1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 For older news, see the file ONEWS
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9 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
12 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
13 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
14 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
15 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
18 * Installation Changes in Emacs 22.1
21 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
22 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
26 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
29 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
30 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.4 or newer. This port
31 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
34 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with Lisp code.
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. You can control this with 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 Emacs Lisp 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).
68 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the
69 following languages: Brasilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese (both
70 with simplified and traditional characters), French, and Italian.
71 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose one of them in case your language setup
72 doesn't automatically select the right one.
75 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
78 ** Emacs now includes support for loading image libraries on demand.
79 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
80 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
81 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
84 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
87 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
90 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
93 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
94 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
97 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
100 ** Mac OS 9 port now uses the Carbon API by default. You can also
101 create non-Carbon build by specifying `NonCarbon' as a target. See
102 the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
105 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
106 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
109 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
110 much pure storage it will approximately need.
112 ** The script etc/emacs-buffer.gdb can be used with gdb to retrieve the
113 contents of buffers from a core dump and save them to files easily, should
117 ** The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el uses a different terminfo name.
118 The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el now uses "eterm-color" as its
119 terminfo name, since term.el now supports color.
122 ** Emacs Lisp source files are compressed by default if `gzip' is available.
125 * Startup Changes in Emacs 22.1
128 ** New command line option -Q or --quick.
129 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
130 the fancy startup screen.
133 ** New command line option -D or --basic-display.
134 Disables the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, and
138 ** New command line option -nbc or --no-blinking-cursor disables
139 the blinking cursor on graphical terminals.
142 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
143 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
144 can start with this line:
146 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
149 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
150 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
151 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
153 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
155 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
156 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
159 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
160 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
163 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
164 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
165 an interactively callable function.
168 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
169 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
170 affects the initial frame.
173 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
174 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
175 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
176 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
177 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
180 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
181 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
182 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
183 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
184 `inhibit-splash-screen').
187 ** The default is now to use a bitmap as the icon, so the command-line options
188 --icon-type, -i has been replaced with options --no-bitmap-icon, -nbi to turn
192 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
193 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
194 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
198 If the init file ~/.emacs does not exist, Emacs will try
199 ~/.emacs.d/init.el or ~/.emacs.d/init.elc. You can also put the shell
200 init file .emacs_SHELL under ~/.emacs.d.
203 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
204 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
205 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
206 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
207 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
209 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
212 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
213 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
214 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
215 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
218 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
219 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
221 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
222 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
225 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
226 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
227 the operating system or your X server.
230 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
233 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
234 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
238 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
239 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
242 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
243 previous mark if you set `set-mark-command-repeat-pop' to t. I.e. C-u
244 C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC
245 to set the mark immediately after a jump.
248 ** The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
249 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
252 ** In incremental search, C-w is changed. M-%, C-M-w and C-M-y are special.
254 See below under "incremental search changes".
257 ** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
259 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
260 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
261 directory with Dired.
263 You can get the old behavior by typing C-x C-f M-n RET, which fetches
264 the actual file name into the minibuffer.
267 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
268 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
269 it remains unchanged.
272 ** When Emacs prompts for file names, SPC no longer completes the file name.
273 This is so filenames with embedded spaces could be input without the
274 need to quote the space with a C-q. The underlying changes in the
275 keymaps that are active in the minibuffer are described below under
276 "New keymaps for typing file names".
279 ** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
280 M-o M-o requests refontification.
283 ** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
285 See below for more details.
288 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
289 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
290 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
291 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
292 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
293 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
295 * Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
298 ** !MEM FULL! at the start of the mode line indicates that Emacs
299 cannot get any more memory for Lisp data. This often means it could
300 crash soon if you do things that use more memory. On most systems,
301 killing buffers will get out of this state. If killing buffers does
302 not make !MEM FULL! disappear, you should save your work and start
306 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
307 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
310 ** You can now switch buffers in a cyclic order with C-x C-left
311 (previous-buffer) and C-x C-right (next-buffer). C-x left and
312 C-x right can be used as well. The functions keep a different buffer
313 cycle for each frame, using the frame-local buffer list.
316 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
319 ** M-SPC (just-one-space) when given a numeric argument N
320 converts whitespace around point to N spaces.
323 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
324 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
327 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
328 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
331 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
332 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
333 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
334 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
337 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
338 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
339 in Indented-Text mode.
342 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variable references.
344 Substrings of the form `$foo' and `${foo}' in the specified new value
345 now refer to the value of environment variable foo. To include a `$'
346 in the value, use `$$'.
349 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
350 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
354 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
357 ** The command `list-faces-display' now accepts a prefix arg.
358 When passed, the function prompts for a regular expression and lists
359 only faces matching this regexp.
361 ** Mark command changes:
364 *** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
365 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
366 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
369 *** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times.
371 If you type C-M-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h
372 (mark-paragraph), or C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region
373 extends each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC
374 M-C-SPC, for example. This feature also works for
375 mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to a key. It also extends the
376 region when the mark is active in Transient Mark mode, regardless of
377 the last command. To start a new region with one of marking commands
378 in Transient Mark mode, you can deactivate the active region with C-g,
379 or set the new mark with C-SPC.
382 *** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
384 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
385 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
389 *** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
390 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
391 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
392 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
393 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
396 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
397 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
398 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
401 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
402 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
403 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
407 *** Movement commands `beginning-of-buffer', `end-of-buffer',
408 `beginning-of-defun', `end-of-defun' do not set the mark if the mark
409 is already active in Transient Mark mode.
411 ** Help command changes:
414 *** Changes in C-h bindings:
416 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
418 C-h d runs apropos-documentation.
420 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
423 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
424 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
426 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
427 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
429 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
430 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
431 run by the key sequence.
432 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
433 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
436 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
437 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
438 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
439 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
440 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
441 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
442 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
443 new-kill-line is on C-k
446 *** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
447 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
448 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
449 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
452 *** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
453 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
456 *** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
457 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
458 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
459 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
460 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
461 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
462 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node'). In
463 addition, it now makes hyperlinks to URLs as well if the URL is
464 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `URL'.
467 *** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
468 description various information about a character, including its
469 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
470 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
471 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
474 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
475 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
478 *** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
479 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
480 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
481 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
482 keyboard oriented alternative.
485 *** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
486 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
487 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
488 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
489 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
492 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
493 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
494 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
498 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
499 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
500 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
501 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
502 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
505 ** Incremental Search changes:
508 *** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
509 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
510 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
511 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
515 *** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
516 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
517 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
518 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
521 *** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
522 at the end of a line.
525 *** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
526 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
527 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
530 *** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
531 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
532 search string used as the string to replace.
535 *** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
536 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
537 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
539 ** Replace command changes:
542 *** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
543 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
544 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
547 *** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
548 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
549 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
550 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
551 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
552 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
553 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
554 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
555 can be edited for each replacement.
558 *** query-replace uses isearch lazy highlighting when the new user option
559 `query-replace-lazy-highlight' is non-nil.
562 *** The current match in query-replace is highlighted in new face
563 `query-replace' which by default inherits from isearch face.
565 ** File operation changes:
568 *** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
569 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
570 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
571 is only rarely needed.
574 *** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
575 suffix from every line before processing all the lines.
578 *** If the local variables list contains any variable-value pairs that
579 are not known to be safe, Emacs shows a prompt asking whether to apply
580 the local variables list as a whole. In earlier versions, a prompt
581 was only issued for variables explicitly marked as risky (for the
582 definition of risky variables, see `risky-local-variable-p').
584 At the prompt, the user can choose to save the contents of this local
585 variables list to `safe-local-variable-values'. This new customizable
586 option is a list of variable-value pairs that are known to be safe.
587 Variables can also be marked as safe with the existing
588 `safe-local-variable' property (see `safe-local-variable-p').
589 However, risky variables will not be added to
590 `safe-local-variable-values' in this way.
593 *** find-file-read-only visits multiple files in read-only mode,
594 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
597 *** find-alternate-file replaces the current file with multiple files,
598 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
601 *** Auto Compression mode is now enabled by default.
604 *** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
606 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
607 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
608 directory with Dired.
611 *** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
612 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
613 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
617 *** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
618 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
621 *** The commands copy-file, rename-file, make-symbolic-link and
622 add-name-to-file, when given a directory as the "new name" argument,
623 convert it to a file name by merging in the within-directory part of
624 the existing file's name. (This is the same convention that shell
625 commands cp, mv, and ln follow.) Thus, M-x copy-file RET ~/foo RET
626 /tmp RET copies ~/foo to /tmp/foo.
629 *** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
630 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
631 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
634 *** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
635 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
636 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
639 *** The new option `write-region-inhibit-fsync' disables calls to fsync
640 in `write-region'. This can be useful on laptops to avoid spinning up
641 the hard drive upon each file save. Enabling this variable may result
642 in data loss, use with care.
645 *** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
646 Emacs asks for confirmation.
649 *** require-final-newline now has two new possible values:
651 `visit' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's needed
652 when visiting the file.
654 `visit-save' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's
655 needed when visiting the file, and also add a newline if it's needed
656 when saving the file.
659 *** The new option mode-require-final-newline controls how certain
660 major modes enable require-final-newline. Any major mode that's
661 designed for a kind of file that should normally end in a newline
662 sets require-final-newline based on mode-require-final-newline.
663 So you can customize mode-require-final-newline to control what these
666 ** Minibuffer changes:
669 *** The new file-name-shadow-mode is turned ON by default, so that when
670 entering a file name, any prefix which Emacs will ignore is dimmed.
673 *** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
674 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
675 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
679 *** Enhanced visual feedback in `*Completions*' buffer.
681 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
682 have in common and where they begin to differ.
684 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
685 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
686 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
687 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
688 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
689 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
690 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
691 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
693 Above fontification is always done when listing completions is
694 triggered at minibuffer. If you want to fontify completions whose
695 listing is triggered at the other normal buffer, you have to pass
696 the common prefix of completions to `display-completion-list' as
700 *** File-name completion can now ignore specified directories.
701 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
702 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
703 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
704 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
705 candidate is a directory.
708 *** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
709 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
710 it remains unchanged.
713 *** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
714 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
715 elements are deleted.
717 ** Redisplay changes:
720 *** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
721 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
722 appears between the position information and the major mode.
725 *** New face `escape-glyph' highlights control characters and escape glyphs.
728 *** Non-breaking space and hyphens are now displayed with a special
729 face, either nobreak-space or escape-glyph. You can turn this off or
730 specify a different mode by setting the variable `nobreak-char-display'.
733 *** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
734 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
735 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
736 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
738 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
739 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
740 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
741 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
742 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
743 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
745 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
746 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
749 *** Moving or scrolling through images (and other lines) taller than
750 the window now works sensibly, by automatically adjusting the window's
754 *** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
755 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
756 the mode line of the currently selected window.
758 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
759 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
762 *** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
763 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
764 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
765 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
769 *** Angle icons in the fringes can indicate the buffer boundaries. In
770 addition, up and down arrow bitmaps in the fringe indicate which ways
771 the window can be scrolled.
773 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
774 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
775 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
777 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
778 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
780 The value can also be an alist which specifies the presence and
781 position of each bitmap individually.
783 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
784 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
785 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
786 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
789 *** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
790 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
791 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
792 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
793 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
795 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' can be set to nil to
796 revert to the old behavior of continuing such lines.
799 *** When a window has display margin areas, the fringes are now
800 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
801 outside those margins.
804 *** A window can now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
805 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
807 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
808 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
809 or when the frame is resized.
811 ** Cursor display changes:
814 *** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
815 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
818 *** The X resource cursorBlink can be used to turn off cursor blinking.
821 *** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
822 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
823 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
827 *** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
828 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
832 *** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
833 of the recognized cursor types.
836 *** On text terminals, the variable `visible-cursor' controls whether Emacs
837 uses the "very visible" cursor (the default) or the normal cursor.
842 *** `mode-line-highlight' is the standard face indicating mouse sensitive
843 elements on mode-line (and header-line) like `highlight' face on text
846 *** `mode-line-buffer-id' is the standard face for buffer identification
847 parts of the mode line.
850 *** `shadow' face defines the appearance of the "shadowed" text, i.e.
851 the text which should be less noticeable than the surrounding text.
852 This can be achieved by using shades of grey in contrast with either
853 black or white default foreground color. This generic shadow face
854 allows customization of the appearance of shadowed text in one place,
855 so package-specific faces can inherit from it.
858 *** `vertical-border' face is used for the vertical divider between windows.
860 ** Font-Lock changes:
863 *** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
864 M-o M-o requests refontification.
867 *** All modes now support using M-x font-lock-mode to toggle
868 fontification, even those such as Occur, Info, and comint-derived
869 modes that do their own fontification in a special way.
871 The variable `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable
872 fontification in Info, remove `turn-on-font-lock' from
876 *** font-lock-lines-before specifies a number of lines before the
877 current line that should be refontified when you change the buffer.
878 The default value is 1.
881 *** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
882 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
883 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
884 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
885 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
888 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
891 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-comment-delimiter-face'.
894 *** Easy to overlook single character negation can now be font-locked.
895 You can use the new variable `font-lock-negation-char-face' and the face of
896 the same name to customize this. Currently the cc-modes, sh-script-mode,
897 cperl-mode and make-mode support this.
900 *** The default settings for JIT stealth lock parameters are changed.
901 The default value for the user option jit-lock-stealth-time is now 16
902 instead of 3, and the default value of jit-lock-stealth-nice is now
903 0.5 instead of 0.125. The new defaults should lower the CPU usage
904 when Emacs is fontifying in the background.
907 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
909 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
910 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
911 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
912 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
915 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
917 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
918 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
919 refontification takes place.
924 *** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
925 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
926 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
927 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
928 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
929 current date and time, current line and column number in the mode-line.
932 *** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
935 *** You can exit dialog windows and menus by typing C-g.
938 *** The menu item "Open File..." has been split into two items, "New File..."
939 and "Open File...". "Open File..." now opens only existing files. This is
940 to support existing GUI file selection dialogs better.
943 *** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, Mac, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
944 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
947 *** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
948 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+, Mac and W32).
951 *** The Lucid menus can display multilingual text in your locale. You have
952 to explicitly specify a fontSet resource for this to work, for example
953 `-xrm "Emacs*fontSet: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,*"'.
956 *** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif now pops down when pressing
957 ESC, like they do for Gtk+, Mac and W32.
960 *** For the Gtk+ version, you can make Emacs use the old file dialog
961 by setting the variable `x-use-old-gtk-file-dialog' to t. Default is to use
967 *** If you set the new variable `mouse-autoselect-window' to a non-nil
968 value, windows are automatically selected as you move the mouse from
969 one Emacs window to another, even within a frame. A minibuffer window
970 can be selected only when it is active.
973 *** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
974 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
975 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
976 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
977 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
981 *** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
983 Traditionally, Emacs uses a Mouse-1 click to set point and a Mouse-2
984 click to follow a link, whereas most other applications use a Mouse-1
985 click for both purposes, depending on whether you click outside or
986 inside a link. Now the behavior of a Mouse-1 click has been changed
987 to match this context-sentitive dual behavior. (If you prefer the old
988 behavior, set the user option `mouse-1-click-follows-link' to nil.)
990 Depending on the current mode, a Mouse-2 click in Emacs can do much
991 more than just follow a link, so the new Mouse-1 behavior is only
992 activated for modes which explicitly mark a clickable text as a "link"
993 (see the new function `mouse-on-link-p' for details). The Lisp
994 packages that are included in release 22.1 have been adapted to do
995 this, but external packages may not yet support this. However, there
996 is no risk in using such packages, as the worst thing that could
997 happen is that you get the original Mouse-1 behavior when you click
998 on a link, which typically means that you set point where you click.
1000 If you want to get the original Mouse-1 action also inside a link, you
1001 just need to press the Mouse-1 button a little longer than a normal
1002 click (i.e. press and hold the Mouse-1 button for half a second before
1005 Dragging the Mouse-1 inside a link still performs the original
1006 drag-mouse-1 action, typically copy the text.
1008 You can customize the new Mouse-1 behavior via the new user options
1009 `mouse-1-click-follows-link' and `mouse-1-click-in-non-selected-windows'.
1012 *** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
1013 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
1014 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
1015 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
1016 also disable mouse highlighting.
1019 *** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
1020 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
1021 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
1024 *** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1025 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1028 *** Emacs ignores mouse-2 clicks while the mouse wheel is being moved.
1030 People tend to push the mouse wheel (which counts as a mouse-2 click)
1031 unintentionally while turning the wheel, so these clicks are now
1032 ignored. You can customize this with the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1033 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1036 *** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
1038 ** Multilingual Environment (Mule) changes:
1041 *** Language environment and various default coding systems are setup
1042 more correctly according to the current locale name. If the locale
1043 name doesn't specify a charset, the default is what glibc defines.
1044 This change can result in using the different coding systems as
1045 default in some locale (e.g. vi_VN).
1048 *** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1049 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1050 can mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1051 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1052 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1053 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1054 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1055 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1058 *** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
1059 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
1062 *** New command `recode-region' decodes the region again by a specified
1066 *** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
1070 *** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
1074 *** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
1075 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
1076 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
1080 *** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
1081 in the current input method to input a character at point.
1084 *** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
1085 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
1086 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
1087 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
1088 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
1089 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
1090 mule-unicode-... ones.
1092 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
1093 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
1094 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
1097 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
1098 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
1099 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
1100 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
1101 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
1104 *** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
1105 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
1106 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
1107 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
1110 *** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
1111 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
1112 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
1113 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
1114 automatically according to the locale.)
1117 *** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
1118 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
1119 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
1120 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
1121 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
1125 *** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
1129 *** Improved Thai support. A new minor mode `thai-word-mode' (which is
1130 automatically activated if you select Thai as a language
1131 environment) changes key bindings of most word-oriented commands to
1132 versions which recognize Thai words. Affected commands are
1136 M-DEL (backward-kill-word)
1137 M-t (transpose-words)
1138 M-q (fill-paragraph)
1141 *** Indian support has been updated.
1142 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
1143 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
1144 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
1148 *** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
1151 *** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
1152 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
1153 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
1154 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
1155 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
1156 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
1157 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
1158 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
1159 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
1160 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
1161 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
1162 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
1165 *** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
1166 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
1167 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
1170 *** Many new coding systems are available in the `code-pages' library.
1171 These include complete versions of most of those in codepage.el, based
1172 on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now obsolete and is used
1173 only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. All coding systems defined in
1174 `code-pages' are auto-loaded.
1177 *** New variable `utf-translate-cjk-unicode-range' controls which
1178 Unicode characters to translate in `utf-translate-cjk-mode'.
1181 *** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
1182 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
1183 fontset appropriately.
1185 ** Customize changes:
1188 *** Custom themes are collections of customize options. Create a
1189 custom theme with M-x customize-create-theme. Use M-x load-theme to
1190 load and enable a theme, and M-x disable-theme to disable it. Use M-x
1191 enable-theme to renable a disabled theme.
1194 *** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
1195 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
1196 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
1200 *** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1201 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1202 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1203 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1204 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1205 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1206 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1209 *** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1210 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1211 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1212 under the "[State]" button.
1214 ** Buffer Menu changes:
1217 *** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
1218 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to T in Buffer Menu
1222 *** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1223 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1224 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1227 *** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
1228 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
1229 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
1231 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
1232 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
1233 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
1234 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
1235 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
1237 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
1238 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
1239 t, and the status is shown.
1241 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
1242 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
1247 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
1248 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
1249 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
1252 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
1253 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
1256 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
1257 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
1260 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
1261 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
1262 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
1263 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
1264 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
1265 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
1268 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
1269 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
1272 *** In Dired-x, Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode.
1274 The mode toggling command is bound to M-o. A new command
1275 dired-mark-omitted, bound to * O, marks omitted files. The variable
1276 dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the mode toggling function
1280 *** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1281 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1282 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1283 directory listing into a buffer.
1288 *** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
1289 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
1290 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
1291 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
1292 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
1294 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
1295 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
1297 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
1298 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
1299 lines, including any prompts.
1301 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
1302 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
1303 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
1304 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
1305 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
1306 `kill-region' if read-only properties are involved: it copies the text
1307 to the kill-ring, but does not delete it.
1310 *** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1311 modes (shell-mode, etc.) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1312 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1313 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1316 *** `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' has been renamed
1317 `comint-use-prompt-regexp'. The old name has been kept as an alias,
1318 but declared obsolete.
