lines (see `message-subject-trailing-was-query'). C-c M-m and
205 C-c M-f inserts markers indicating included text. C-c C-f a adds a
206 X-No-Archive: header. C-c C-f x inserts appropriate headers and a
207 note in the body for cross-postings and followups (see the variables
208 `message-cross-post-*').
210 ** References and X-Draft-Headers are no longer generated when you
211 start composing messages and `message-generate-headers-first' is nil.
213 ** Improved anti-spam features.
215 Gnus is now able to take out spam from your mail and news streams
216 using a wide variety of programs and filter rules. Among the supported
217 methods are RBL blocklists, bogofilter and white/blacklists. Hooks
218 for easy use of external packages such as SpamAssassin and Hashcash
221 ** Easy inclusion of X-Faces headers.
223 ** In the summary buffer, the new command / N inserts new messages and
224 / o inserts old messages.
226 ** Gnus decodes morse encoded messages if you press W m.
228 ** Unread count correct in nnimap groups.
230 The estimated number of unread articles in the group buffer should now
231 be correct for nnimap groups. This is achieved by calling
232 `nnimap-fixup-unread-after-getting-new-news' from the
233 `gnus-setup-news-hook' (called on startup) and
234 `gnus-after-getting-new-news-hook' (called after getting new mail).
235 If you have modified those variables from the default, you may want to
236 add n-f-u-a-g-n-n again. If you were happy with the estimate and want
237 to save some (minimal) time when getting new mail, remove the
240 ** Group Carbon Copy (GCC) quoting
242 To support groups that contains SPC and other weird characters, groups
243 are quoted before they are placed in the Gcc: header. This means
244 variables such as `gnus-message-archive-group' should no longer
245 contain quote characters to make groups containing SPC work. Also, if
246 you are using the string "nnml:foo, nnml:bar" (indicating Gcc into two
247 groups) you must change it to return the list ("nnml:foo" "nnml:bar"),
248 otherwise the Gcc: line will be quoted incorrectly. Note that
249 returning the string "nnml:foo, nnml:bar" was incorrect earlier, it
250 just didn't generate any problems since it was inserted directly.
252 ** ~/News/overview/ not used.
254 As a result of the following change, the ~/News/overview/ directory is
255 not used any more. You can safely delete the entire hierarchy.
259 The Gnus Agent has seen a major update. It is now enabled by default,
260 and all nntp and nnimap servers from `gnus-select-method' and
261 `gnus-secondary-select-method' are agentized by default. Earlier only
262 the server in `gnus-select-method' was agentized by the default, and the
263 agent was disabled by default. When the agent is enabled, headers are
264 now also retrieved from the Agent cache instead of the backends when
265 possible. Earlier this only happened in the unplugged state. You can
266 enroll or remove servers with `J a' and `J r' in the server buffer.
267 Gnus will not download articles into the Agent cache, unless you
268 instruct it to do so, though, by using `J u' or `J s' from the Group
269 buffer. You revert to the old behaviour of having the Agent disabled
270 by customizing `gnus-agent'. Note that putting `(gnus-agentize)' in
271 ~/.gnus is not needed any more.
273 ** gnus-summary-line-format
275 The default value changed to "%U%R%z%I%(%[%4L: %-23,23f%]%) %s\n".
276 Moreover `gnus-extra-headers', `nnmail-extra-headers' and
277 `gnus-ignored-from-addresses' changed their default so that the users
278 name will be replaced by the recipient's name or the group name
279 posting to for NNTP groups.
281 ** deuglify.el (gnus-article-outlook-deuglify-article)
283 A new file from Raymond Scholz <rscholz@zonix.de> for deuglifying
284 broken Outlook (Express) articles.
286 ** (require 'gnus-load)
288 If you use a stand-alone Gnus distribution, you'd better add
289 "(require 'gnus-load)" to your ~/.emacs after adding the Gnus
290 lisp directory into load-path.