1320 ** M-x Compile changes:
1323 *** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
1325 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
1326 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
1327 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
1328 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
1330 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
1331 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
1332 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
1334 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
1335 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
1336 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
1337 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
1338 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
1340 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
1343 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1344 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1345 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1346 subprocesses inherit.
1349 *** New user option `compilation-disable-input'.
1350 If this is non-nil, send end-of-file as compilation process input.
1353 *** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
1354 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
1355 in new face `next-error'.
1358 *** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
1359 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
1360 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
1361 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
1362 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
1366 *** When the left fringe is displayed, an arrow points to current message in
1367 the compilation buffer.
1370 *** The new variable `compilation-context-lines' controls lines of leading
1371 context before the current message. If nil and the left fringe is displayed,
1372 it doesn't scroll the compilation output window. If there is no left fringe,
1373 no arrow is displayed and a value of nil means display the message at the top
1376 ** Occur mode changes:
1379 *** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1380 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1384 *** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
1385 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
1388 *** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
1389 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
1390 `multi-occur-in-matching-buffers' which allows you to specify the
1391 buffers to search by their filenames or buffer names. Internally,
1392 Occur mode has been rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other
1398 *** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1400 There's a new separate package grep.el, with its own submenu and
1401 customization group.
1404 *** M-x grep provides highlighting support.
1406 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
1407 can be saved and automatically revisited.
1410 *** `grep-find' is now also available under the name `find-grep' where
1411 people knowing `find-grep-dired' would probably expect it.
1414 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1415 `grep-scroll-output' override the corresponding compilation mode
1416 settings, for grep commands only.
1419 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlightes matches in *grep*
1420 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
1421 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
1422 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
1423 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
1424 source line is highlighted.
1427 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1428 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1429 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1430 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1431 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1432 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1436 *** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1437 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1438 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1439 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1440 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1441 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1443 ** X Windows Support:
1446 *** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
1447 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
1448 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
1451 *** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1452 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1453 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1454 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1456 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1457 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1460 *** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which can
1461 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
1463 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
1464 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
1467 *** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
1468 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
1469 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
1470 and use the more appropriately result.
1473 *** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
1474 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
1475 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
1480 *** If you enable Xterm Mouse mode, Emacs will respond to mouse clicks
1481 on the mode line, header line and display margin, when run in an xterm.
1484 *** Improved key bindings support when running in an xterm.
1485 When emacs is running in an xterm more key bindings are available. The
1486 following should work:
1487 {C,S,C-S,A}-{right,left,up,down,prior,next,delete,insert,F1-12}.
1488 These key bindings work on xterm from X.org 6.8, they might not work on
1489 some older versions of xterm, or on some proprietary versions.
1491 ** Character terminal color support changes:
1494 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1495 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1496 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1497 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1498 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1499 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1500 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1501 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1502 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1505 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1506 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1507 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1508 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1509 all of these colors.
1512 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1513 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1514 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1515 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1519 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1521 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1
1523 ** ERC is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1525 ERC is a powerful, modular, and extensible IRC client for Emacs.
1527 To see what modules are available, type
1528 M-x customize-option erc-modules RET.
1530 To start an IRC session, type M-x erc-select, and follow the prompts
1531 for server, port, and nick.
1534 ** Rcirc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1536 Rcirc is an Internet relay chat (IRC) client. It supports
1537 simultaneous connections to multiple IRC servers. Each discussion
1538 takes place in its own buffer. For each connection you can join
1539 several channels (many-to-many) and participate in private
1540 (one-to-one) chats. Both channel and private chats are contained in
1543 To start an IRC session, type M-x irc, and follow the prompts for
1544 server, port, nick and initial channels.
1547 ** Newsticker is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1549 Newsticker asynchronously retrieves headlines (RSS) from a list of news
1550 sites, prepares these headlines for reading, and allows for loading the
1551 corresponding articles in a web browser. Its documentation is in a
1555 ** savehist saves minibuffer histories between sessions.
1556 To use this feature, turn on savehist-mode in your `.emacs' file.
1559 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
1560 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
1561 program files that include other program files.
1563 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
1564 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
1568 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1570 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1571 Emacs Lisp. The prefix for Calc has been changed to `C-x *' and Calc
1572 can be started with `C-x * *'. The Calc manual is separate from the
1573 Emacs manual; within Emacs, type "C-h i m calc RET" to read the
1574 manual. A reference card is available in `etc/calccard.tex' and
1578 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1579 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1582 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1584 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1585 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1586 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1587 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1590 ** Image files are normally visited in Image mode, which lets you toggle
1591 between viewing the image and viewing the text using C-c C-c.
1594 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1596 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1597 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1598 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1599 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1600 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1601 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1603 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1604 rectangle highlighting: Use C-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1605 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1606 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1608 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1609 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1610 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1611 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1612 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1613 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1614 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1616 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1617 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1618 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1620 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1621 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1623 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1624 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1625 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1626 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1628 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1629 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1630 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you can customize the
1631 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1633 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1634 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1635 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1636 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1639 ** Org mode is now part of the Emacs distribution
1641 Org mode is a mode for keeping notes, maintaining ToDo lists, and
1642 doing project planning with a fast and effective plain-text system.
1643 It also contains a plain-text table editor with spreadsheet-like
1646 The Org mode table editor can be integrated into any major mode by
1647 activating the minor Orgtbl-mode.
1649 The documentation for org-mode is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1650 type "C-h i m org RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1651 available in `etc/orgcard.tex' and `etc/orgcard.ps'.
1654 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
1655 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
1656 to increment the SOA serial.
1659 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1660 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1661 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1662 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1663 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method can
1664 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1667 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
1668 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
1671 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1672 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1673 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1674 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1675 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1677 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1678 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1679 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1680 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1681 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1682 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1684 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1685 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1686 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1687 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1688 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1689 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1690 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1691 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1692 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1696 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1697 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1699 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1700 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1701 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1702 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1704 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1707 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1708 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1709 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1710 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1711 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1714 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1715 the keyboard macro ring.
1717 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1718 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1720 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1721 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1722 this behavior via the variables kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1723 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1725 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1726 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1727 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1730 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
1731 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
1732 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
1735 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
1736 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
1739 ** The new package longlines.el provides a minor mode for editing text
1740 files composed of long lines, based on the `use-hard-newlines'
1741 mechanism. The long lines are broken up by inserting soft newlines,
1742 which are automatically removed when saving the file to disk or
1743 copying into the kill ring, clipboard, etc. By default, Longlines
1744 mode inserts soft newlines automatically during editing, a behavior
1745 referred to as "soft word wrap" in other text editors. This is
1746 similar to Refill mode, but more reliable. To turn the word wrap
1747 feature off, set `longlines-auto-wrap' to nil.
1750 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1752 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1753 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1754 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1755 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1756 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1757 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1760 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1761 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1762 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1763 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1765 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1768 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1769 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1770 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1774 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1775 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1776 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1777 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1780 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1781 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1784 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1785 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1786 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1787 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1788 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1789 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1791 ** The tumme.el package allows you to easily view, tag and in other ways
1792 manipulate image files and their thumbnails, using dired as the main interface.
1793 Tumme provides functionality to generate simple image galleries.
1796 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1798 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1799 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1800 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1801 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1802 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1803 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1804 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1805 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1806 `rsync' to do the copying).
1808 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1809 `su' and `sudo'. Ange-FTP is still supported via the `ftp' method.
1811 If you want to disable Tramp you should set
1813 (setq tramp-default-method "ftp")
1815 Removing Tramp, and re-enabling Ange-FTP, can be achieved by M-x
1819 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
1822 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1823 configuration files.
1826 ** The new package conf-mode.el handles thousands of configuration files, with
1827 varying syntaxes for comments (;, #, //, /* */ or !), assignment (var = value,
1828 var : value, var value or keyword var value) and sections ([section] or
1829 section { }). Many files under /etc/, or with suffixes like .cf through
1830 .config, .properties (Java), .desktop (KDE/Gnome), .ini and many others are
1834 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1837 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
1840 ** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
1841 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
1843 ** The new package scroll-lock.el provides the Scroll Lock minor mode
1844 for pager-like scrolling. Keys which normally move point by line or
1845 paragraph will scroll the buffer by the respective amount of lines
1846 instead and point will be kept vertically fixed relative to window
1847 boundaries during scrolling.
1849 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1:
1852 *** Bindings for Tumme added
1853 Several new keybindings, all starting with the C-t prefix, have been
1854 added to Dired. They are all bound to commands in Tumme. As a starting
1855 point, mark some image files in a dired buffer and do C-t d to display
1856 thumbnails of them in a separate buffer.
1857 ** Changes in Hi Lock:
1860 *** hi-lock-mode now only affects a single buffer, and a new function
1861 `global-hi-lock-mode' enables Hi Lock in all buffers. By default, if
1862 hi-lock-mode is used in what appears to be the initialization file, a
1863 warning message suggests to use global-hi-lock-mode instead. However,
1864 if the new variable `hi-lock-archaic-interface-deduce' is non-nil,
1865 using hi-lock-mode in an initialization file will turn on Hi Lock in all
1866 buffers and no warning will be issued (for compatibility with the
1867 behavior in older versions of Emacs).
1869 ** Changes in Allout
1871 *** Topic cryptography added, enabling easy gpg topic encryption and
1872 decryption. Per-topic basis enables interspersing encrypted-text and
1873 clear-text within a single file to your hearts content, using symmetric
1874 and/or public key modes. Time-limited key caching, user-provided
1875 symmetric key hinting and consistency verification, auto-encryption of
1876 pending topics on save, and more, make it easy to use encryption in
1879 *** many substantial fixes and refinements, including:
1881 - repaired inhibition of inadvertent edits to concealed text
1882 - repaired retention of topic body hanging indent upon topic depth shifts
1883 - prevent "containment discontinuities" where a topic is shifted deeper
1884 than the offspring-depth of its container
1885 - easy to adopt the distinctive bullet of a topic in a topic created
1886 relative to it, or select a new one, or use the common topic bullet
1887 - plain bullets, by default, now alternate between only two characters
1888 ('.' and ','), yielding less cluttered outlines
1889 - many internal fixes
1890 - version number incremented to 2.1
1892 ** The variable `woman-topic-at-point' was renamed
1893 to `woman-use-topic-at-point' and behaves differently: if this
1894 variable is non-nil, the `woman' command uses the word at point
1895 automatically, without asking for a confirmation. Otherwise, the word
1896 at point is suggested as default, but not inserted at the prompt.
1899 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1901 *** Emacs now offers to start Scheme if the user tries to
1902 evaluate a Scheme expression but no Scheme subprocess is running.
1904 *** If a file `.emacs_NAME' (where NAME is the name of the Scheme interpreter)
1905 exists in the user's home directory or in ~/.emacs.d, its
1906 contents are sent to the Scheme subprocess upon startup.
1908 *** There are new commands to instruct the Scheme interpreter to trace
1909 procedure calls (`scheme-trace-procedure') and to expand syntactic forms
1910 (`scheme-expand-current-form'). The commands actually sent to the Scheme
1911 subprocess are controlled by the user options `scheme-trace-command',
1912 `scheme-untrace-command' and `scheme-expand-current-form'.
1915 ** Makefile mode has submodes for automake, gmake, makepp, BSD make and imake.
1917 The former two couldn't be differentiated before, and the latter three
1918 are new. Font-locking is robust now and offers new customizable
1922 ** In Outline mode, `hide-body' no longer hides lines at the top
1923 of the file that precede the first header line.
1926 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
1929 ** The terminal emulation code in term.el has been improved; it can
1930 run most curses applications now.
1933 ** M-x diff uses Diff mode instead of Compilation mode.
1936 ** You can now customize `fill-nobreak-predicate' to control where
1937 filling can break lines. The value is now normally a list of
1938 functions, but it can also be a single function, for compatibility.
1940 Emacs provide two predicates, `fill-single-word-nobreak-p' and
1941 `fill-french-nobreak-p', for use as the value of
1942 `fill-nobreak-predicate'.
1945 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
1946 with special modes such as Tar mode.
1949 ** Commands `winner-redo' and `winner-undo', from winner.el, are now
1950 bound to C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an
1951 incompatible change.
1954 ** `global-whitespace-mode' is a new alias for `whitespace-global-mode'.
1957 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
1958 resync points in both windows.
1961 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1963 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
1964 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1967 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
1968 when Emacs visits them.
1970 ** Info mode changes:
1973 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
1974 with the number appended to the `*info*' buffer name (e.g. "*info*<2>").
1977 *** isearch in Info uses Info-search and searches through multiple nodes.
1979 Before leaving the initial Info node isearch fails once with the error
1980 message [initial node], and with subsequent C-s/C-r continues through
1981 other nodes. When isearch fails for the rest of the manual, it wraps
1982 aroung the whole manual to the top/final node. The user option
1983 `Info-isearch-search' controls whether to use Info-search for isearch,
1984 or the default isearch search function that wraps around the current
1988 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
1989 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
1990 search without prompting for a new search string.
1993 *** New command `Info-history-forward' (bound to r and new toolbar icon)
1994 moves forward in history to the node you returned from after using
1995 `Info-history-back' (renamed from `Info-last').
1998 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
2001 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
2002 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
2005 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
2006 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
2010 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
2011 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
2012 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
2015 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
2016 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
2019 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
2020 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
2023 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
2025 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
2026 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
2029 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
2031 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
2032 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
2033 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
2036 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
2039 *** `Info-index' offers completion.
2041 ** Lisp mode changes:
2044 *** Lisp mode now uses `font-lock-doc-face' for doc strings.
2047 *** C-u C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-prints the list after point.
2049 *** New features in evaluation commands
2052 **** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
2053 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
2056 **** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
2057 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
2058 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
2059 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
2060 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
2065 *** The CC Mode manual has been extensively revised.
2066 The information about using CC Mode has been separated from the larger
2067 and more difficult chapters about configuration.
2069 *** Changes in Key Sequences
2070 **** c-toggle-auto-hungry-state is no longer bound to C-c C-t.
2072 **** c-toggle-hungry-state is no longer bound to C-c C-d.
2073 This binding has been taken over by c-hungry-delete-forwards.
2075 **** c-toggle-auto-state (C-c C-t) has been renamed to c-toggle-auto-newline.
2076 c-toggle-auto-state remains as an alias.
2078 **** The new commands c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forwards
2079 have key bindings C-c C-DEL (or C-c DEL, for the benefit of TTYs) and
2080 C-c C-d (or C-c C-<delete> or C-c <delete>) respectively. These
2081 commands delete entire blocks of whitespace with a single
2082 key-sequence. [N.B. "DEL" is the <backspace> key.]
2084 **** The new command c-toggle-electric-mode is bound to C-c C-l.
2086 **** The new command c-subword-mode is bound to C-c C-w.
2088 *** C-c C-s (`c-show-syntactic-information') now highlights the anchor
2092 **** Electric Minor Mode toggles the electric action of non-alphabetic keys.
2093 The new command c-toggle-electric-mode is bound to C-c C-l. Turning the
2094 mode off can be helpful for editing chaotically indented code and for
2095 users new to CC Mode, who sometimes find electric indentation
2096 disconcerting. Its current state is displayed in the mode line with an
2099 **** Subword Minor Mode makes Emacs recognize word boundaries at upper case
2100 letters in StudlyCapsIdentifiers. You enable this feature by C-c C-w. It can
2101 also be used in non-CC Mode buffers. :-) Contributed by Masatake YAMATO.
2105 **** `comment-close-slash'.
2106 With this clean-up, a block (i.e. c-style) comment can be terminated by
2107 typing a slash at the start of a line.
2109 **** `c-one-liner-defun'
2110 This clean-up compresses a short enough defun (for example, an AWK
2111 pattern/action pair) onto a single line. "Short enough" is configurable.
2113 *** Font lock support.
2114 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
2115 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
2116 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
2117 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
2118 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
2119 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
2121 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
2122 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
2123 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
2124 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
2125 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
2126 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
2127 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
2128 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
2129 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
2131 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
2132 fontification in mind; Just-In-Time-Lock mode should be enabled for
2133 the highest font lock level (by default, it is). Fontifying a file
2134 with several thousand lines in one go can take the better part of a
2137 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
2138 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
2139 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
2140 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
2141 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
2142 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
2144 **** Support for documentation comments.
2145 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
2146 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
2147 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
2148 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
2150 Currently three kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Sun's
2151 Javadoc, Autodoc (which is used in Pike) and GtkDoc (used in C). (The
2152 last was contributed by Masatake YAMATO). This is by no means a
2153 complete list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor
2154 of choice is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2156 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
2157 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
2158 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
2159 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
2162 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
2163 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
2164 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
2165 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
2166 not as configurable as it ought to be.
2168 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
2169 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
2170 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
2171 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
2172 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
2174 *** Support for the AWK language.
2175 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
2176 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
2177 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
2180 **** Indentation Engine
2181 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
2183 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
2184 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
2185 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
2186 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
2187 definition, or structured statement.
2189 The predefined line-up functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
2190 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't
2191 be any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
2194 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
2195 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
2196 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
2197 the AWK language itself.
2199 **** Comment and Movement Commands
2200 These commands all work for AWK buffers. The notion of "defun" has
2201 been augmented to include AWK pattern-action pairs - the standard
2202 "defun" commands on key sequences C-M-a, C-M-e, and C-M-h use this
2203 extended definition.
2205 **** "awk" style, Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
2206 A new style, "awk" has been introduced, and this is now the default
2207 style for AWK code. With auto-newline enabled, the clean-up
2208 c-one-liner-defun (see above) is useful.
2210 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
2211 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
2212 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
2213 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
2214 composition-close, and incomposition.
2216 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
2217 The new functions `c-hungry-backspace' and `c-hungry-delete-forward'
2218 provide hungry deletion without having to toggle a mode. They are
2219 bound to C-c C-DEL and C-c C-d (and several variants, for the benefit
2220 of different keyboard setups. See "Changes in key sequences" above).
2222 *** Better control over `require-final-newline'.
2224 The variable `c-require-final-newline' specifies which of the modes
2225 implemented by CC mode should insert final newlines. Its value is a
2226 list of modes, and only those modes should do it. By default the list
2227 includes C, C++ and Objective-C modes.
2229 Whichever modes are in this list will set `require-final-newline'
2230 based on `mode-require-final-newline'.
2232 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
2234 The elements in the syntactic context returned by `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2235 and stored in `c-syntactic-context' has been changed somewhat to allow
2236 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
2237 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
2239 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
2243 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
2245 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
2248 This change might affect code that calls `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2249 directly, and custom lineup functions if they use
2250 `c-syntactic-context'. However, the argument given to lineup
2251 functions is still a single cons cell with nil or an integer in the
2254 *** API changes for derived modes.
2256 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
2257 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
2258 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
2259 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
2260 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
2262 **** New language variable system.
2263 These are variables whose values vary between CC Mode's different
2264 languages. See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
2266 **** New initialization functions.
2267 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
2268 give better control: `c-basic-common-init', `c-font-lock-init', and
2269 `c-init-language-vars'.
2271 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
2272 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
2273 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
2274 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
2276 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
2277 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
2278 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
2279 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
2280 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2282 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
2283 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
2284 its substatement. E.g:
2290 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
2292 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
2293 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
2294 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
2295 variable `c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros'. A new syntactic symbol
2296 `cpp-define-intro' has been added to control the initial indentation
2299 **** New lineup function `c-lineup-cpp-define'.
2301 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
2302 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
2303 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
2304 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
2305 much line `c-lineup-dont-change', which was used earlier, but handles
2306 empty lines within the macro better.
2308 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
2309 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
2310 `c-context-line-break' and `c-context-open-line'.
2312 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2313 `c-backslash-region' tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
2314 variable `c-backslash-max-column' puts a limit on how far out
2315 backslashes can be moved.
2317 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2318 This is controlled by the new variable `c-auto-align-backslashes'. It
2319 affects `c-context-line-break', `c-context-open-line' and newlines
2320 inserted in Auto-Newline mode.
2322 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
2323 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
2324 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
2325 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
2326 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
2327 backslash) in the macro.
2329 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
2330 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
2331 the variable `c-indent-comment-alist'. The indentation behavior is
2332 based on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after
2333 #else and #endif but indentation to `comment-column' in most other
2334 cases (something which was hardcoded earlier).
2336 *** New function `c-context-open-line'.
2337 It's the open-line equivalent of `c-context-line-break'.
2339 *** New lineup functions
2341 **** `c-lineup-string-cont'
2342 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
2345 result = prefix + "A message "
2346 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
2348 **** `c-lineup-cascaded-calls'
2349 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
2351 **** `c-lineup-knr-region-comment'
2352 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
2353 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
2355 **** `c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg'
2356 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks.
2358 **** `c-lineup-argcont'
2359 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
2361 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
2362 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
2363 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
2364 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
2365 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
2366 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
2368 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
2369 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
2370 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
2371 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
2374 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
2375 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
2376 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
2377 happen when macros are involved.
2379 *** Improved the way `c-indent-exp' chooses the block to indent.
2380 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
2381 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
2382 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
2383 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
2384 line is left untouched.
2386 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
2387 The function `c-toggle-syntactic-indentation' can be used to toggle
2388 syntactic indentation.
2390 ** In sh-script, a continuation line is only indented if the backslash was
2391 preceded by a SPC or a TAB.
2394 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
2397 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2398 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2399 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2400 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2402 ** Fortran mode changes:
2405 *** Fortran mode does more font-locking by default. Use level 3
2406 highlighting for the old default.
2409 *** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
2410 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
2411 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
2414 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have new navigation commands
2415 `f90-end-of-block', `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block',
2416 `f90-previous-block', `fortran-end-of-block',
2417 `fortran-beginning-of-block'.
2420 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have support for `hs-minor-mode' (hideshow).
2421 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
2425 *** The new function `f90-backslash-not-special' can be used to change
2426 the syntax of backslashes in F90 buffers.
2429 ** Reftex mode changes
2432 *** Changes to RefTeX's table of contents
2434 The new command keys "<" and ">" in the TOC buffer promote/demote the
2435 section at point or all sections in the current region, with full
2436 support for multifile documents.
2438 The new command `reftex-toc-recenter' (`C-c -') shows the current
2439 section in the TOC buffer without selecting the TOC window.
2440 Recentering can happen automatically in idle time when the option
2441 `reftex-auto-recenter-toc' is turned on. The highlight in the TOC
2442 buffer stays when the focus moves to a different window. A dedicated
2443 frame can show the TOC with the current section always automatically
2444 highlighted. The frame is created and deleted from the toc buffer
2447 The toc window can be split off horizontally instead of vertically.
2448 See new option `reftex-toc-split-windows-horizontally'.
2450 Labels can be renamed globally from the table of contents using the
2453 The new command `reftex-goto-label' jumps directly to a label
2457 *** Changes related to citations and BibTeX database files
2459 Commands that insert a citation now prompt for optional arguments when
2460 called with a prefix argument. Related new options are
2461 `reftex-cite-prompt-optional-args' and `reftex-cite-cleanup-optional-args'.
2463 The new command `reftex-create-bibtex-file' creates a BibTeX database
2464 with all entries referenced in the current document. The keys "e" and
2465 "E" allow to produce a BibTeX database file from entries marked in a
2466 citation selection buffer.
2468 The command `reftex-citation' uses the word in the buffer before the
2469 cursor as a default search string.
2471 The support for chapterbib has been improved. Different chapters can
2472 now use BibTeX or an explicit `thebibliography' environment.
2474 The macros which specify the bibliography file (like \bibliography)
2475 can be configured with the new option `reftex-bibliography-commands'.
2477 Support for jurabib has been added.
2480 *** Global index matched may be verified with a user function
2482 During global indexing, a user function can verify an index match.
2483 See new option `reftex-index-verify-function'.
2486 *** Parsing documents with many labels can be sped up.
2488 Operating in a document with thousands of labels can be sped up
2489 considerably by allowing RefTeX to derive the type of a label directly
2490 from the label prefix like `eq:' or `fig:'. The option
2491 `reftex-trust-label-prefix' needs to be configured in order to enable
2492 this feature. While the speed-up is significant, this may reduce the
2493 quality of the context offered by RefTeX to describe a label.
2496 *** Miscellaneous changes
2498 The macros which input a file in LaTeX (like \input, \include) can be
2499 configured in the new option `reftex-include-file-commands'.
2501 RefTeX supports global incremental search.
2504 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
2505 to support use of font-lock.
2507 ** HTML/SGML changes:
2510 *** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
2514 *** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
2515 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
2516 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
2517 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
2518 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
2519 from the file name or buffer contents.
2522 *** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
2527 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
2530 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
2531 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
2532 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
2533 TeX commands to use at startup.
2536 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
2537 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
2540 *** New major mode Doctex mode, for *.dtx files.
2544 *** The new command `bibtex-url' browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
2545 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2, RET on clickable fields).
2547 *** The new command `bibtex-entry-update' (bound to C-c C-u) updates
2548 an existing BibTeX entry by inserting fields that may occur but are not
2551 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
2553 *** `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' can take values `plain',
2554 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
2555 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
2556 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
2557 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
2558 `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' is non-nil.
2560 *** If the new variable `bibtex-parse-keys-fast' is non-nil,
2561 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
2563 *** If the new variable `bibtex-autoadd-commas' is non-nil,
2564 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
2566 *** The new variable `bibtex-autofill-types' contains a list of entry
2567 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
2569 *** The new command `bibtex-complete' completes word fragment before
2570 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
2572 *** The new commands `bibtex-find-entry' and `bibtex-find-crossref'
2573 locate entries and crossref'd entries (bound to C-c C-s and C-c C-x).
2574 Crossref fields are clickable (bound to mouse-2, RET).
2576 *** In BibTeX mode the command `fill-paragraph' (M-q) fills
2577 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
2579 *** The new variables `bibtex-files' and `bibtex-file-path' define a set
2580 of BibTeX files that are searched for entry keys.
2582 *** The new command `bibtex-validate-globally' checks for duplicate keys
2583 in multiple BibTeX files.
2585 *** The new command `bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill' pushes summary
2586 of BibTeX entry to kill ring (bound to C-c C-t).
2588 *** The new variables bibtex-expand-strings and
2589 bibtex-autokey-expand-strings control the expansion of strings when
2590 extracting the content of a BibTeX field.
2593 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
2594 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
2600 *** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
2601 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
2604 *** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
2605 and other common debugger commands.
2608 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2609 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2610 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2611 state of your program. It can separate the input/output of your program from
2612 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2613 Emacs 21/22 such as the toolbar, and bitmaps in the fringe to indicate
2616 Use M-x gdb to start GDB-UI.
2618 *** The variable tooltip-gud-tips-p has been removed. GUD tooltips can now be
2619 toggled independently of normal tooltips with the minor mode
2623 *** In graphical mode, with a C program, GUD Tooltips have been extended to
2624 display the #define directive associated with an identifier when program is
2628 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
2630 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class information.
2631 Fast startup since there is no need to scan all source files up front.
2632 There is also no need to create and maintain lists of source
2633 directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath' and
2634 `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
2636 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
2637 set/clear operations from Java source files under the classpath, stack
2638 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
2641 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
2644 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
2645 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
2646 Set `gud-jdb-use-classpath' to nil.
2648 *** Added Customization Variables
2650 **** `gud-jdb-command-name'. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
2652 **** `gud-jdb-use-classpath'. Allows selection of java source file searching
2653 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan `gud-jdb-directories' for
2654 java sources (previous method).
2656 **** `gud-jdb-directories'. List of directories to scan and search for Java
2657 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2660 *** Minor Improvements
2662 **** The STARTTLS wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
2663 instead of the OpenSSL based `starttls' tool. For backwards
2664 compatibility, it prefers `starttls', but you can toggle
2665 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
2668 **** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
2670 ** Auto-Revert changes:
2673 *** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
2675 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
2676 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
2677 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
2678 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
2679 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
2680 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior can
2683 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
2684 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
2685 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
2689 *** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
2690 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
2691 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
2692 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
2693 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
2694 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
2695 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
2696 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
2697 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
2700 *** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
2701 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
2702 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
2703 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
2704 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
2709 The recent file list is now automatically cleaned up when recentf mode is
2710 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
2713 The ten most recent files can be quickly opened by using the shortcut
2714 keys 1 to 9, and 0, when the recent list is displayed in a buffer via
2715 the `recentf-open-files', or `recentf-open-more-files' commands.
2717 The `recentf-keep' option replaces `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p'
2718 and provides a more general mechanism to customize which file names to
2719 keep in the recent list.
2721 With the more advanced option `recentf-filename-handlers', you can
2722 specify functions that successively transform recent file names. For
2723 example, if set to `file-truename' plus `abbreviate-file-name', the
2724 same file will not be in the recent list with different symbolic
2725 links, and the file name will be abbreviated.
2727 To follow naming convention, `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag'
2728 replaces the misnamed option `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The
2729 old name remains available as alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2735 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, `desktop-save-mode'.
2738 *** The variable `desktop-enable' is obsolete.
2740 Customize `desktop-save-mode' to enable desktop saving.
2743 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
2747 *** The desktop package can be customized to restore only some buffers
2748 immediately, remaining buffers are restored lazily (when Emacs is
2753 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
2754 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
2755 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
2757 - desktop-lazy-complete runs the desktop load to completion.
2758 - desktop-lazy-abort aborts lazy loading of the desktop.
2761 *** New customizable variables:
2762 - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
2764 - desktop-file-name-format. Format in which desktop file names should be saved.
2765 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
2766 - desktop-locals-to-save. List of local variables to save.
2767 - desktop-globals-to-clear. List of global variables that `desktop-clear' will clear.
2768 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp. Regexp identifying buffers that `desktop-clear'
2770 - desktop-restore-eager. Number of buffers to restore immediately. Remaining buffers are
2771 restored lazily (when Emacs is idle).
2772 - desktop-lazy-verbose. Verbose reporting of lazily created buffers.
2773 - desktop-lazy-idle-delay. Idle delay before starting to create buffers.
2776 *** New command line option --no-desktop
2780 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
2781 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
2784 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
2786 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
2787 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
2788 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
2789 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
2790 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
2796 *** When comparing directories.
2797 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
2798 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
2799 from one directory to another.
2802 *** When comparing files or buffers.
2803 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
2804 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
2805 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
2809 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
2810 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
2811 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
2816 *** New regular expressions features
2818 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
2820 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
2821 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
2822 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
2823 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
2824 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
2825 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
2826 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
2827 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
2828 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
2829 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
2831 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in GCC.
2833 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
2834 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
2837 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
2839 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
2840 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
2841 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
2843 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
2845 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
2846 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
2848 *** New language parsing features
2850 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
2852 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
2854 **** The GCC __attribute__ keyword is now recognized and ignored.
2856 **** New language HTML.
2858 Tags are generated for `title' as well as `h1', `h2', and `h3'. Also,
2859 when `name=' is used inside an anchor and whenever `id=' is used.
2861 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
2863 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
2864 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
2866 **** New language Lua.
2868 All functions are tagged.
2870 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
2872 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
2873 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
2876 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
2878 **** New language PHP.
2880 Functions, classes and defines are tags. If the --members option is
2881 specified to etags, variables are tags also.
2883 **** New default keywords for TeX.
2885 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
2888 *** Honour #line directives.
2890 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
2891 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
2892 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
2893 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
2894 writes tags pointing to the source file.
2896 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
2898 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
2899 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
2900 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
2906 *** The key C-x C-q only changes the read-only state of the buffer
2907 (toggle-read-only). It no longer checks files in or out.
2909 We made this change because we held a poll and found that many users
2910 were unhappy with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this
2911 behavior, you can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your
2914 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
2916 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
2919 *** The new variable `vc-cvs-global-switches' specifies switches that
2920 are passed to any CVS command invoked by VC.
2922 These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which means they
2923 are inserted before the command name. For example, this allows you to
2924 specify a compression level using the `-z#' option for CVS.
2927 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
2930 *** VC-Annotate mode enhancements
2932 In VC-Annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
2933 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
2934 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
2936 P: annotates the previous revision
2937 N: annotates the next revision
2938 J: annotates the revision at line
2939 A: annotates the revision previous to line
2940 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
2941 L: shows the log of the revision at line
2942 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
2947 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
2948 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
2952 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
2953 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
2954 `checkout', `update' or `commit'. That means using cvs diff options
2958 ** The new variable `mail-default-directory' specifies
2959 `default-directory' for mail buffers. This directory is used for
2960 auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to "~/".
2963 ** The mode line can indicate new mail in a directory or file.
2965 See the documentation of the user option
2966 `display-time-mail-directory'.
2971 *** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
2973 *** The new commands rmail-end-of-message and rmail-summary end-of-message,
2974 by default bound to `/', go to the end of the current mail message in
2975 Rmail and Rmail summary buffers.
2978 *** Support for `movemail' from GNU mailutils was added to Rmail.
2980 This version of `movemail' allows to read mail from a wide range of
2981 mailbox formats, including remote POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes with or
2982 without TLS encryption. If GNU mailutils is installed on the system
2983 and its version of `movemail' can be found in exec-path, it will be
2984 used instead of the native one.
2989 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
2991 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
2995 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
2997 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
3002 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.91. There have been major changes since
3003 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
3005 ** Calendar changes:
3008 *** You can now use < and >, instead of C-x < and C-x >, to scroll
3009 the calendar left or right. (The old key bindings still work too.)
3012 *** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
3013 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
3016 *** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
3017 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
3018 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
3019 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
3020 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
3021 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
3022 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
3023 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
3024 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
3027 *** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
3028 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
3029 count backward from the end of the year.
3032 *** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
3033 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
3034 day of that ISO week.
3037 *** The new variable `calendar-minimum-window-height' affects the
3038 window generated by the function `generate-calendar-window'.
3041 *** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
3042 optional arguments, in order to only report on the specified holiday
3043 rather than all. This makes customization of variables such as
3044 `christian-holidays' simpler.
3047 *** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
3048 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
3049 and `diary-header-line-format'.
3052 *** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed:
3053 use the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
3054 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
3055 `appt-issue-message', `appt-visible', and `appt-msg-window'.
3058 *** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
3059 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
3060 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
3061 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
3065 ** Speedbar changes:
3067 *** Speedbar items can now be selected by clicking mouse-1, based on
3068 the `mouse-1-click-follows-link' mechanism.
3070 *** SPC and DEL are no longer bound to scroll up/down in the speedbar
3073 *** The new command `speedbar-toggle-line-expansion', bound to SPC,
3074 contracts or expands the line under the cursor.
3076 *** New command `speedbar-create-directory', bound to `M'.
3078 *** The new commands `speedbar-expand-line-descendants' and
3079 `speedbar-contract-line-descendants', bound to `[' and `]'
3080 respectively, expand and contract the line under cursor with all of
3083 *** The new user option `speedbar-query-confirmation-method' controls
3084 how querying is performed for file operations. A value of 'always
3085 means to always query before file operations; 'none-but-delete means
3086 to not query before any file operations, except before a file
3089 *** The new user option `speedbar-select-frame-method' specifies how
3090 to select a frame for displaying a file opened with the speedbar. A
3091 value of 'attached means to use the attached frame (the frame that
3092 speedbar was started from.) A number such as 1 or -1 means to pass
3093 that number to `other-frame'.
3095 *** The new user option `speedbar-use-tool-tips-flag', if non-nil,
3096 means to display tool-tips for speedbar items.
3098 *** The frame management code in speedbar.el has been split into a new
3099 `dframe' library. Emacs Lisp code that makes use of the speedbar
3100 should use `dframe-attached-frame' instead of
3101 `speedbar-attached-frame', `dframe-timer' instead of `speedbar-timer',
3102 `dframe-close-frame' instead of `speedbar-close-frame', and
3103 `dframe-activity-change-focus-flag' instead of
3104 `speedbar-activity-change-focus-flag'. The variables
3105 `speedbar-update-speed' and `speedbar-navigating-speed' are also
3106 obsolete; use `dframe-update-speed' instead.
3111 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
3112 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
3113 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
3114 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
3115 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
3117 The following values are supported:
3119 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
3133 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
3136 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
3137 your `.emacs' will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
3138 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
3140 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
3142 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
3143 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
3144 all identifiers ending in `_t' under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
3145 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
3147 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
3148 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
3150 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i.
3152 Most SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
3153 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
3155 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
3157 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
3158 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
3159 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
3160 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
3163 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
3164 called with the `-E' command line argument to use the operating system
3165 credentials to authenticate the user.
3167 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
3168 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
3169 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
3171 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
3172 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
3174 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
3175 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
3178 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
3179 appropriate `sql-interactive-mode' wrapper for the current setting of
3183 *** sql.el supports the SQLite interpreter--call 'sql-sqlite'.
3188 *** New ffap commands and keybindings:
3190 C-x C-r (`ffap-read-only'),
3191 C-x C-v (`ffap-alternate-file'), C-x C-d (`ffap-list-directory'),
3192 C-x 4 r (`ffap-read-only-other-window'), C-x 4 d (`ffap-dired-other-window'),
3193 C-x 5 r (`ffap-read-only-other-frame'), C-x 5 d (`ffap-dired-other-frame').
3196 *** FFAP accepts wildcards in a file name by default.
3198 C-x C-f passes the file name to `find-file' with non-nil WILDCARDS
3199 argument, which visits multiple files, and C-x d passes it to `dired'.
3202 ** In skeleton.el, `-' marks the `skeleton-point' without interregion interaction.
3204 `@' has reverted to only setting `skeleton-positions' and no longer
3205 sets `skeleton-point'. Skeletons which used @ to mark
3206 `skeleton-point' independent of `_' should now use `-' instead. The
3207 updated `skeleton-insert' docstring explains these new features along
3208 with other details of skeleton construction.
3211 ** Hideshow mode changes
3213 *** New variable `hs-set-up-overlay' allows customization of the overlay
3214 used to effect hiding for hideshow minor mode. Integration with isearch
3215 handles the overlay property `display' specially, preserving it during
3216 temporary overlay showing in the course of an isearch operation.
3218 *** New variable `hs-allow-nesting' non-nil means that hiding a block does
3219 not discard the hidden state of any "internal" blocks; when the parent
3220 block is later shown, the internal blocks remain hidden. Default is nil.
3223 ** `hide-ifdef-mode' now uses overlays rather than selective-display
3224 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
3225 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
3228 ** `partial-completion-mode' now handles partial completion on directory names.
3231 ** The type-break package now allows `type-break-file-name' to be nil
3232 and if so, doesn't store any data across sessions. This is handy if
3233 you don't want the `.type-break' file in your home directory or are
3234 annoyed by the need for interaction when you kill Emacs.
3237 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
3239 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
3240 `ps-print', provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF
3241 fonts. See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
3244 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
3245 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
3246 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
3247 using strokes as an input method.
3249 ** Emacs server changes:
3252 *** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
3254 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
3255 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
3256 % emacsclient -s foo file1
3257 % emacsclient -s bar file2
3260 *** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
3261 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given Lisp
3262 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
3265 *** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
3268 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
3271 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
3273 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
3274 argument it toggles the mode. Turning off PC-Selection mode restores
3275 the global key bindings that were replaced by turning on the mode.
3278 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
3279 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
3282 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
3284 Emacs still works on terminals that require magic cookies in order to
3285 use standout mode, but they can no longer display mode-lines in
3289 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
3291 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
3292 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
3293 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
3295 ** battery.el changes:
3298 *** display-battery-mode replaces display-battery.
3301 *** battery.el now works on recent versions of OS X.
3304 ** calculator.el now has radix grouping mode.
3306 To enable this, set `calculator-output-radix' non-nil. In this mode a
3307 separator character is used every few digits, making it easier to see
3308 byte boundries etc. For more info, see the documentation of the
3309 variable `calculator-radix-grouping-mode'.
3312 ** fast-lock.el and lazy-lock.el are obsolete. Use jit-lock.el instead.
3315 ** iso-acc.el is now obsolete. Use one of the latin input methods instead.
3318 ** cplus-md.el has been deleted.
3320 * Changes in Emacs 22.1 on non-free operating systems
3323 ** The HOME directory defaults to Application Data under the user profile.
3325 If you used a previous version of Emacs without setting the HOME
3326 environment variable and a `.emacs' was saved, then Emacs will continue
3327 using C:/ as the default HOME. But if you are installing Emacs afresh,
3328 the default location will be the "Application Data" (or similar
3329 localized name) subdirectory of your user profile. A typical location
3330 of this directory is "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data",
3331 where USERNAME is your user name.