292 File gnus-load.el contains autoload commands, functions and variables,
293 some of which may not be included in distributions of Emacsen.
295 ** gnus-slave-unplugged
297 A new command which starts gnus offline in slave mode.
299 ** message-insinuate-rmail
301 Adding (message-insinuate-rmail) in .emacs and customizing
302 `mail-user-agent' to `gnus-user-agent' convinces Rmail to compose,
303 reply and forward messages in Message mode, where you can enjoy the
306 ** message-minibuffer-local-map
308 The line below enables BBDB in resending a message:
310 (define-key message-minibuffer-local-map [?\t] 'bbdb-complete-name)
312 ** Externalizing and deleting of attachments.
314 If `gnus-gcc-externalize-attachments' (or
315 `message-fcc-externalize-attachments') is non-nil, attach local files
318 The command `gnus-mime-save-part-and-strip' (bound to `C-o' on MIME
319 buttons) saves a part and replaces the part with an external one.
320 `gnus-mime-delete-part' (bound to `d' on MIME buttons) removes a part.
321 It works only on back ends that support editing.
323 ** gnus-default-charset
325 The default value now guesses on the basis of your environment instead
326 of using Latin-1. Also the ".*" item in gnus-group-charset-alist is
329 ** gnus-posting-styles
331 Add a new format of match like
333 ((header "to" "larsi.*org")
334 (Organization "Somewhere, Inc."))
336 The old format like the lines below is obsolete, but still accepted.
338 (header "to" "larsi.*org"
339 (Organization "Somewhere, Inc."))
341 ** message-ignored-news-headers and message-ignored-mail-headers
343 X-Draft-From and X-Gnus-Agent-Meta-Information have been added into
344 these two variables. If you customized those, perhaps you need add
345 those two headers too.
347 ** Gnus reads the NOV and articles in the Agent if plugged.
349 If one reads an article while plugged, and the article already exists
350 in the Agent, it won't get downloaded once more. Customize
351 `gnus-agent-cache' to revert to the old behavior.
353 ** Gnus supports the "format=flowed" (RFC 2646) parameter.
355 On composing messages, it is enabled by `use-hard-newlines'. Decoding
356 format=flowed was present but not documented in earlier versions.
358 ** Gnus supports the generation of RFC 2298 Disposition Notification requests.
360 This is invoked with the C-c M-n key binding from message mode.
362 ** Gnus supports Maildir groups.
364 Gnus includes a new backend nnmaildir.el.
366 ** Printing capabilities are enhanced.
368 Gnus supports Muttprint natively with O P from the Summary and Article
369 buffers. Also, each individual MIME part can be printed using p on
372 ** Message supports the Importance: (RFC 2156) header.
374 In the message buffer, `C-c C-f C-i' or `C-c C-u' cycles through the
377 ** Gnus supports Cancel Locks in News.
379 This means a header "Cancel-Lock" is inserted in news posting. It is
380 used to determine if you wrote a article or not (for cancelling and
381 superseding). Gnus generates a random password string the first time
382 you post a message, and saves it using the Custom system. While the
383 variable is called `canlock-password', it is not security sensitive
384 data. Publishing your canlock string on the web will not allow anyone
385 to be able to anything she could not already do. The behaviour can be
386 changed by customizing `message-insert-canlock'.
388 ** Gnus supports server-side mail filtering using Sieve.
390 Sieve rules can be added as Group Parameters for groups, and the
391 complete Sieve script is generated using `D g' from the Group buffer,
392 and then uploaded to the server using `C-c C-l' in the generated Sieve
393 buffer. Search the online Gnus manual for "sieve", and see the new
394 Sieve manual, for more information.
396 ** Extended format specs.
398 Format spec "%&user-date;" is added into
399 `gnus-summary-line-format-alist'. Also, user defined extended format
400 specs are supported. The extended format specs look like "%u&foo;",
401 which invokes function `gnus-user-format-function-foo'. Because "&" is
402 used as the escape character, old user defined format "%u&" is no
405 ** `/ *' (gnus-summary-limit-include-cached) is rewritten.