3333 This change means that users can now have their own `.emacs' files on
3334 shared computers, and the default HOME directory is less likely to be
3335 read-only on computers that are administered by someone else.
3338 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
3340 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
3341 existing values. For example:
3343 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
3345 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
3346 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
3349 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
3351 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
3352 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
3355 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
3357 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
3360 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
3362 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
3363 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
3364 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
3365 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
3366 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
3367 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
3370 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
3372 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
3373 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
3374 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
3375 sound support for those formats.
3378 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
3380 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
3383 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
3385 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
3386 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
3387 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
3390 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
3392 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
3393 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
3394 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
3395 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
3396 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
3397 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
3398 you wish to use them in other faces.
3401 ** On MS Windows NT/W2K/XP, Emacs uses Unicode for clipboard operations.
3403 Those systems use Unicode internally, so this allows Emacs to share
3404 multilingual text with other applications. On other versions of
3405 MS Windows, Emacs now uses the appropriate locale coding-system, so
3406 the clipboard should work correctly for your local language without
3410 ** Running in a console window in Windows now uses the console size.
3412 Previous versions of Emacs erred on the side of having a usable Emacs
3413 through telnet, even though that was inconvenient if you use Emacs in
3414 a local console window with a scrollback buffer. The default value of
3415 w32-use-full-screen-buffer is now nil, which favours local console
3416 windows. Recent versions of Windows telnet also work well with this
3417 setting. If you are using an older telnet server then Emacs detects
3418 that the console window dimensions that are reported are not sane, and
3419 defaults to 80x25. If you use such a telnet server regularly at a size
3420 other than 80x25, you can still manually set
3421 w32-use-full-screen-buffer to t.
3424 ** On Mac OS, `keyboard-coding-system' changes based on the keyboard script.
3427 ** The variable `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' and the constants
3428 `kTextEncodingMacRoman', `kTextEncodingISOLatin1', and
3429 `kTextEncodingISOLatin2' are obsolete.
3431 ** The variable `mac-command-key-is-meta' is obsolete. Use
3432 `mac-command-modifier' and `mac-option-modifier' instead.
3434 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3437 ** The variables post-command-idle-hook and post-command-idle-delay have
3438 been removed. Use run-with-idle-timer instead.
3441 ** `suppress-keymap' now works by remapping `self-insert-command' to
3442 the command `undefined'. (In earlier Emacs versions, it used
3443 `substitute-key-definition' to rebind self inserting characters to
3447 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3448 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3449 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3452 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3455 ** The variable `memory-full' now remains t until
3456 there is no longer a shortage of memory.
3458 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3460 ** General Lisp changes:
3462 *** The function `expt' handles negative exponents differently.
3463 The value for `(expt A B)', if both A and B are integers and B is
3464 negative, is now a float. For example: (expt 2 -2) => 0.25.
3467 *** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
3470 *** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
3473 *** `add-to-list' takes an optional third argument, APPEND.
3475 If APPEND is non-nil, the new element gets added at the end of the
3476 list instead of at the beginning. This change actually occurred in
3477 Emacs 21.1, but was not documented then.
3480 *** New function `add-to-ordered-list' is like `add-to-list' but
3481 associates a numeric ordering of each element added to the list.
3484 *** New function `copy-tree' makes a copy of a tree.
3486 It recursively copyies through both CARs and CDRs.
3489 *** New function `delete-dups' deletes `equal' duplicate elements from a list.
3491 It modifies the list destructively, like `delete'. Of several `equal'
3492 occurrences of an element in the list, the one that's kept is the
3496 *** New function `rassq-delete-all'.
3498 (rassq-delete-all VALUE ALIST) deletes, from ALIST, each element whose
3499 CDR is `eq' to the specified value.
3502 *** The function `number-sequence' makes a list of equally-separated numbers.
3504 For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9). By
3505 default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different
3506 separation as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns
3510 *** New variables `most-positive-fixnum' and `most-negative-fixnum'.
3512 They hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3515 *** Minor change in the function `format'.
3517 Some flags that were accepted but not implemented (such as "*") are no
3521 *** Functions `get' and `plist-get' no longer give errors for bad plists.
3523 They return nil for a malformed property list or if the list is
3527 *** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3529 They are like `plist-get' and `plist-put', except that they compare
3530 the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3533 *** New variable `print-continuous-numbering'.
3535 When this is non-nil, successive calls to print functions use a single
3536 numbering scheme for circular structure references. This is only
3537 relevant when `print-circle' is non-nil.
3539 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
3540 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
3543 *** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
3545 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
3546 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
3547 if no expansion is done, which can be tested using `eq'.
3550 *** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3552 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3553 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3554 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3557 *** A function or macro's doc string can now specify the calling pattern.
3559 You put this info in the doc string's last line. It should be
3560 formatted so as to match the regexp "\n\n(fn .*)\\'". If you don't
3561 specify this explicitly, Emacs determines it from the actual argument
3562 names. Usually that default is right, but not always.
3565 *** New macro `with-local-quit' temporarily allows quitting.
3567 A quit inside the body of `with-local-quit' is caught by the
3568 `with-local-quit' form itself, but another quit will happen later once
3569 the code that has inhibitted quitting exits.
3571 This is for use around potentially blocking or long-running code
3572 inside timer functions and `post-command-hook' functions.
3575 *** New macro `define-obsolete-function-alias'.
3577 This combines `defalias' and `make-obsolete'.
3580 *** New function `unsafep' determines whether a Lisp form is safe.
3582 It returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly do anything
3583 dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be unsafe
3584 (calls unknown function, alters global variable, etc.).
3587 *** New macro `eval-at-startup' specifies expressions to
3588 evaluate when Emacs starts up. If this is done after startup,
3589 it evaluates those expressions immediately.
3591 This is useful in packages that can be preloaded.
3593 *** `list-faces-display' takes an optional argument, REGEXP.
3595 If it is non-nil, the function lists only faces matching this regexp.
3597 ** Lisp code indentation features:
3600 *** The `defmacro' form can contain indentation and edebug declarations.
3602 These declarations specify how to indent the macro calls in Lisp mode
3603 and how to debug them with Edebug. You write them like this:
3605 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3607 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3608 possible declaration specifiers are:
3611 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3614 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3615 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro,
3616 but this is cleaner.)
3619 *** cl-indent now allows customization of Indentation of backquoted forms.
3621 See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3624 *** cl-indent now handles indentation of simple and extended `loop' forms.
3626 The new user options `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation',
3627 `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can
3628 be used to customize the indentation of keywords and forms in loop
3632 ** Variable aliases:
3634 *** New function: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3636 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3637 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3638 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3639 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3641 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3642 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3644 *** New function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
3646 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3647 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3648 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3650 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3651 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3654 *** The macro `define-obsolete-variable-alias' combines `defvaralias' and
3655 `make-obsolete-variable'.
3657 ** defcustom changes:
3660 *** The new customization type `float' requires a floating point number.
3665 *** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character.
3667 Exception: In a character constant, if it is followed by a `-' in a
3668 character constant (e.g. ?\s-A), it is still interpreted as the super
3669 modifier. In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
3672 *** A hex escape in a string constant forces the string to be multibyte.
3675 *** An octal escape in a string constant forces the string to be unibyte.
3678 *** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
3679 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
3680 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
3681 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
3682 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
3685 *** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
3686 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
3689 *** New function `substring-no-properties' returns a substring without
3693 *** The new function `assoc-string' replaces `assoc-ignore-case' and
3694 `assoc-ignore-representation', which are still available, but have
3695 been declared obsolete.
3698 ** Displaying warnings to the user.
3700 See the functions `warn' and `display-warning', or the Lisp Manual.
3701 If you want to be sure the warning will not be overlooked, this
3702 facility is much better than using `message', since it displays
3703 warnings in a separate window.
3706 ** Progress reporters.
3708 These provide a simple and uniform way for commands to present
3709 progress messages for the user.
3711 See the new functions `make-progress-reporter',
3712 `progress-reporter-update', `progress-reporter-force-update',
3713 `progress-reporter-done', and `dotimes-with-progress-reporter'.
3715 ** Buffer positions:
3718 *** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
3719 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
3720 the usable window height and width is used.
3723 *** The `line-move', `scroll-up', and `scroll-down' functions will now
3724 modify the window vscroll to scroll through display rows that are
3725 taller that the height of the window, for example in the presence of
3726 large images. To disable this feature, bind the new variable
3727 `auto-window-vscroll' to nil.
3730 *** The argument to `forward-word', `backward-word' is optional.
3735 *** Argument to `forward-to-indentation' and `backward-to-indentation' is optional.
3740 *** New function `mouse-on-link-p' tests if a position is in a clickable link.
3742 This is the function used by the new `mouse-1-click-follows-link'
3746 *** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns the line number of a position.
3748 It an optional buffer position argument that defaults to point.
3751 *** `field-beginning' and `field-end' take new optional argument, LIMIT.
3753 This argument tells them not to search beyond LIMIT. Instead they
3754 give up and return LIMIT.
3757 *** Function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now returns the pixel coordinates
3758 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
3762 *** New functions `posn-at-point' and `posn-at-x-y' return
3763 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
3764 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
3766 ** Text modification:
3769 *** The new function `insert-for-yank' normally works like `insert', but
3770 removes the text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list
3771 and handles the `yank-handler' text property.
3774 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-as-yank' is like
3775 `insert-for-yank' except that it gets the text from another buffer as
3776 in `insert-buffer-substring'.
3779 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-no-properties' is like
3780 `insert-buffer-substring', but removes all text properties from the
3784 *** The new function `filter-buffer-substring' extracts a buffer
3785 substring, passes it through a set of filter functions, and returns
3786 the filtered substring. Use it instead of `buffer-substring' or
3787 `delete-and-extract-region' when copying text into a user-accessible
3788 data structure, such as the kill-ring, X clipboard, or a register.
3790 The list of filter function is specified by the new variable
3791 `buffer-substring-filters'. For example, Longlines mode adds to
3792 `buffer-substring-filters' to remove soft newlines from the copied
3796 *** Function `translate-region' accepts also a char-table as TABLE
3800 *** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
3801 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
3802 be inserted is translated through it.
3807 The new function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3808 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3812 *** The function `insert-string' is now obsolete.
3817 *** In determining an adaptive fill prefix, Emacs now tries the function in
3818 `adaptive-fill-function' _before_ matching the buffer line against
3819 `adaptive-fill-regexp' rather than _after_ it.
3822 ** Atomic change groups.
3824 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3825 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3826 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3828 (atomic-change-group
3830 (delete-region x y))
3832 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3833 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3834 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3835 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3837 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3838 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3840 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3841 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3842 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3843 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3845 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3846 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3849 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3850 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3851 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3852 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3854 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3855 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3856 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3857 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3858 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3859 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3862 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3863 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3864 returned values, like this:
3866 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3867 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3869 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3870 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3871 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3873 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3874 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3875 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3876 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3879 ** Buffer-related changes:
3882 *** `list-buffers-noselect' now takes an additional argument, BUFFER-LIST.
3884 If it is non-nil, it specifies which buffers to list.
3887 *** `kill-buffer-hook' is now a permanent local.
3890 *** The new function `buffer-local-value' returns the buffer-local
3891 binding of VARIABLE (a symbol) in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not
3892 have a buffer-local binding in buffer BUFFER, it returns the default
3893 value of VARIABLE instead.
3895 *** The function `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' now lets you maintain
3896 various status records in parallel.
3898 It takes a variable (a symbol) as argument. If the variable is non-nil,
3899 then its value should be a vector installed previously by
3900 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p'. If the frame names, buffer names, buffer
3901 order, or their read-only or modified flags have changed, since the
3902 time the vector's contents were recorded by a previous call to
3903 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', then the function returns t. Otherwise
3906 On the first call to `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', the variable's
3907 value should be nil. `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' stores a suitable
3908 vector into the variable and returns t.
3910 If the variable is itself nil, then `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' uses,
3911 for compatibility, an internal variable which exists only for this
3915 *** The function `read-buffer' follows the convention for reading from
3916 the minibuffer with a default value: if DEF is non-nil, the minibuffer
3917 prompt provided in PROMPT is edited to show the default value provided
3918 in DEF before the terminal colon and space.
3920 ** Local variables lists:
3923 *** Text properties in local variables.
3925 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3926 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3929 *** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
3930 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
3931 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
3932 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
3936 *** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
3937 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
3938 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
3939 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
3940 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
3941 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
3943 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
3944 confirmation as before.
3946 ** Searching and matching changes:
3949 *** New function `looking-back' checks whether a regular expression matches
3950 the text before point. Specifying the LIMIT argument bounds how far
3951 back the match can start; this is a way to keep it from taking too long.
3954 *** The new variable `search-spaces-regexp' controls how to search
3955 for spaces in a regular expression. If it is non-nil, it should be a
3956 regular expression, and any series of spaces stands for that regular
3957 expression. If it is nil, spaces stand for themselves.
3959 Spaces inside of constructs such as `[..]' and inside loops such as
3960 `*', `+', and `?' are never replaced with `search-spaces-regexp'.
3963 *** New regular expression operators, `\_<' and `\_>'.
3965 These match the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
3966 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
3967 specified by the syntax table.
3970 *** rx.el has new corresponding `symbol-end' and `symbol-start' elements.
3973 *** `skip-chars-forward' and `skip-chars-backward' now handle
3974 character classes such as `[:alpha:]', along with individual
3975 characters and ranges.
3978 *** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
3979 properties from surrounding text.
3982 *** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
3983 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
3984 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
3987 *** Functions `match-data' and `set-match-data' now have an optional
3988 argument `reseat'. When non-nil, all markers in the match data list
3989 passed to these functions will be reseated to point to nowhere.
3992 *** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
3993 variable `sentence-end-without-space', which contains such characters
3994 that end a sentence without following spaces.
3996 The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of the
3997 variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil, then
3998 this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
3999 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
4000 `sentence-end-without-space'.
4005 *** `buffer-undo-list' can allows programmable elements.
4007 These elements have the form (apply FUNNAME . ARGS), where FUNNAME is
4008 a symbol other than t or nil. That stands for a high-level change
4009 that should be undone by evaluating (apply FUNNAME ARGS).
4011 These entries can also have the form (apply DELTA BEG END FUNNAME . ARGS)
4012 which indicates that the change which took place was limited to the
4013 range BEG...END and increased the buffer size by DELTA.
4016 *** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
4017 `undo-outer-limit', garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
4018 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
4021 ** New `yank-handler' text property can be used to control how
4022 previously killed text on the kill ring is reinserted.
4024 The value of the `yank-handler' property must be a list with one to four
4025 elements with the following format:
4026 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
4028 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
4029 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
4030 element on the kill-ring). If a `yank-handler' property is found,
4031 the normal behavior of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
4033 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
4034 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
4035 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
4036 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
4037 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
4039 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
4040 `yank-excluded-properties' is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
4041 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
4042 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
4043 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
4044 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
4045 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
4046 FUNCTION can set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
4048 *** The functions `kill-new', `kill-append', and `kill-region' now have an
4049 optional argument to specify the `yank-handler' text property to put on
4052 *** The function `yank-pop' will now use a non-nil value of the variable
4053 `yank-undo-function' (instead of `delete-region') to undo the previous
4054 `yank' or `yank-pop' command (or a call to `insert-for-yank'). The function
4055 `insert-for-yank' automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
4056 element of the string argument's `yank-handler' text property if present.
4058 *** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
4059 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
4060 string. The old behavior is available if you call
4061 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
4063 ** Syntax table changes:
4066 *** The macro `with-syntax-table' no longer copies the syntax table.
4069 *** The new function `syntax-after' returns the syntax code
4070 of the character after a specified buffer position, taking account
4071 of text properties as well as the character code.
4074 *** `syntax-class' extracts the class of a syntax code (as returned
4078 *** The new function `syntax-ppss' rovides an efficient way to find the
4079 current syntactic context at point.
4081 ** File operation changes:
4084 *** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
4085 searching for an executable or an Emacs Lisp file.
4088 *** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
4089 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
4093 *** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
4094 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
4095 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
4096 The value in that case is an identifier for the remote file system.
4099 *** `buffer-auto-save-file-format' is the new name for what was
4100 formerly called `auto-save-file-format'. It is now a permanent local.
4103 *** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
4104 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
4105 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
4108 *** `copy-file' now takes an additional option arg MUSTBENEW.
4110 This argument works like the MUSTBENEW argument of write-file.
4113 *** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
4114 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
4117 *** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
4118 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
4119 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
4120 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
4123 *** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
4124 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
4125 tasks. For example, it can be used by the copyright package to make
4126 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
4129 *** If `buffer-save-without-query' is non-nil in some buffer,
4130 `save-some-buffers' will always save that buffer without asking (if
4134 *** New function `locate-file' searches for a file in a list of directories.
4135 `locate-file' accepts a name of a file to search (a string), and two
4136 lists: a list of directories to search in and a list of suffixes to
4137 try; typical usage might use `exec-path' and `load-path' for the list
4138 of directories, and `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' for the list
4139 of suffixes. The function also accepts a predicate argument to
4140 further filter candidate files.
4142 One advantage of using this function is that the list of suffixes in
4143 `exec-suffixes' is OS-dependant, so this function will find
4144 executables without polluting Lisp code with OS dependencies.
4147 *** The precedence of file name handlers has been changed.
4149 Instead of choosing the first handler that matches,
4150 `find-file-name-handler' now gives precedence to a file name handler
4151 that matches nearest the end of the file name. More precisely, the
4152 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen. In case
4153 of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
4156 *** A file name handler can declare which operations it handles.
4158 You do this by putting an `operation' property on the handler name
4159 symbol. The property value should be a list of the operations that
4160 the handler really handles. It won't be called for any other
4163 This is useful for autoloaded handlers, to prevent them from being
4164 autoloaded when not really necessary.
4167 *** The function `make-auto-save-file-name' is now handled by file
4168 name handlers. This will be exploited for remote files mainly.
4173 *** An interactive specification can now use the code letter 'U' to get
4174 the up-event that was discarded in case the last key sequence read for a
4175 previous `k' or `K' argument was a down-event; otherwise nil is used.
4178 *** The new interactive-specification `G' reads a file name
4179 much like `F', but if the input is a directory name (even defaulted),
4180 it returns just the directory name.
4183 *** Functions `y-or-n-p', `read-char', `read-key-sequence' and the like, that
4184 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
4185 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
4188 *** (while-no-input BODY...) runs BODY, but only so long as no input
4189 arrives. If the user types or clicks anything, BODY stops as if a
4190 quit had occurred. `while-no-input' returns the value of BODY, if BODY
4191 finishes. It returns nil if BODY was aborted by a quit, and t if
4192 BODY was aborted by arrival of input.
4194 ** Minibuffer changes:
4197 *** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional
4198 buffer argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted, it
4199 defaults to the current buffer.
4202 *** New function `minibuffer-selected-window' returns the window which
4203 was selected when entering the minibuffer.
4206 *** `read-from-minibuffer' now accepts an additional argument KEEP-ALL
4207 saying to put all inputs in the history list, even empty ones.
4210 *** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
4211 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
4212 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
4213 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
4214 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
4217 *** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by Lisp code
4218 to override the built-in `read-file-name' function.
4221 *** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
4222 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
4223 `read-file-name' function.
4226 *** The new function `read-directory-name' is for reading a directory name.
4228 It is like `read-file-name' except that the defaulting works better
4229 for directories, and completion inside it shows only directories.
4231 ** Completion changes:
4234 *** The new function `minibuffer-completion-contents' returns the contents
4235 of the minibuffer just before point. That is what completion commands
4239 *** The functions `all-completions' and `try-completion' now accept lists
4240 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
4241 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
4242 exported to Lisp. The keys in alists and hash tables can be either
4243 strings or symbols, which are automatically converted with to strings.
4246 *** The new macro `dynamic-completion-table' supports using functions
4247 as a dynamic completion table.
4249 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
4251 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
4252 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
4253 completions. This alist can be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
4254 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
4255 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
4256 entered. `dynamic-completion-table' then computes the completion.
4259 *** The new macro `lazy-completion-table' initializes a variable
4260 as a lazy completion table.
4262 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN)
4264 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
4265 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with no
4266 arguments. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR.
4267 If completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
4268 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
4269 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
4272 ** Enhancements to keymaps.
4274 *** New keymaps for typing file names
4276 Two new keymaps, `minibuffer-local-filename-completion-map' and
4277 `minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map', apply whenever
4278 Emacs reads a file name in the minibuffer. These key maps override
4279 the usual binding of SPC to `minibuffer-complete-word' (so that file
4280 names with embedded spaces could be typed without the need to quote
4283 *** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
4285 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
4286 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
4289 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
4291 *** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
4293 This is an alternative to using `defadvice' or `substitute-key-definition'
4294 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
4295 binding and lookup functionality.
4297 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
4298 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
4302 Suppose that minor mode `my-mode' has defined the commands
4303 `my-kill-line' and `my-kill-word', and it wants C-k (and any other key
4304 bound to `kill-line') to run the command `my-kill-line' instead of
4305 `kill-line', and likewise it wants to run `my-kill-word' instead of
4308 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
4309 command remapping allows you to directly map `kill-line' into
4310 `my-kill-line' and `kill-word' into `my-kill-word' using `define-key':
4312 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
4313 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
4315 When `my-mode' is enabled, its minor mode keymap is enabled too. So
4316 when the user types C-k, that runs the command `my-kill-line'.
4318 Only one level of remapping is supported. In the above example, this
4319 means that if `my-kill-line' is remapped to `other-kill', then C-k still
4320 runs `my-kill-line'.
4322 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
4324 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4325 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
4326 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
4327 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
4329 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
4330 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
4332 - `key-binding' now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
4333 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
4335 - `where-is-internal' now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
4336 `kill-line', when `my-mode' is enabled), and the actual key binding for
4337 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
4338 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
4339 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns "C-k" for `kill-line', and
4340 "<kill-line>" for `my-kill-line').
4342 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
4343 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
4344 command was not remapped.
4346 *** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
4347 over minor mode keymaps.
4349 *** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
4350 text properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
4351 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
4353 *** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
4355 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
4356 bindings of the parent keymap.
4358 *** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
4360 *** New function `current-active-maps' returns a list of currently
4363 *** New function `describe-buffer-bindings' inserts the list of all
4364 defined keys and their definitions.
4366 *** New function `keymap-prompt' returns the prompt string of a keymap.
4368 *** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
4371 *** New variable `emulation-mode-map-alists'.
4373 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
4374 keymap alist separate from `minor-mode-map-alist' by adding their
4375 keymap alist to this list.
4380 *** The new function `copy-abbrev-table' copies an abbrev table.
4382 It returns a new abbrev table that is a copy of a given abbrev table.
4385 *** `define-abbrev' now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG.
4387 If non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means
4388 that it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the
4389 abbrevs. Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always
4393 ** Enhancements to process support
4395 *** Function `list-processes' now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
4396 it lists only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set.
4398 *** New fns `set-process-query-on-exit-flag' and `process-query-on-exit-flag'.
4400 These replace the old function `process-kill-without-query'. That
4401 function is still supported, but new code should use the new
4404 *** Function `signal-process' now accepts a process object or process
4405 name in addition to a process id to identify the signaled process.
4407 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
4408 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
4410 Use the new functions `process-get' and `process-put' to access, add,
4411 and modify elements on this property list. Use the new functions
4412 `process-plist' and `set-process-plist' to access and replace the
4413 entire property list of a process.
4415 *** Function `accept-process-output' has a new optional fourth arg
4416 JUST-THIS-ONE. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
4417 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
4418 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
4419 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
4422 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
4424 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
4425 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
4426 very poor performance. This behavior can be remedied to some extent
4427 by setting the new variable `process-adaptive-read-buffering' to a
4428 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
4429 from such processes, allowing them to produce more output before
4430 emacs tries to read it.
4432 *** The new function `call-process-shell-command'.
4434 This executes a shell command synchronously in a separate process.
4436 *** The new function `process-file' is similar to `call-process', but
4437 obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
4438 `default-directory'.
4440 *** A process filter function gets the output as multibyte string
4441 if the process specifies t for its filter's multibyteness.
4443 That multibyteness is decided by the value of
4444 `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is created, and
4445 you can change it later with `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
4447 *** The new function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the
4448 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4450 *** The new function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns the
4451 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4453 *** If a process's coding system is `raw-text' or `no-conversion' and its
4454 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
4455 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
4456 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
4457 which was not compatible with the behavior of file reading.
4460 ** Enhanced networking support.
4462 *** The new `make-network-process' function makes network connections.
4463 It allows opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
4464 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
4466 - A server is started using :server t arg.
4467 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
4468 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
4469 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
4470 - IPv6 is supported (when available). You may explicitly select IPv6
4471 using :family 'ipv6 arg.
4472 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
4473 - The process' property list can be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
4474 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
4475 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
4477 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
4478 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
4479 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:family ipv6))
4481 *** The old `open-network-stream' now uses `make-network-process'.
4483 *** New functions `process-datagram-address', `set-process-datagram-address'.
4485 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
4486 and set the current address of the remote partner.
4488 *** New function `format-network-address'.
4490 This function reformats the Lisp representation of a network address
4491 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
4492 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
4493 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
4494 string for other formatting options.
4496 *** `process-contact' has an optional KEY argument.
4498 Depending on this argument, you can get the complete list of network
4499 process properties or a specific property. Using :local or :remote as
4500 the KEY, you get the address of the local or remote end-point.
4502 An Inet address is represented as a 5 element vector, where the first
4503 4 elements contain the IP address and the fifth is the port number.
4505 *** New functions `stop-process' and `continue-process'.
4507 These functions stop and restart communication through a network
4508 connection. For a server process, no connections are accepted in the
4509 stopped state. For a client process, no input is received in the
4512 *** New function `network-interface-list'.
4514 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
4515 current network addresses.
4517 *** New function `network-interface-info'.
4519 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
4520 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
4522 *** Deleting a network process with `delete-process' calls the sentinel.
4524 The status message passed to the sentinel for a deleted network
4525 process is "deleted". The message passed to the sentinel when the
4526 connection is closed by the remote peer has been changed to
4527 "connection broken by remote peer".
4529 ** Using window objects:
4532 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4534 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line or the
4538 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4540 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line
4544 *** You can now make a window as short as one line.
4546 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
4547 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
4548 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
4549 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
4550 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
4553 *** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
4554 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
4555 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
4559 *** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
4560 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
4563 *** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
4564 selected window without impacting the order of `buffer-list'.
4565 It saves and restores the current buffer, too.
4568 *** `select-window' takes an optional second argument NORECORD.
4570 This is like `switch-to-buffer'.
4573 *** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
4574 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
4575 by calling `select-window'. It also saves and restores the current
4579 *** `set-window-buffer' has an optional argument KEEP-MARGINS.
4581 If non-nil, that says to preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
4582 and scroll-bar settings.
4585 *** The new function `window-tree' returns a frame's window tree.
4588 *** The functions `get-lru-window' and `get-largest-window' take an optional
4589 argument `dedicated'. If non-nil, those functions do not ignore
4593 *** The new function `adjust-window-trailing-edge' moves the right
4594 or bottom edge of a window. It does not move other window edges.
4597 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
4599 *** New function `define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
4600 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
4602 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
4603 identifing the bitmap such as `left-truncation' or `continued-line'.
4605 *** New function `destroy-fringe-bitmap' deletes a fringe bitmap
4606 or restores a built-in one to its default value.
4608 *** New function `set-fringe-bitmap-face' specifies the face to be
4609 used for a specific fringe bitmap. The face is automatically merged
4610 with the `fringe' face, so normally, the face should only specify the
4611 foreground color of the bitmap.
4613 *** There are new display properties, `left-fringe' and `right-fringe',
4614 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
4615 bitmap of the display line.
4617 Format is `display (left-fringe BITMAP [FACE])', where BITMAP is a
4618 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
4619 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
4620 for displaying the bitmap instead of the default `fringe' face.
4621 When specified, FACE is automatically merged with the `fringe' face.
4623 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
4624 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
4626 ** Other window fringe features:
4629 *** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
4631 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
4632 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
4633 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
4634 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
4636 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
4637 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
4638 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
4639 between the left and right fringe. To force a specific fringe width,
4640 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
4641 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
4643 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
4644 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
4645 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
4646 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
4649 *** Per-window fringe and scrollbar settings
4651 **** Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and
4654 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
4655 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
4656 `set-window-fringes'.
4658 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
4659 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
4660 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
4661 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
4663 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
4664 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
4665 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
4666 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
4667 an update of the display margins.
4669 **** Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
4670 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
4672 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
4673 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
4674 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
4675 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
4676 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4677 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4678 of the display margins.
4680 ** Redisplay features:
4683 *** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
4686 *** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
4687 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
4688 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
4689 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
4690 forcing an explicit window update.
4693 *** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
4694 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
4695 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
4697 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
4698 does that, this value cannot be accurate.
4701 *** You can define multiple overlay arrows via the new
4702 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'.
4704 It contains a list of varibles which contain overlay arrow position
4705 markers, including the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
4707 Each variable on this list can have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
4708 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
4709 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
4710 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
4711 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
4712 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
4715 *** New `line-height' and `line-spacing' properties for newline characters
4717 A newline can now have `line-height' and `line-spacing' text or overlay
4718 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
4720 If the `line-height' property value is t, the newline does not
4721 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
4722 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a `line-spacing' property on this
4723 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
4724 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
4726 If the `line-height' property value is a positive integer, the value
4727 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
4728 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
4730 If the `line-height' property value is a float, the minimum line
4731 height is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by
4734 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (FACE . RATIO), the
4735 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
4736 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
4738 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (nil . RATIO), the line
4739 height is calculated as RATIO * actual height of the line's contents.
4741 If the `line-height' value is a cons (HEIGHT . TOTAL), HEIGHT specifies
4742 the line height as described above, while TOTAL is any of the forms
4743 described above and specifies the total height of the line, causing a
4744 varying number of pixels to be inserted after the line to make it line
4745 exactly that many pixels high.
4747 If the `line-spacing' property value is an positive integer, the value
4748 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
4749 overrides the default frame `line-spacing' and any buffer local value of
4750 the `line-spacing' variable.
4752 If the `line-spacing' property is a float or cons, the line spacing
4753 is calculated as specified above for the `line-height' property.
4756 *** The buffer local `line-spacing' variable can now have a float value,
4757 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
4760 *** Enhancements to stretch display properties
4762 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
4763 PROPS is a property list, now allows pixel based width and height
4764 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
4766 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
4767 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
4770 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
4771 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
4772 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
4773 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
4775 POS ::= left | center | right
4776 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
4779 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
4780 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
4781 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
4782 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
4783 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
4784 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
4785 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
4788 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
4789 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
4790 corresponding area of the window.
4792 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
4793 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
4794 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
4795 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
4796 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
4797 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
4798 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
4799 the width of the area.
4801 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
4802 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
4804 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
4805 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
4806 header line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
4808 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
4809 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
4810 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
4811 height) of the specified image.
4813 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
4814 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
4817 *** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
4818 text property string that may be present at the current window
4819 position. The cursor can now be placed on any character of such
4820 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
4823 *** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
4824 supported on text terminals.
4827 *** Support for displaying image slices
4829 **** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) can be used with
4830 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
4832 **** Function `insert-image' has new optional fourth arg to
4833 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
4835 **** New function `insert-sliced-image' inserts a given image as a
4836 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
4839 *** Images can now have an associated image map via the :map property.
4841 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
4842 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
4843 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((X0 . Y0) . (X1 . Y1))) specifying the
4844 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
4845 A circle is a cons (circle . ((X0 . Y0) . R)) specifying the center
4846 and the radius of the circle; R can be a float or integer.
4847 A polygon is a cons (poly . [X0 Y0 X1 Y1 ...]) where each pair in the
4848 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
4850 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
4851 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
4852 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
4853 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
4854 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable `void-area-text-pointer'
4855 for possible pointer shapes.
4857 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
4858 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
4859 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
4862 *** The function `find-image' now searches in etc/images/ and etc/.
4863 The new variable `image-load-path' is a list of locations in which to
4864 search for image files. The default is to search in etc/images, then
4865 in etc/, and finally in the directories specified by `load-path'.
4866 Subdirectories of etc/ and etc/images are not recursively searched; if
4867 you put an image file in a subdirectory, you have to specify it
4868 explicitly; for example, if an image is put in etc/images/foo/bar.xpm:
4870 (defimage foo-image '((:type xpm :file "foo/bar.xpm")))
4873 *** The new variable `max-image-size' defines the maximum size of
4874 images that Emacs will load and display.
4876 ** Mouse pointer features:
4880 *** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
4881 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
4882 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
4883 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
4884 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
4887 *** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
4888 :pointer image property.
4891 *** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images can now be
4892 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
4894 ** Mouse event enhancements:
4897 *** Mouse events for clicks on window fringes now specify `left-fringe'
4898 or `right-fringe' as the area.
4901 *** All mouse events now include a buffer position regardless of where
4902 you clicked. For mouse clicks in window margins and fringes, this is
4903 a sensible buffer position corresponding to the surrounding text.
4906 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
4909 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
4912 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
4916 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types
4920 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns the actual glyph coordinates
4921 of the mouse event position.
4924 *** Mouse events can now indicate an image object clicked on.
4927 *** Mouse events include relative X and Y pixel coordinates relative to
4928 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
4931 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
4932 (image or character) clicked on.
4935 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', 'posn-object-width-height'.
4937 These return the image or string object of a mouse click, the X and Y
4938 pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner of that object, and
4939 the total width and height of that object.
4941 ** Text property and overlay changes:
4944 *** Arguments for `remove-overlays' are now optional, so that you can
4945 remove all overlays in the buffer with just (remove-overlays).
4948 *** New variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
4950 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
4951 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
4952 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
4953 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
4956 *** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
4957 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
4958 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
4959 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
4960 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
4963 *** The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties'.
4965 It is like `remove-text-properties' except that it takes a list of
4966 property names as argument rather than a property list.
4971 *** The new face attribute condition `min-colors' can be used to tailor
4972 the face color to the number of colors supported by a display, and
4973 define the foreground and background colors accordingly so that they
4974 look best on a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This
4975 is now the preferred method for defining default faces in a way that
4976 makes a good use of the capabilities of the display.
4979 *** New function `display-supports-face-attributes-p' can be used to test
4980 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
4982 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
4983 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
4984 defined with `defface'.
4987 *** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
4988 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
4989 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
4990 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
4991 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
4994 *** The first face specification element in a defface can specify
4995 `default' instead of frame classification. Then its attributes act as
4996 defaults that apply to all the subsequent cases (and can be overridden
5000 *** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
5001 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
5002 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
5003 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
5004 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
5007 *** The function `face-differs-from-default-p' now truly checks
5008 whether the given face displays differently from the default face or
5009 not (previously it did only a very cursory check).
5012 *** `face-attribute', `face-foreground', `face-background', `face-stipple'.
5014 These now accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how
5015 face inheritance is used when determining the value of a face
5019 *** New functions `face-attribute-relative-p' and `merge-face-attribute'
5020 help with handling relative face attributes.
5023 *** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face list is reversed.
5025 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
5026 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous
5027 releases of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made
5028 so that :inherit face lists operate identically to face lists in text
5032 *** On terminals, faces with the :inverse-video attribute are displayed
5033 with swapped foreground and background colors even when one of them is
5034 not specified. In previous releases of Emacs, if either foreground
5035 or background color was unspecified, colors were not swapped. This
5036 was inconsistent with the face behavior under X.
5039 *** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
5040 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
5042 ** Font-Lock changes:
5045 *** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
5047 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
5048 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
5049 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
5050 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
5053 *** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
5055 **** the FACENAME returned in `font-lock-keywords' can be a list of the
5056 form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set other
5057 properties than `face'.
5059 **** `font-lock-extra-managed-props' can be set to make sure those
5060 extra properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
5063 *** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
5065 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
5066 (see `jit-lock-defer-contextually'), then all of that text will
5067 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
5068 depends on text several lines further down (and when `font-lock-multiline'
5069 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
5077 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
5078 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a `jit-lock-defer-multiline'
5079 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
5080 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
5082 ** Major mode mechanism changes:
5085 *** `set-auto-mode' now gives the interpreter magic line (if present)
5086 precedence over the file name. Likewise an `<?xml' or `<!DOCTYPE'
5087 declaration will give the buffer XML or SGML mode, based on the new
5088 variable `magic-mode-alist'.
5091 *** Use the new function `run-mode-hooks' to run the major mode's mode hook.
5094 *** All major mode functions should now run the new normal hook
5095 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode
5096 hooks. `run-mode-hooks' does this automatically.
5099 *** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
5100 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
5104 *** Major modes can define `eldoc-documentation-function'
5105 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
5109 *** `define-derived-mode' by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
5110 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
5113 *** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
5114 are used by `define-derived-mode' to make sure the mode hook for the
5115 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
5117 ** Minor mode changes:
5120 *** `define-minor-mode' now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
5121 and simply passes them to `defcustom', if applicable.
5124 *** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
5127 *** `define-global-minor-mode'.
5129 This is a new name for what was formerly called
5130 `easy-mmode-define-global-mode'. The old name remains as an alias.
5132 ** Command loop changes:
5135 *** The new function `called-interactively-p' does what many people
5136 have mistakenly believed `interactive-p' to do: it returns t if the
5137 calling function was called through `call-interactively'.
5139 Only use this when you cannot solve the problem by adding a new
5140 INTERACTIVE argument to the command.
5143 *** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional argument.
5145 If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks for a function that could be
5146 called with `call-interactively', and does not return t for keyboard
5150 *** When a command returns, the command loop moves point out from
5151 within invisible text, in the same way it moves out from within text
5152 covered by an image or composition property.
5154 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
5155 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
5156 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
5157 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
5158 `post-command-hook' and thus does not care about intermediate states.
5161 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to `only', that
5162 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
5163 During that following command, the value of `transient-mark-mode'
5164 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
5165 the next return to the command loop changes to nil.
5168 *** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
5169 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
5170 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
5173 *** `emacsserver' now runs `pre-command-hook' and `post-command-hook'
5174 when it receives a request from emacsclient.
5176 ** Lisp file loading changes:
5179 *** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
5180 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
5181 current file redefined it).
5184 *** `load-history' now records (defun . FUNNAME) when a function is
5185 defined. For a variable, it records just the variable name.
5188 *** The function `symbol-file' can now search specifically for function,
5189 variable or face definitions.
5192 *** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
5193 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
5194 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
5197 *** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
5198 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
5199 than 3 levels of nesting.
5202 ** Byte compiler changes:
5204 *** The byte compiler now displays the actual line and character
5205 position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form of its
5206 warning and error messages have been brought into line with GNU standards
5207 for these. As a result, you can use next-error and friends on the
5208 compilation output buffer.
5210 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
5211 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
5213 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
5214 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
5215 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
5216 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
5219 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
5220 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
5222 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
5223 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
5224 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
5225 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
5226 macro expansion), but such tests can be nested. Note that `when' and
5227 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
5229 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
5230 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
5231 Emacs and XEmacs and can sometimes make the result significantly more
5232 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
5233 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
5236 *** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in Lisp files is now obeyed.
5239 *** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
5240 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
5241 (require 'cl) when loaded.
5243 ** Frame operations:
5246 *** New functions `frame-current-scroll-bars' and `window-current-scroll-bars'.
5248 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
5249 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
5252 *** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
5253 for all (existing and future) frames.
5256 *** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
5257 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
5258 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
5259 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
5262 *** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
5263 the `scroll-bar-width' frame parameter value is nil.
5268 *** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
5270 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
5271 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
5272 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
5275 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
5277 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
5278 the time it takes to convert the format.
5280 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
5284 *** `set-buffer-file-coding-system' now takes an additional argument,
5285 NOMODIFY. If it is non-nil, it means don't mark the buffer modified.
5288 *** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
5289 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
5290 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
5291 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
5294 *** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
5295 of one coding system from another coding system.
5298 *** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
5299 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
5303 *** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
5304 it is read from a file without decoding.
5307 *** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
5308 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
5311 *** New function `quail-find-key' returns a list of keys to type in the
5312 current input method to input a character.