407 It was aliased to `Y c' (gnus-summary-insert-cached-articles). The new
408 function filters out other articles.
410 ** Some limiting commands accept a C-u prefix to negate the match.
412 If C-u is used on subject, author or extra headers, i.e., `/ s', `/
413 a', and `/ x' (gnus-summary-limit-to-{subject,author,extra})
414 respectively, the result will be to display all articles that do not
415 match the expression.
417 ** Group names are treated as UTF-8 by default.
419 This is supposedly what USEFOR wanted to migrate to. See
420 `gnus-group-name-charset-group-alist' and
421 `gnus-group-name-charset-method-alist' for customization.
423 ** The nnml and nnfolder backends store marks for each group.
425 This makes it possible to take backup of nnml/nnfolder servers/groups
426 separately of ~/.newsrc.eld, while preserving marks. It also makes it
427 possible to share articles and marks between users (without sharing
428 the ~/.newsrc.eld file) within e.g. a department. It works by storing
429 the marks stored in ~/.newsrc.eld in a per-group file ".marks" (for
430 nnml) and "groupname.mrk" (for nnfolder, named "groupname"). If the
431 nnml/nnfolder is moved to another machine, Gnus will automatically use
432 the .marks or .mrk file instead of the information in ~/.newsrc.eld.
433 The new server variables `nnml-marks-is-evil' and
434 `nnfolder-marks-is-evil' can be used to disable this feature.
436 ** The menu bar item (in Group and Summary buffer) named "Misc" has
437 been renamed to "Gnus".
439 ** The menu bar item (in Message mode) named "MML" has been renamed to
440 "Attachments". Note that this menu also contains security related
441 stuff, like signing and encryption.
443 ** gnus-group-charset-alist and gnus-group-ignored-charsets-alist.
445 The regexps in these variables are compared with full group names
446 instead of real group names in 5.8. Users who customize these
447 variables should change those regexps accordingly. For example:
449 ("^han\\>" euc-kr) -> ("\\(^\\|:\\)han\\>" euc-kr)
451 ** Gnus supports PGP (RFC 1991/2440), PGP/MIME (RFC 2015/3156) and
452 S/MIME (RFC 2630-2633).
454 It needs an external S/MIME and OpenPGP implementation, but no
455 additional lisp libraries. This add several menu items to the
456 Attachments menu, and C-c RET key bindings, when composing messages.
457 This also obsoletes `gnus-article-hide-pgp-hook'.
459 ** Gnus inlines external parts (message/external).
461 ** MML (Mime compose) prefix changed from `M-m' to `C-c C-m'.
463 This change was made to avoid conflict with the standard binding of
464 `back-to-indentation', which is also useful in message mode.
466 ** The default for message-forward-show-mml changed to symbol best.
468 The behaviour for the `best' value is to show MML (i.e., convert MIME
469 to MML) when appropriate. MML will not be used when forwarding signed
470 or encrypted messages, as the conversion invalidate the digital
476 * Changes in Pterodactyl Gnus (5.8/5.9)
478 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
479 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
480 internationalization and mail-fetching.
482 ** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
483 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
485 If you used procmail like in
487 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
488 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
489 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
490 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
492 this now has changed to
495 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
498 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
499 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
501 ** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
502 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
504 ** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too
505 many parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables.
507 ** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
508 called to position point.
510 ** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
511 summary buffers and NOV files.
513 ** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
514 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
516 ** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now works in a
517 subtly different manner.
519 ** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
520 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
521 ever-changing layouts.
523 ** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
526 * For older news, see Gnus info node "New Features".
528 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
529 Copyright information:
531 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
532 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
534 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
535 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
536 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
537 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
539 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
540 of this document, or of portions of it,
541 under the above conditions, provided also that they
542 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
546 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"