5314 ** Mode line changes:
5317 *** New function `format-mode-line'.
5319 This returns the mode line or header line of the selected (or a
5320 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
5323 *** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
5324 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
5327 *** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
5328 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
5332 *** Mouse-face on mode-line (and header-line) is now supported.
5334 ** Menu manipulation changes:
5337 *** To manipulate the File menu using easy-menu, you must specify the
5338 proper name "file". In previous Emacs versions, you had to specify
5339 "files", even though the menu item itself was changed to say "File"
5340 several versions ago.
5343 *** The dummy function keys made by easy-menu are now always lower case.
5344 If you specify the menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
5345 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
5347 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for the bindings that were
5348 made with easy-menu.
5351 *** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
5352 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
5353 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
5354 need to have a name.
5356 ** Operating system access:
5359 *** The new primitive `get-internal-run-time' returns the processor
5360 run time used by Emacs since start-up.
5363 *** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
5364 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
5365 accepts a float as UID parameter.
5368 *** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
5371 *** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
5372 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
5373 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
5376 *** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
5377 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
5382 *** A number of hooks have been renamed to better follow the conventions:
5384 `find-file-hooks' to `find-file-hook',
5385 `find-file-not-found-hooks' to `find-file-not-found-functions',
5386 `write-file-hooks' to `write-file-functions',
5387 `write-contents-hooks' to `write-contents-functions',
5388 `x-lost-selection-hooks' to `x-lost-selection-functions',
5389 `x-sent-selection-hooks' to `x-sent-selection-functions',
5390 `delete-frame-hook' to `delete-frame-functions'.
5392 In each case the old name remains as an alias for the moment.
5395 *** Variable `local-write-file-hooks' is marked obsolete.
5397 Use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook'.
5400 *** New function `x-send-client-message' sends a client message when
5406 *** New variable `gc-cons-percentage' automatically grows the GC cons threshold
5407 as the heap size increases.
5410 *** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
5411 on garbage collection.
5414 *** The normal hook `post-gc-hook' is run at the end of garbage collection.
5416 The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
5418 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 22.1
5421 ** The new library button.el implements simple and fast `clickable
5422 buttons' in emacs buffers. Buttons are much lighter-weight than the
5423 `widgets' implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that
5424 doesn't require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for
5425 such things as help and apropos buffers.
5428 ** The new library tree-widget.el provides a widget to display a set
5429 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
5430 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
5433 ** The new library bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
5434 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
5438 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
5439 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
5441 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
5442 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
5443 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
5446 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
5447 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
5450 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
5451 (function (lambda ()
5453 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5454 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
5455 (function (lambda ()
5456 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5459 ** The new library benchmark.el does timing measurements on Lisp code.
5461 This includes measuring garbage collection time.
5464 ** The new library testcover.el does test coverage checking.
5466 This is so you can tell whether you've tested all paths in your Lisp
5467 code. It works with edebug.
5469 The function `testcover-start' instruments all functions in a given
5470 file. Then test your code. The function `testcover-mark-all' adds
5471 overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to show where coverage
5472 is lacking. The command `testcover-next-mark' (bind it to a key!)
5473 will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
5475 Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely
5476 evaluated; a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same
5477 value. The red splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly
5478 complete their evaluation, such as `error'. The brown splotches are
5479 skipped for forms that are expected to always evaluate to the same
5480 value, such as (setq x 14).
5482 For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to
5483 help out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a
5484 red splotch. It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does
5485 return. The macro `1value' suppresses a brown splotch for its argument.
5486 This macro is a no-op except during test-coverage -- then it signals
5487 an error if the argument actually returns differing values.
5489 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
5491 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
5495 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
5497 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
5500 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
5503 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
5506 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
5507 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
5508 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
5509 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
5510 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
5511 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
5512 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
5513 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
5514 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
5515 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
5517 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
5518 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
5520 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
5521 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
5522 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
5523 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behavior is actually
5524 contrary to the compound text specification.
5527 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
5529 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
5531 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
5534 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
5536 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
5538 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
5539 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
5540 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
5541 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
5542 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
5544 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
5547 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
5548 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
5550 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
5551 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
5552 instead of using default-major-mode.
5554 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
5555 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
5556 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
5557 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
5558 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
5559 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
5560 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
5562 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
5566 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
5568 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
5569 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
5570 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
5572 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
5573 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
5576 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
5578 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
5579 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
5580 charsets in this release.
5582 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
5584 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
5586 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
5587 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
5590 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
5591 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
5592 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
5593 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
5594 necessary changes to unexec.
5596 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
5597 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
5599 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
5600 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
5602 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
5603 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
5605 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
5606 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
5607 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
5608 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
5609 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
5611 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
5612 new display features described below.
5615 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
5617 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
5619 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
5620 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
5621 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
5622 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
5625 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
5627 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
5628 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
5629 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
5630 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
5633 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
5634 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
5635 under Lisp changes, below.
5637 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
5639 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
5640 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
5641 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
5642 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
5643 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
5644 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
5647 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
5648 supported on character terminals.
5650 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
5651 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
5652 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
5653 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
5655 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
5659 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
5660 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
5661 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
5662 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
5665 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
5667 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
5668 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
5669 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
5670 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
5672 - User option: max-mini-window-height
5674 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
5675 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
5676 specifies a number of lines.
5680 - User option: resize-mini-windows
5682 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
5683 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
5684 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
5687 Default is `grow-only'.
5691 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
5692 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
5694 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
5696 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
5697 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
5700 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
5702 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
5703 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
5704 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
5706 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
5708 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
5709 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
5710 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
5711 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
5712 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
5715 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
5716 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
5717 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
5718 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
5719 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
5720 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
5722 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
5723 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
5724 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
5725 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
5726 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
5727 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
5729 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
5730 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
5731 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
5732 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
5733 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
5735 ** Tool bar support.
5737 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
5738 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
5739 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
5740 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
5741 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
5744 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
5745 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
5749 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
5750 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
5751 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
5753 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
5754 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
5755 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
5756 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
5758 ** Automatic Hscrolling
5760 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
5761 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
5764 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
5765 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
5766 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
5767 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
5768 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
5770 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
5771 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
5772 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
5773 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
5774 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
5775 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
5777 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
5778 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
5779 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
5780 customizing face `fringe'.
5782 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
5783 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
5784 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
5785 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
5786 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
5787 the window to be partially obscured.)
5789 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
5790 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
5791 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
5792 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
5794 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
5796 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
5797 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
5798 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
5799 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
5800 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
5803 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
5805 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
5807 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
5809 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
5810 `*') toggles the status.
5812 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
5814 ** Hourglass pointer
5816 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
5817 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
5821 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
5822 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
5823 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
5826 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
5828 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
5829 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
5830 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
5833 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
5834 have to do anything to activate it.
5836 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
5838 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
5839 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
5841 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
5842 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
5843 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
5844 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
5845 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
5846 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
5847 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
5848 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
5850 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
5851 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
5852 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
5853 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
5854 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
5855 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
5857 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
5858 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
5860 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
5861 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
5864 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
5865 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
5866 beginning and end of the buffer.
5868 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
5869 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
5872 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
5873 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
5875 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
5876 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
5879 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
5880 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
5883 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
5885 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
5886 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
5887 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
5889 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
5890 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
5891 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
5893 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
5896 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
5898 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
5899 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
5900 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
5901 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
5902 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
5905 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
5906 all frames except the selected one.
5908 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
5909 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
5911 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
5912 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
5913 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
5914 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
5915 `Info-use-header-line'.
5917 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
5918 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
5919 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
5921 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
5923 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
5924 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
5927 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
5928 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
5929 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
5930 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
5932 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
5934 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
5935 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
5936 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
5937 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
5939 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
5940 point in a pop-up window.
5942 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
5943 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
5944 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
5946 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
5947 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
5949 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
5950 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
5951 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
5952 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
5954 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
5956 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5957 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5959 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
5960 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
5961 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
5963 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
5964 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
5967 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
5968 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
5969 file that is already visited under a different name.
5971 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
5972 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
5974 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
5975 and displays information about that.
5977 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
5978 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
5980 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
5981 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
5982 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
5983 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
5984 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
5985 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
5987 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
5988 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
5990 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
5991 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
5992 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
5993 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
5994 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
5995 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
5996 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
5998 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
5999 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
6001 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
6002 system for keyboard input.
6004 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
6005 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
6006 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
6007 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
6008 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
6009 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
6010 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
6011 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
6012 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
6014 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
6015 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
6017 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
6018 displays all characters in that character set.
6020 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
6021 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
6023 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
6024 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
6025 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
6027 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
6028 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
6029 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
6030 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
6031 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
6032 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
6035 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
6036 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
6039 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
6040 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
6041 Lisp Coding Convention".
6043 new command old-binding
6044 --- ------- -----------
6045 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
6046 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
6047 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
6049 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
6050 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
6051 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
6053 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
6054 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
6055 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
6056 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
6057 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
6058 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
6060 ** There are new Leim input methods.
6061 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
6062 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
6065 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
6066 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
6067 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
6068 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
6069 "`", you must type "=q".
6071 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
6072 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
6073 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
6074 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
6075 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
6078 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
6079 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
6080 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
6081 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
6083 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
6084 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
6085 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
6086 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
6088 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
6089 on the display using several methods
6091 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
6092 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
6093 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
6095 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
6096 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
6098 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
6100 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
6101 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
6103 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
6104 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
6105 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
6106 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
6108 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
6109 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
6110 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
6112 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
6113 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
6115 ** New X resources recognized
6117 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
6118 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
6119 is useful for debugging X problems.
6123 emacs.synchronous: true
6125 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
6126 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
6127 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
6128 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
6129 visual class names are
6138 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
6139 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
6142 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
6143 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
6144 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
6149 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
6151 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
6152 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
6153 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
6154 resource values are `true' or `on'.
6158 emacs.privateColormap: true
6160 ** Faces and frame parameters.
6162 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
6163 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
6164 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
6165 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
6166 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
6167 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
6168 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
6170 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
6171 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
6172 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
6173 `default' face and vice versa.
6177 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
6179 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
6181 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
6182 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
6183 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
6184 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
6186 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
6187 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
6188 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
6190 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
6193 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
6195 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
6196 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
6197 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
6198 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
6200 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
6202 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
6204 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
6206 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
6209 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
6212 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
6214 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
6215 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
6216 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
6218 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
6219 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
6221 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
6222 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
6223 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
6225 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
6227 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
6228 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
6229 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6230 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
6232 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
6233 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
6234 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6235 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
6237 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
6238 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
6239 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
6242 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
6244 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
6245 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
6246 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
6248 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
6249 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
6250 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
6251 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
6252 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
6253 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
6255 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
6257 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
6258 notably at the end of lines.
6260 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
6261 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
6263 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
6265 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
6266 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
6268 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
6269 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
6270 after each match to get the replacement text.
6272 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
6273 you edit the replacement string.
6275 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
6276 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
6277 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
6279 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
6281 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
6282 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
6284 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
6285 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
6286 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
6287 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
6290 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
6291 read mail from the menu etc.
6293 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
6294 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
6295 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
6296 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
6298 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
6299 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6301 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
6302 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
6303 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
6304 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
6305 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
6308 ** Customize changes
6310 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
6311 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
6312 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
6313 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
6314 earlier versions of Emacs.
6316 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
6317 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
6320 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6321 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
6322 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
6323 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
6326 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6327 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
6328 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
6329 already in your init file.
6331 ** New features in evaluation commands
6333 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
6334 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
6335 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
6336 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
6337 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
6339 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
6340 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
6341 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
6342 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
6345 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
6346 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
6348 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
6349 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
6351 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
6352 code when called with a prefix argument.
6356 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
6357 current user setups (although it's believed that these
6358 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
6359 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
6360 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
6361 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
6364 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
6365 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
6366 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
6369 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
6370 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
6371 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
6372 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
6374 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
6375 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
6377 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
6378 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
6380 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
6381 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
6382 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
6383 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
6385 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
6386 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
6387 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
6388 earlier statement. An example:
6390 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
6392 res += a[i]->offset;
6395 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
6396 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
6397 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
6398 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
6401 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
6404 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
6405 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
6406 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
6407 documentation or other natural language text.
6409 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
6410 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
6411 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
6412 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
6413 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
6414 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
6415 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
6417 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
6418 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
6419 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
6420 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
6422 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
6423 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
6424 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
6425 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
6428 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
6429 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
6430 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
6431 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
6432 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
6433 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
6434 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
6435 is reported afterwards.
6437 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
6438 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
6439 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
6441 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
6442 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
6443 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
6444 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
6445 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
6446 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
6449 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
6450 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
6451 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
6452 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
6453 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
6456 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
6457 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
6458 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
6459 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
6460 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
6461 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
6463 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
6464 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
6465 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
6466 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
6467 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
6468 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
6469 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
6470 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
6472 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
6473 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
6474 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
6475 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
6478 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
6479 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
6480 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
6481 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
6482 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
6483 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
6484 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
6485 function documentation for more info.
6487 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
6488 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
6489 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
6490 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
6491 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
6492 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
6493 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
6494 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
6496 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
6498 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
6499 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
6501 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
6502 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
6503 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
6504 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
6505 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
6508 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
6509 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
6510 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
6513 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
6514 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
6515 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
6516 chapter about this in the manual.
6518 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
6519 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
6520 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
6521 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
6522 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
6524 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
6525 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
6526 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
6528 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
6529 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
6531 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
6532 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
6533 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
6536 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
6537 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
6538 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
6539 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
6542 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
6543 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
6544 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
6545 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
6546 they were before the filling.
6548 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
6549 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
6550 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
6553 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
6554 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
6555 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
6556 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
6559 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
6560 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
6561 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
6562 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
6563 Thanks to Eric Eide.
6565 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
6566 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
6567 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
6569 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
6571 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
6572 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
6573 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
6574 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
6576 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
6577 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
6578 the column specified by comment-column.
6580 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
6581 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
6582 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
6583 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
6584 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
6585 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
6587 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
6588 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
6591 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
6593 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
6594 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
6595 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
6596 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
6599 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
6603 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
6604 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
6605 is, delete only empty directories.
6607 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
6608 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
6609 copy directories recursively.
6611 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
6612 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
6613 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
6615 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
6616 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
6619 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
6620 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
6621 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
6622 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
6623 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
6625 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
6628 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
6629 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
6630 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
6631 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
6635 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
6636 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
6637 internationalization and mail-fetching.
6639 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
6640 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
6642 If you used procmail like in
6644 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
6645 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
6646 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
6647 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
6649 this now has changed to
6652 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
6655 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
6656 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
6658 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
6659 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
6660 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
6661 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
6663 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
6664 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
6665 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
6667 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
6668 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
6669 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
6670 now just a compatibility layer.
6672 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
6675 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
6676 called to position point.
6678 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
6679 summary buffers and NOV files.
6681 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
6682 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
6684 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
6685 subtly different manner.
6687 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
6688 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
6689 ever-changing layouts.
6691 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
6693 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
6695 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
6697 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
6701 -------------------------
6705 C-c C-c q @quotation
6707 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
6710 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
6712 ** Changes in Outline mode.
6714 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
6715 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
6716 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
6718 ** Changes to Emacs Server
6720 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
6721 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
6722 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
6723 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
6724 buffers to kill, as before.
6726 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
6727 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
6730 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
6731 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
6733 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
6735 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
6736 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
6737 use. Default is 1000.
6739 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
6740 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
6742 ** Changes to hideshow.el
6744 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
6746 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
6747 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
6748 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
6749 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
6751 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
6752 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
6753 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
6756 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
6757 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
6758 the normal block-hiding function.
6760 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
6762 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
6763 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
6764 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
6765 for `hs-minor-mode'.
6767 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
6768 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
6770 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
6772 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
6773 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
6774 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
6776 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
6779 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
6782 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
6783 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
6784 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
6785 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
6786 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
6787 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
6789 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
6791 ** Changes to cmuscheme
6793 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
6794 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
6796 ** Changes in Font Lock
6798 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
6799 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
6801 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
6802 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
6804 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
6805 the face used for each string/comment.
6807 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
6808 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
6810 ** Changes to Shell mode
6812 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
6813 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
6814 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
6815 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
6817 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6819 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
6820 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
6822 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
6823 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
6824 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
6825 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
6826 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
6827 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
6829 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
6830 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
6831 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
6832 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
6833 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
6834 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
6835 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
6836 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
6838 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
6839 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
6841 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
6842 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
6843 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
6845 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
6846 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
6847 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
6849 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
6850 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
6851 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
6853 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
6854 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
6855 argument, it appends to the file.
6857 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
6858 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
6861 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
6864 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
6865 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
6866 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
6868 ** Changes to Rmail mode
6870 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
6871 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
6872 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
6873 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
6874 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
6877 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
6878 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
6879 regexp matching your mail addresses.
6881 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
6882 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
6883 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
6884 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
6885 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
6887 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
6890 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
6891 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
6894 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
6895 in which folder to put messages automatically.
6897 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
6898 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
6899 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
6901 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
6902 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
6904 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
6905 use the -f option when sending mail.
6907 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
6908 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
6909 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
6910 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
6911 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
6912 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
6914 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
6915 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
6916 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
6918 ** Changes to TeX mode
6920 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
6923 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
6925 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
6927 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
6929 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6931 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
6932 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
6933 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
6934 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
6935 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
6936 can be edited from that buffer.
6938 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
6939 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
6940 `A' to use all marked entries).
6942 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
6943 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
6945 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
6946 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
6947 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
6950 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
6951 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
6952 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
6953 in column 1 are always made leaves.
6955 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
6956 has the following new features:
6958 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
6959 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
6960 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
6961 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
6963 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
6964 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
6965 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
6966 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
6967 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
6970 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
6975 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
6976 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
6977 spell-checks the current buffer.
6979 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
6982 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
6983 correction is made and re-checked.
6985 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
6987 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
6990 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
6993 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
6996 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6998 ** Makefile mode changes
7000 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
7002 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
7003 Fontlock mode is active.
7007 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
7008 so that searches can be resumed.
7010 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
7011 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
7012 that started the search.
7014 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
7015 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
7017 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
7019 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
7020 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
7021 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
7022 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
7023 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
7024 `secondary-selection'.
7026 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
7027 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
7028 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
7029 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
7030 usual snappy response.
7032 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
7033 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
7034 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
7035 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
7039 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
7040 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
7041 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
7042 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
7043 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
7044 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
7045 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
7046 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
7047 file is registered in that backend.
7049 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
7050 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
7051 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
7052 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
7053 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
7054 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
7056 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
7057 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
7058 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
7059 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
7060 where it doesn't make sense.)
7062 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
7063 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
7064 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
7068 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
7069 checks are always done now.
7071 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
7074 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
7075 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
7076 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
7078 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
7079 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
7080 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
7081 the working file (``merge news'').
7083 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
7084 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
7087 *** Multiple Backends
7089 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
7090 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
7091 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
7092 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
7095 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
7096 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
7097 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
7098 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
7100 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
7101 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
7102 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
7103 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
7104 current revision number from the more remote backend.
7106 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
7107 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
7108 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
7109 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
7111 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
7112 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
7113 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
7114 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
7118 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
7119 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
7120 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
7121 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
7122 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
7123 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
7124 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
7126 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
7127 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
7128 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
7129 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
7130 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
7131 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
7132 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
7133 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
7134 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
7135 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
7136 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
7139 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
7140 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
7141 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
7142 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
7143 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
7144 entire directory tree.
7146 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
7147 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
7148 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
7149 "watched" by other developers.)
7151 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
7152 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
7153 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
7154 starting at the given directory.
7156 *** Lisp Changes in VC
7158 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
7159 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
7160 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
7161 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
7162 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
7163 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
7164 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
7165 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
7166 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
7168 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
7169 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
7170 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
7171 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
7173 ** New modes and packages
7175 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
7176 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
7177 the default is not applicable.
7179 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
7180 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
7181 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
7185 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
7186 drawn, like this: | \ /
7190 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
7191 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
7192 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
7193 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
7194 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
7197 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
7198 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
7200 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
7203 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
7204 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
7205 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
7206 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
7208 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
7209 also do without the mouse.
7211 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
7212 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
7213 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
7214 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
7215 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
7217 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
7219 lines straight-lines
7221 poly-lines straight poly-lines
7223 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
7224 spray-can setting size for spraying
7225 vaporize line vaporize lines
7226 erase characters erase rectangles
7228 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
7229 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
7230 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
7233 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
7234 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
7235 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
7236 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
7238 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
7241 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
7242 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
7243 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
7244 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
7245 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
7246 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
7247 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
7248 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
7249 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
7251 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
7252 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
7253 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
7254 on certain projects.
7256 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
7257 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
7259 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
7261 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
7262 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
7263 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
7264 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
7265 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
7266 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
7267 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
7268 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
7270 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
7273 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
7274 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
7276 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
7277 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
7279 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
7280 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
7281 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
7282 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
7283 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
7285 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
7286 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
7287 separate Texinfo file.
7289 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
7290 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
7291 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
7292 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
7293 enter check-in log messages.
7295 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
7296 without invoking external programs.
7298 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
7299 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
7300 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
7301 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
7302 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
7304 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
7305 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
7307 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
7308 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
7310 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
7311 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
7312 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
7313 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
7314 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
7317 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
7318 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
7319 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
7320 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
7322 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
7323 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
7324 actually modifying content of a buffer.
7326 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
7329 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
7331 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
7333 ; comment (until end of line)
7337 $A default non-terminal
7338 $"C" default terminal
7339 $?C? default special
7340 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
7341 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
7342 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
7343 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
7344 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
7345 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
7346 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
7347 C+ one or more occurrences of C
7348 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
7349 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
7350 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
7351 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
7352 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
7353 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7354 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7356 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
7358 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
7359 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
7360 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
7361 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
7362 equal signs of assignments.
7364 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
7365 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
7367 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
7368 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
7369 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
7371 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
7373 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
7374 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
7375 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
7376 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
7377 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
7378 which answers different needs.
7380 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
7381 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
7382 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
7383 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
7384 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
7387 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
7388 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
7390 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
7392 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
7393 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
7394 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
7396 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
7398 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
7399 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
7400 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
7401 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
7402 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
7403 and background colors.
7405 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
7408 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
7411 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
7413 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
7415 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
7416 whitespace in a file.
7418 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
7419 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
7420 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
7421 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
7422 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
7423 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
7424 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
7426 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
7428 Here is an example of columns:
7431 dog pineapple car EXTRA
7432 porcupine strawberry airplane
7434 Doing the following settings:
7436 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
7437 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
7438 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
7439 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
7442 Selecting the lines above and typing:
7444 M-x delimit-columns-region
7448 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
7449 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
7450 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
7452 delim-col has the following options:
7454 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
7457 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
7458 between each column.
7460 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
7463 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
7466 delim-col has the following commands:
7468 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
7469 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
7471 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
7472 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
7473 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
7474 recent file list can be displayed:
7476 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
7477 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
7478 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
7480 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
7481 dynamically change the menu appearance.
7483 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
7486 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
7487 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
7488 specific to Message mode.
7490 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
7491 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
7492 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
7494 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
7495 interface to access directory servers using different directory
7496 protocols. It has a separate manual.
7498 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
7499 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
7501 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
7503 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
7504 minibuffer with completion.
7506 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
7507 with the diary features.
7509 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
7510 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
7512 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
7515 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
7516 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
7517 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
7518 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
7520 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
7521 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
7524 ** Changes in sort.el
7526 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
7527 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
7528 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
7531 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
7533 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
7534 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
7535 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
7537 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
7538 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
7540 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
7541 output ^M at the end of lines.
7543 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
7544 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
7546 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
7547 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
7550 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
7553 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
7554 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
7557 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
7558 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
7559 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
7560 nil -- just delete one character.
7562 Default value is `untabify'.
7564 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
7566 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
7567 symbol, not double-quoted.
7569 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
7570 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
7571 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
7572 moved to lisp/obsolete.
7574 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
7575 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
7576 `auto-compression-mode' command.
7578 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
7579 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
7580 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
7582 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
7583 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
7585 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
7586 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
7588 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
7589 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
7591 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
7592 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
7593 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
7594 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
7595 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
7596 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
7598 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
7599 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
7601 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
7603 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
7604 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
7606 ** Shell script mode changes.
7608 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
7609 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
7610 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
7614 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
7616 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
7617 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
7618 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
7619 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
7620 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
7622 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
7623 declarations when given the --declarations option.
7625 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
7626 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
7628 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
7629 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
7630 `template' keywords.
7632 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
7633 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
7635 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
7638 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
7640 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
7642 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
7645 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
7647 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
7648 variables are tagged.
7650 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
7652 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
7655 ** Changes in etags.el
7657 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
7658 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
7659 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
7661 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
7662 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
7664 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
7665 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
7666 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
7667 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
7669 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
7671 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
7672 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
7674 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
7676 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
7677 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
7678 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
7680 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
7681 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
7683 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
7684 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
7686 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
7687 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
7688 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
7689 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
7690 point will go to the beginning of the file.
7692 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
7693 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
7694 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
7696 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
7697 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
7698 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
7700 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
7701 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
7702 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
7704 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
7706 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
7708 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
7709 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
7710 expression from that list, are not checked.
7712 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
7713 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
7714 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
7715 the buffer, just like for the local files.
7717 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
7719 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
7720 displays local abbrevs, only.
7722 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
7723 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
7725 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
7726 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
7727 is measured in pixels.
7729 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
7730 to be visited as images.
7732 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
7733 were added to compile.el.
7735 ** Withdrawn packages
7737 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
7738 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
7740 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
7742 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
7745 * Incompatible Lisp changes
7747 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
7748 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
7749 See the sections below for details.
7751 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
7752 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
7753 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
7754 to remove the properties of the copy.
7756 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
7757 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
7758 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
7759 these properties are active.
7761 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
7762 ranges may affect some code.
7764 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
7765 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
7766 make a difference to some code.
7768 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
7769 operates on the minibuffer.
7771 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
7772 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
7773 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
7774 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
7775 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
7776 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
7777 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
7778 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
7779 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
7780 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
7781 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
7782 the buffer as multibyte characters.
7784 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
7785 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
7786 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
7788 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
7789 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
7790 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
7792 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
7793 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
7794 such as `mapconcat'.
7796 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
7799 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
7800 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
7801 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
7802 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
7803 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
7804 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
7805 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
7806 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
7808 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
7809 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
7810 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
7811 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
7812 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
7813 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
7814 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
7815 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
7816 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
7817 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
7820 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
7821 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
7823 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
7825 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
7826 allows the animated display of strings.
7828 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
7829 interactive form of a function.
7831 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
7832 between custom options. Example:
7834 (defcustom default-input-method nil
7835 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
7836 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
7837 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
7839 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
7840 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
7842 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
7843 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
7844 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
7846 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
7847 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
7848 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
7849 (signal or normal termination).
7851 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
7852 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
7854 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
7855 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
7857 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
7858 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
7860 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
7862 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
7863 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
7866 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
7868 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
7869 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
7870 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
7871 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
7872 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
7875 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
7876 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
7879 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
7880 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
7882 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
7883 with the more general `:mask' property.
7885 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
7887 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
7890 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
7891 is running in batch mode. For example,
7893 (message "%s" (read t))
7895 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
7898 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
7899 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
7901 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
7902 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
7905 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
7908 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
7910 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
7911 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
7913 - Function: remq ELT LIST
7915 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
7916 comparison is done with `eq'.
7918 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
7920 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
7921 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
7922 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
7924 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
7925 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
7926 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
7928 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
7929 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
7931 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
7932 function was declared obsolete.
7934 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
7935 retained as an alias).
7937 ** Easy-menu's :filter now takes the unconverted form of the menu and
7938 the result is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
7940 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
7942 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
7944 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
7945 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
7946 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
7947 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
7948 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
7949 means never include the minibuffer window.
7951 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
7953 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
7955 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
7957 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
7958 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
7959 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
7960 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
7963 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
7964 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
7965 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
7966 minibuffer even if it is active.
7968 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
7969 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
7970 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
7971 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
7972 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
7973 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
7975 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
7976 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
7977 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
7978 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
7979 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
7980 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
7981 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
7983 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
7984 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
7985 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
7987 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
7988 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
7989 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
7990 Default value is nil.
7992 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
7995 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
7996 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
7997 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
7999 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
8000 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
8001 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
8003 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
8004 list of a primitive.
8006 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
8008 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
8009 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
8010 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
8011 than replacing the local map.
8013 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
8014 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
8015 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
8018 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
8020 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
8021 as promised long ago.
8023 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
8025 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
8026 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
8027 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
8030 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
8032 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
8033 regular expressions.
8035 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
8037 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
8041 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
8043 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
8047 matches string STRING literally.
8050 matches character CHAR literally.
8053 matches any character except a newline.
8056 matches any character
8059 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
8060 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
8066 matches any character not in SET
8069 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
8070 in the text being matched
8073 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
8076 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
8077 string being matched against.
8080 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
8081 string being matched against.
8084 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
8085 buffer being matched against.
8088 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
8089 buffer being matched against.
8092 matches the empty string, but only at point.
8095 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8099 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
8102 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8105 `(not word-boundary)'
8106 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
8110 matches 0 through 9.
8113 matches ASCII control characters.
8116 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8119 matches space and tab only.
8122 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8126 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8130 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8131 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8134 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8135 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8138 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8141 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8144 matches anything lower-case.
8147 matches anything upper-case.
8150 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8151 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8154 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8157 matches anything that has word syntax.
8160 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
8161 of the following symbols.
8163 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
8164 `punctuation' (\\s.)
8167 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
8168 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
8169 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
8170 `string-quote' (\\s\")
8171 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
8173 `character-quote' (\\s/)
8174 `comment-start' (\\s<)
8175 `comment-end' (\\s>)
8177 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
8178 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
8180 `(category CATEGORY)'
8181 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
8182 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
8184 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
8186 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
8187 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
8191 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
8193 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
8194 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
8195 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
8196 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
8197 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
8198 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
8199 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
8200 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
8201 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
8202 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
8203 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
8212 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
8216 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
8223 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
8224 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
8226 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8227 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
8229 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8230 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
8231 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
8233 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8234 another name for `submatch'.
8236 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8237 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
8238 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
8241 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
8242 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
8243 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
8244 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
8245 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
8247 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
8248 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
8250 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
8251 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8254 like `zero-or-more'.
8257 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8260 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8262 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
8263 matches one or more occurrences of A.
8269 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8272 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8274 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
8275 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
8281 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8284 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8287 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8290 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8293 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
8297 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
8299 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
8301 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
8302 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
8303 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
8304 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
8306 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
8307 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
8308 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
8309 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
8311 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
8312 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
8313 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
8315 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
8316 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
8317 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
8318 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
8319 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
8320 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
8321 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
8324 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
8326 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
8327 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
8328 character set as previously.
8330 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
8331 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
8332 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
8334 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
8335 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
8336 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
8337 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
8339 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
8340 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
8342 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
8343 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
8346 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
8347 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
8349 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
8350 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
8351 buffers and strings.
8353 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
8354 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
8355 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
8356 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
8357 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
8358 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
8359 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
8362 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
8363 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
8364 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
8366 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
8367 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
8368 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
8369 may differ between buffer and string text.
8371 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
8372 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
8374 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
8375 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
8376 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
8377 `composition' from STRING.
8379 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
8380 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
8382 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
8385 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
8386 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
8388 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
8389 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
8390 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
8391 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
8393 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
8394 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
8395 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
8396 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
8397 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
8398 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
8400 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
8401 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
8402 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
8404 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
8405 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
8406 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
8408 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
8409 have been introduced.
8411 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
8412 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
8413 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
8414 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
8415 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
8416 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
8417 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
8418 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
8419 their multibyte equivalent.
8421 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
8422 that offset in the file before writing.
8424 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
8425 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
8427 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
8428 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
8429 from which the command was issued.
8431 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
8432 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
8433 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
8434 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
8437 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
8438 to `window-buffer-height'.
8440 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
8442 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
8443 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
8444 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
8446 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
8449 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
8450 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
8452 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
8453 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
8454 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
8456 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
8457 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
8458 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
8459 is currently displayed in some window.
8461 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
8462 argument function's results.
8464 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
8465 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
8466 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
8467 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
8470 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
8471 header in the list of headers passed to it.
8473 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
8474 ignores differences in case and text representation.
8476 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
8477 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
8480 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
8481 nil don't display a cursor
8482 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
8483 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
8484 others display a box cursor.
8486 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
8487 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
8488 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
8489 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
8491 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
8492 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
8493 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
8494 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
8498 (string-to-syntax "()")
8501 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
8504 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
8505 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
8512 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
8517 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
8522 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
8529 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
8530 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
8533 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
8534 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
8535 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
8536 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
8538 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
8540 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
8541 for a regexp in a string.
8543 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
8544 `mouse-position-function'.
8546 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
8547 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
8549 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
8550 Keywords are now always considered constants.
8552 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
8555 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
8556 returned by function `recent-keys'.
8558 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
8559 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
8560 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
8561 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
8564 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
8565 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
8567 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
8568 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
8569 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
8570 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
8573 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
8574 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
8575 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
8576 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
8578 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
8579 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
8580 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
8582 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
8583 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
8586 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
8588 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
8589 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
8590 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
8593 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
8594 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
8595 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
8596 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
8597 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
8599 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
8600 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
8602 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
8603 instead of being optional.
8605 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
8606 modify read-only text.
8608 ** New functions and variables for locales.
8610 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
8611 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
8612 time functions like strftime. The new variables
8613 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
8614 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
8616 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
8617 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
8618 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
8619 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
8620 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
8621 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
8622 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
8624 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
8625 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
8626 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
8629 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
8630 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
8632 ** New function `propertize'
8634 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
8635 strings with text properties.
8637 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
8639 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
8640 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
8641 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
8642 specified value of that property. Example:
8644 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
8646 ** push and pop macros.
8648 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
8649 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
8650 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
8652 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
8653 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
8654 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
8656 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
8658 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
8659 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
8661 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
8662 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
8663 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
8664 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8666 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
8667 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
8668 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
8669 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8671 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
8672 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
8673 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
8676 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
8677 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
8678 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8679 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
8680 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8682 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8684 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
8685 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8686 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8687 [:alpha:] matches letters.
8688 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8689 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8690 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8691 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8692 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
8693 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
8694 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8695 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8696 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8697 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
8698 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
8700 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
8702 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
8704 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
8706 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
8707 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
8711 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
8712 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
8713 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
8717 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
8718 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
8720 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
8722 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
8723 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
8724 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
8725 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
8726 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
8728 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
8730 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
8731 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
8732 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
8736 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
8737 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
8738 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
8739 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
8740 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
8742 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
8744 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
8746 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
8748 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
8750 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
8752 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
8755 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
8757 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
8759 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8761 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
8763 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
8765 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
8767 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8769 Returns the size of TABLE.
8771 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
8773 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
8775 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
8777 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
8779 - Function: clrhash TABLE
8783 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
8785 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
8788 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
8790 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
8791 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
8793 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
8795 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
8797 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
8799 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
8800 arguments KEY and VALUE.
8802 - Function: sxhash OBJ
8804 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
8806 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
8808 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
8809 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
8810 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
8811 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
8812 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
8814 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
8816 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
8817 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
8818 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
8820 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
8821 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
8823 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
8824 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
8826 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
8827 (sxhash (upcase a)))
8829 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
8830 'case-fold-string-hash))
8832 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
8834 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
8836 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
8837 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
8838 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
8840 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
8842 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
8843 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
8845 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
8846 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
8847 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
8848 is too short to reach that column.
8850 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
8851 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
8852 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
8853 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
8855 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
8856 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
8857 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
8859 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
8860 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
8862 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
8863 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
8865 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
8866 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
8867 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
8868 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
8869 temporary-file-directory instead.
8871 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
8872 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
8873 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
8874 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
8876 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
8877 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
8879 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
8881 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
8882 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
8883 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
8885 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
8887 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
8888 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
8889 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
8890 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
8891 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
8892 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
8894 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
8895 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
8896 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
8897 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
8899 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
8901 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
8902 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
8903 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
8906 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
8907 string where arguments appear in the result string.
8911 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
8913 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
8914 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
8917 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
8919 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
8921 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
8922 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
8925 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
8927 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
8928 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
8933 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
8934 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
8936 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
8937 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
8938 to enable sound support.
8940 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
8941 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
8942 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
8943 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
8944 sound to play, before playing the sound.
8946 The following sound properties are supported:
8950 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
8951 searched relative to `data-directory'.
8955 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
8956 may be present, but not both.
8960 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
8961 0..1. This property is optional.
8965 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
8966 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
8968 Other properties are ignored.
8970 An alternative interface is called as
8971 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
8973 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
8975 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
8978 ** Changes to garbage collection
8980 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
8981 of live and free strings.
8983 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
8984 strings that have been consed so far.
8987 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
8990 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
8993 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
8994 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
8995 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
8997 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
8999 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
9001 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
9004 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
9006 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
9008 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
9009 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
9010 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
9011 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
9012 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
9014 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
9017 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
9019 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
9020 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
9021 or omitted means use the selected frame.
9023 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
9024 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
9026 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
9029 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
9033 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
9035 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
9036 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
9038 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
9039 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
9040 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
9041 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
9042 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
9043 just display it black instead.
9045 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
9048 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
9052 ** New face implementation.
9054 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
9055 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
9059 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
9061 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
9063 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
9064 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
9066 3. Font height in 1/10pt
9068 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
9070 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
9072 6. Foreground color.
9074 7. Background color.
9076 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
9078 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
9080 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
9082 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
9084 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
9087 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
9088 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
9090 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
9091 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
9092 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
9093 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
9094 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
9095 attributes mentioned above.
9097 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
9098 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
9101 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
9102 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
9107 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
9108 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
9109 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
9110 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
9111 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
9112 results in a fully-specified face.
9114 *** Face realization.
9116 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
9117 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
9118 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
9119 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
9120 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
9121 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
9123 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
9124 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
9125 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
9126 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
9128 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
9129 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
9130 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
9131 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
9132 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
9134 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
9135 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
9136 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
9137 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
9138 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
9141 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
9142 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
9143 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
9144 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
9146 **** Clearing face caches.
9148 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
9149 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
9154 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
9155 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
9156 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
9158 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
9159 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
9160 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
9161 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
9162 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
9164 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
9165 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
9166 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
9168 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
9170 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
9171 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
9172 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
9173 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
9174 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
9175 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
9176 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
9178 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9179 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
9182 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9183 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
9186 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
9189 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
9194 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
9195 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
9198 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
9199 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
9200 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
9201 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
9202 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
9205 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
9207 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
9209 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
9211 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
9213 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
9214 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
9215 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
9217 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
9218 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
9219 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
9220 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
9221 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
9222 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
9223 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
9224 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
9225 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
9226 of the face font sort order.
9228 - Function: x-font-family-list
9230 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
9231 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
9232 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
9233 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
9235 - Variable: font-list-limit
9237 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
9238 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
9239 matching font. The default is currently 100.
9241 *** Setting face attributes.
9243 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
9244 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
9245 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
9248 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
9249 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
9251 The following attributes are recognized:
9255 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
9256 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
9257 and `?' are allowed.
9261 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
9262 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
9263 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
9264 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
9268 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
9269 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
9270 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
9271 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
9275 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
9276 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
9277 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
9281 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
9282 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
9285 `:foreground', `:background'
9287 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
9291 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
9292 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
9293 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
9298 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
9299 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
9300 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
9305 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
9306 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
9307 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
9308 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
9312 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
9313 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
9314 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
9315 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
9316 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
9317 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
9318 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
9319 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
9320 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
9321 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
9322 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
9323 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
9324 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
9325 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
9326 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
9327 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
9332 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
9333 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
9337 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
9338 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
9339 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
9340 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
9341 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
9342 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
9344 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
9345 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
9349 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
9350 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
9351 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
9354 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
9355 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
9356 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
9358 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
9363 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
9364 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
9365 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
9367 *** Face attributes and X resources
9369 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
9372 Face attribute X resource class
9373 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
9374 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
9375 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
9376 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
9377 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
9378 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
9379 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
9380 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
9381 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
9382 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
9383 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
9384 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
9385 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
9386 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
9387 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
9388 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
9389 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9390 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
9391 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
9392 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9394 *** Text property `face'.
9396 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
9397 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
9398 specification can be
9400 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
9402 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
9403 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
9404 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
9405 for face attribute names.
9407 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
9408 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
9409 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
9411 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
9413 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
9414 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
9415 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
9416 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
9417 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
9418 used to clear the mapping table.
9420 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
9422 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
9423 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
9424 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
9425 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
9426 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
9427 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
9428 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
9429 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
9430 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
9431 modify their color-related behavior.
9433 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
9436 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
9438 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
9439 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
9440 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
9441 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
9442 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
9443 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
9444 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
9445 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
9446 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
9448 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
9449 display can display image files.
9451 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
9453 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
9454 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
9455 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
9456 `Inviolable' option.
9458 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
9459 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
9460 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
9462 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
9464 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
9465 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
9466 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
9468 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
9469 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
9470 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
9471 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
9472 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
9473 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
9474 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
9477 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
9478 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
9479 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
9481 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
9483 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
9485 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
9487 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9488 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
9489 constrained position if that is different.
9491 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
9492 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
9493 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
9494 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
9495 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9496 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
9497 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
9498 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
9499 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
9501 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
9502 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
9503 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
9504 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
9505 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
9507 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
9508 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
9510 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
9512 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
9514 Delete the field surrounding POS.
9515 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9516 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9518 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9520 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
9521 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9522 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9523 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
9524 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
9526 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9528 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
9529 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9530 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9531 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
9532 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
9534 - Function: field-string &optional POS
9536 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
9537 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9538 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9540 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
9542 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
9543 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9544 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9548 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
9549 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
9550 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
9551 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
9553 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
9554 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
9555 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
9556 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
9559 IMAGE is an image specification.
9561 *** Image specifications
9563 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
9564 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
9565 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
9566 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
9567 described below are ignored.
9569 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
9573 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
9574 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
9575 to use for its ascent.
9577 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
9578 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
9580 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
9581 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
9582 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
9583 overlays that apply to the image.
9587 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
9588 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
9589 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
9593 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
9598 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
9600 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
9601 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
9603 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
9604 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
9605 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
9606 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
9607 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
9608 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
9609 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
9610 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
9613 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
9615 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
9617 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
9618 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
9619 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
9620 of the factors' absolute values.
9622 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
9628 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
9634 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
9639 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
9640 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
9641 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
9642 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
9643 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
9644 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
9645 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
9648 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
9649 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
9654 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
9655 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
9656 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
9657 may be present in the image specification.
9661 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
9662 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
9663 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
9664 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
9666 *** Supported image types
9668 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
9670 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
9671 properties supported are:
9675 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9676 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9680 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9681 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9683 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
9684 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
9685 instead of a `:file' property.
9689 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
9693 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
9699 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
9700 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
9702 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
9704 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
9707 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
9708 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
9711 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
9713 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
9714 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
9715 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
9716 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
9718 Additional image properties supported are:
9720 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
9722 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
9723 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
9726 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
9727 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
9729 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
9730 to display compressed images.
9732 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
9734 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
9735 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
9740 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9741 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9745 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9746 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9748 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
9750 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
9751 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9754 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
9756 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
9757 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9760 **** GIF, image type `gif'
9762 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
9763 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
9765 Additional image properties supported are:
9769 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
9770 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
9773 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
9774 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
9775 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
9778 (defun show-anim (file max)
9779 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
9780 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
9782 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
9785 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
9788 (goto-char (point-min))
9789 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
9790 (insert-image img "x"))
9791 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
9793 **** PNG, image type `png'
9795 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
9796 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9799 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
9801 Additional image properties supported are:
9805 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
9806 integer. This is a required property.
9810 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
9811 must be a integer. This is an required property.
9815 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
9816 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
9817 files. This is an required property.
9819 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
9824 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
9825 which are supported in the current configuration.
9827 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
9828 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
9829 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
9830 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
9831 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
9833 *** Simplified image API, image.el
9835 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
9836 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
9837 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
9838 define an image based on available image types. The functions
9839 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
9844 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
9847 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
9848 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
9849 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
9850 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
9851 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
9852 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
9853 of the display margins.
9855 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
9856 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
9857 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
9858 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
9863 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
9864 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
9865 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
9866 that have a `help-echo' property.
9868 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
9869 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
9870 the window in which the help was found.
9872 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
9873 `help-echo' text property was found.
9875 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
9876 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
9878 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
9879 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
9882 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
9883 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
9885 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
9886 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
9887 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
9888 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
9889 used as help string.
9891 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
9892 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
9893 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
9895 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
9897 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
9898 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
9900 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
9901 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
9902 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
9903 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
9906 (global-set-key [A-down]
9909 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9910 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
9911 (global-set-key [A-up]
9914 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9915 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
9917 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
9919 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
9920 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
9921 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
9922 is called with one argument, POS.
9924 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
9925 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
9926 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
9927 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
9928 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
9930 ** Tool bar support.
9932 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
9933 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
9934 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
9935 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
9936 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
9937 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
9939 *** Tool bar item definitions
9941 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
9942 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
9943 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
9945 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
9946 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
9947 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
9948 property (see below).
9950 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
9951 binding are currently ignored.
9953 The following properties are recognized:
9957 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
9962 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
9966 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
9967 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
9968 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
9970 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
9972 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
9973 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
9977 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
9978 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
9979 meaning of each of the four elements:
9981 Index Use when item is
9982 ----------------------------------------
9983 0 enabled and selected
9984 1 enabled and deselected
9985 2 disabled and selected
9986 3 disabled and deselected
9988 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
9989 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
9991 `:help HELP-STRING'.
9993 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
9994 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
9996 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
9997 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
9998 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
10001 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
10002 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
10003 buffer-locally to override the global map.
10005 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
10007 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
10008 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
10009 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
10011 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
10012 raised when the mouse moves over them.
10014 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
10015 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
10016 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
10017 vertical margins . Default is 1.
10019 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
10020 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
10022 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
10024 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
10025 a tool bar item. If
10027 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
10028 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
10029 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
10031 is the original tool bar item definition, then
10033 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
10035 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
10038 ** Mode line changes.
10040 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
10042 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
10043 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
10044 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
10046 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
10047 a `local-map' text property.
10049 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
10050 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
10052 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
10053 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
10054 `local-map' property.
10056 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
10057 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
10060 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
10061 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
10063 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
10064 variable mode-line-format to nil.
10066 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
10068 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
10069 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
10070 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
10071 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
10074 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
10077 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
10078 position in the header-line.
10080 ** Text property `display'
10082 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
10083 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
10084 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
10085 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
10086 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
10088 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
10090 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
10091 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
10093 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
10094 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
10095 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
10096 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
10097 simpler form STRING as property value.
10099 *** Variable width and height spaces
10101 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
10102 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
10103 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
10104 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
10105 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
10106 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
10107 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
10109 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
10110 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
10111 properties described below.
10113 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
10114 characters having the `display' property.
10118 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
10119 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
10121 - :relative-width FACTOR
10123 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
10124 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
10125 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
10126 width of that character by FACTOR.
10130 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
10131 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
10133 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
10137 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
10138 normal line height.
10140 - :relative-height FACTOR
10142 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
10143 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
10147 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
10148 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
10149 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
10152 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
10156 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
10157 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
10158 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
10159 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
10160 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
10161 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
10162 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
10163 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
10164 as display specification.
10166 *** Other display properties
10168 - (space-width FACTOR)
10170 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
10171 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
10176 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
10178 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
10179 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
10180 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
10181 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
10182 a font is available counts as a step.
10184 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
10185 as tall as the frame's default font.
10187 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
10188 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
10190 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
10191 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
10195 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
10196 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
10197 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
10198 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
10199 `height' subproperty.
10201 *** Conditional display properties
10203 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
10204 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
10205 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
10206 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
10207 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
10208 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
10209 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
10210 different when object is a string.
10212 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
10215 ** New menu separator types.
10217 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
10218 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
10219 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
10220 to specify other menu separator types.
10222 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
10224 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
10227 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
10229 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
10231 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
10233 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
10235 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
10237 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10239 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
10241 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10243 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
10245 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
10246 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
10248 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
10250 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
10252 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
10254 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
10256 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
10258 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
10260 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
10262 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10264 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
10266 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
10268 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
10270 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10272 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
10274 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
10276 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
10277 the corresponding single-line separators.
10279 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
10281 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
10282 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
10283 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
10284 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
10285 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
10286 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
10287 default foreground is black.
10289 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
10290 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
10291 `ScrollBarBackground').
10293 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
10294 settings for scroll bar colors.
10296 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
10297 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
10299 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
10300 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
10301 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
10302 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
10303 the original window start.
10305 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
10306 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
10307 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
10309 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
10311 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
10312 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
10313 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
10314 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
10316 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
10317 fixed-width and fixed-height.
10319 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
10321 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
10322 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
10323 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
10324 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
10325 temporarily to nil, for example
10327 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
10328 (enlarge-window 10))
10330 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
10331 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
10333 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
10334 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
10335 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
10336 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
10337 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
10338 support a vertical-bar cursor).
10342 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
10344 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
10347 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
10349 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
10351 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
10352 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
10353 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
10354 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
10355 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
10357 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
10361 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
10363 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
10367 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
10369 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
10370 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
10372 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
10374 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
10376 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
10377 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
10378 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
10380 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
10381 is the one that is used.
10383 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
10384 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
10385 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
10386 separate from the command's regular output.
10387 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
10388 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
10389 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
10392 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
10393 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
10394 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
10395 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
10397 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
10398 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
10399 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
10400 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
10402 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
10403 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
10404 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
10405 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
10407 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
10408 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
10409 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
10410 they never ignore case.
10412 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
10413 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
10414 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
10415 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
10416 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
10417 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
10418 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
10420 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
10421 the same format that was used in the file before.
10423 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
10424 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
10426 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
10427 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
10428 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
10430 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
10431 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
10432 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
10433 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
10434 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
10435 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
10436 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
10438 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
10439 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
10440 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
10441 format. You can now customize these variables.
10443 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
10444 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
10445 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
10446 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
10448 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
10449 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
10450 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
10452 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
10453 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
10454 doesn't have any effect.
10456 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
10457 not one per buffer.
10459 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
10460 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
10461 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
10463 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
10464 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
10465 `auto-show-mode' command.
10467 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
10468 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
10469 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
10470 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
10471 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
10473 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
10474 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
10476 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
10477 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
10478 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
10480 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
10481 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
10482 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
10483 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
10485 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
10487 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
10488 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
10489 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
10490 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
10491 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
10493 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
10494 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
10496 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
10497 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
10498 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
10499 `?' on other systems.
10501 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
10502 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
10505 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
10506 current codepage when it starts.
10510 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
10511 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
10512 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
10513 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
10514 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
10515 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
10519 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
10520 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
10522 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
10523 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
10524 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
10525 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
10526 buffer-file-coding-system.
10528 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
10529 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
10532 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
10533 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
10534 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
10535 list of possible coding systems.
10539 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
10540 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
10541 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
10542 docstring for details.
10544 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
10545 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
10546 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
10547 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
10548 lineup functions use this feature currently.
10550 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
10551 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
10553 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
10554 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
10556 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
10557 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
10558 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
10559 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
10562 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
10563 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
10565 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
10566 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
10567 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
10568 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
10570 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
10571 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
10572 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
10573 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
10574 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
10576 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
10578 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
10580 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
10581 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
10583 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
10585 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
10586 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
10587 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
10588 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
10589 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
10593 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
10594 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
10595 Gnus manual for the full story.
10597 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
10598 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
10599 group, which is created automatically.
10601 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
10604 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
10606 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
10607 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
10609 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
10612 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
10614 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
10615 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
10617 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
10619 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
10620 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
10622 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
10623 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
10625 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
10626 control over simplification.
10628 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
10630 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
10633 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
10635 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
10637 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
10638 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
10639 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
10641 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
10642 `a' forces normal posting method.
10644 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
10647 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
10648 to a non-nil value.
10650 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
10651 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
10653 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
10656 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
10658 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
10660 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
10661 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
10663 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
10664 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
10666 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
10668 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
10671 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
10672 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
10674 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
10675 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
10677 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
10679 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
10681 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
10683 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
10685 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
10686 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
10687 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
10689 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
10690 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
10691 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
10692 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
10693 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
10695 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
10696 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
10697 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
10698 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
10700 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
10701 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
10702 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
10705 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
10707 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
10708 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
10710 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
10711 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
10712 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
10713 removed from the label.
10715 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
10716 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
10718 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
10719 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
10721 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
10722 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
10725 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
10727 ** New/deleted modes and packages
10729 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
10730 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
10732 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
10733 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
10734 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
10736 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
10737 changes with a special face.
10739 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
10740 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
10741 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
10743 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
10745 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
10746 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
10747 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
10748 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
10749 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
10751 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
10752 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
10753 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
10755 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
10756 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
10757 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
10758 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
10759 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
10760 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
10761 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
10762 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
10763 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
10765 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
10766 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
10767 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
10768 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
10769 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
10772 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
10773 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
10774 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
10775 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
10776 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
10777 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
10779 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
10780 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
10781 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
10782 was not documented clearly before.
10784 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
10785 This includes Tetris and Snake.
10787 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
10789 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
10790 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
10791 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
10792 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
10794 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
10795 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
10796 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
10798 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
10800 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
10801 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
10803 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
10804 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
10807 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
10808 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
10809 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
10810 file names and attributes are returned.
10812 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
10813 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
10814 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
10815 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
10816 returns the result.
10818 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
10819 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
10821 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
10823 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
10824 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
10825 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
10828 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
10829 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
10832 The new function process-running-child-p
10833 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
10834 terminal to its own child process.
10836 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
10837 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
10838 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
10839 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
10841 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
10842 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
10844 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
10845 :included is an alias for :visible.
10847 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
10848 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
10849 to move or copy menu entries.
10851 ** Multibyte editing changes
10853 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
10854 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
10855 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
10856 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
10857 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
10858 (setq char (sref str idx)
10859 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
10860 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
10862 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
10863 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
10864 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
10866 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
10867 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
10868 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
10870 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
10872 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
10873 across the boundary.
10875 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
10876 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
10877 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
10878 contains 8-bit characters.
10879 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
10880 contains invalid characters.
10882 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
10883 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
10884 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
10885 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
10888 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
10889 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
10890 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
10891 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
10893 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
10894 compose Thai characters in a string.
10896 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
10897 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
10898 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
10899 menus should always use the third argument.
10901 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
10902 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
10903 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
10904 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
10906 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
10907 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
10908 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
10909 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
10911 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
10912 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
10913 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
10914 echo area contents.
10916 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
10918 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
10919 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
10920 requested feature cannot be loaded.
10922 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
10923 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
10924 means to clear out that attribute.
10926 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
10927 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
10929 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
10930 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
10931 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
10932 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
10934 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
10935 the gap of the current buffer.
10937 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
10938 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
10941 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
10942 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
10943 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
10944 it back in after any modifications have been made.
10946 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
10948 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
10949 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
10950 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
10951 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
10952 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
10954 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
10955 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
10956 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
10957 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
10958 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
10960 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
10961 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
10962 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
10964 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
10965 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
10966 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
10967 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
10968 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
10971 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
10972 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
10973 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
10974 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
10976 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
10978 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
10979 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
10980 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
10981 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
10983 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
10984 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
10985 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
10986 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
10987 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
10988 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
10989 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
10992 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
10995 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
10996 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
10997 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
10998 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
10999 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
11001 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
11002 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
11003 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
11004 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
11006 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
11007 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
11008 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
11009 something that most users not do.
11011 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
11012 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
11013 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
11016 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
11017 pasting operations.
11019 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
11020 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
11021 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
11022 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
11025 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
11026 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
11027 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
11028 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
11029 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
11032 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
11033 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
11034 to be confused by TeX commands.
11036 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
11037 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
11038 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
11039 of various alternative replacements and actions.
11041 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
11042 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
11043 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
11044 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
11045 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
11047 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
11048 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
11050 ** Changes in input method usage.
11052 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
11053 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
11056 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
11058 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
11059 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
11061 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
11062 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
11064 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
11066 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
11068 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
11069 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
11071 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
11072 given in the following case:
11073 o When you are using a complex input method.
11074 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
11076 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
11077 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
11078 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
11079 setting it to t is helpful.
11081 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
11083 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
11085 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
11086 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
11087 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
11088 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
11091 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
11092 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
11093 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
11096 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
11098 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
11100 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
11101 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
11103 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
11104 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
11105 its owner and group.
11107 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
11108 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
11110 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
11111 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
11113 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
11114 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
11115 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
11116 by the left edge of the rectangle.
11118 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
11119 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
11120 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
11121 for writing keyboard macros.
11123 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
11124 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
11125 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
11126 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
11127 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
11130 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
11132 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
11133 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
11136 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
11137 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
11138 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
11139 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
11141 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
11142 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
11143 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
11145 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
11146 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
11147 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
11148 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
11150 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
11151 failure if the command produces no output.
11153 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
11154 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
11157 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
11158 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
11159 function and variable names.
11161 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
11162 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
11163 file-coding-system-alist.
11165 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
11166 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
11167 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
11168 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
11169 according to the current fontset.
11171 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
11173 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
11174 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
11175 nonascii-insert-offset.
11177 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
11178 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
11179 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
11180 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
11182 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
11183 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
11185 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
11186 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
11188 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
11189 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
11192 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
11193 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
11195 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
11196 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
11197 all variables that have documentation.
11199 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
11200 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
11201 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
11202 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
11203 it should show; the default is 20.
11205 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
11206 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
11209 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
11210 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
11211 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
11212 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
11213 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
11214 Newly added options are included as well.
11216 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
11217 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
11218 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
11220 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
11223 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
11224 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
11226 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
11227 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
11230 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
11231 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
11234 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
11235 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
11236 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
11237 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
11240 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
11242 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
11243 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
11244 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
11246 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
11247 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
11248 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
11253 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
11254 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
11256 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
11257 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
11259 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
11260 read and post multi-lingual articles.
11262 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
11263 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
11264 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
11265 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
11266 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
11267 made invisible again.
11269 ** Mail reading and sending changes
11271 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
11272 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
11273 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
11276 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
11277 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
11278 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
11279 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
11280 rmail-default-body-file.
11282 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
11283 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
11284 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
11286 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
11287 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
11288 is evaluated to insert the signature.
11290 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
11291 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
11292 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
11293 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
11294 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
11295 especially interested in trying feedmail.
11297 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
11298 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
11299 provided by feedmail are:
11301 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
11302 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
11303 there is also a queue for draft messages
11305 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
11306 be prompted for confirmation
11308 **** does smart filling of address headers
11310 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
11311 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
11312 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
11314 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
11315 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
11316 /usr/lib/sendmail, and Emacs Lisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
11317 function for something else (10-20 lines of Lisp code).
11321 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
11322 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
11324 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
11325 run Dired on the directory name at point.
11327 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
11328 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
11329 for a specified regexp.
11333 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
11336 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
11337 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
11340 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
11341 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
11342 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
11343 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
11345 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
11346 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
11347 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
11348 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
11349 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
11351 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
11352 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
11353 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
11354 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
11355 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
11357 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
11358 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
11359 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
11360 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
11362 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
11363 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
11364 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
11366 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
11367 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
11368 session to resolve them.
11370 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
11371 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
11372 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
11375 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
11376 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
11377 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
11378 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
11379 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
11380 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
11383 ** Changes in Font Lock
11385 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
11386 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
11387 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
11388 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
11389 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
11391 ** Frame name display changes
11393 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
11394 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
11395 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
11396 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
11398 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
11399 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
11402 ** Comint (subshell) changes
11404 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
11405 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
11406 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
11408 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
11410 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
11411 that is, the line after the last line you got.
11412 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
11414 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
11415 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
11416 the following line.
11418 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
11419 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
11420 previously sent input.
11422 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
11423 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
11424 as the search string.
11426 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
11427 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
11431 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
11432 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
11433 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
11436 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
11437 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
11438 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
11439 style is still the default however.
11441 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
11443 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
11444 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
11445 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
11447 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
11448 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
11450 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
11451 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
11453 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
11454 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
11456 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
11457 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
11459 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
11460 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
11461 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
11462 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
11464 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
11466 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
11467 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
11468 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
11470 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
11471 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
11472 expanding dynamically.
11474 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
11475 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
11477 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
11478 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
11479 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
11480 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
11482 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
11484 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11486 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
11487 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
11488 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
11489 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
11490 against the first word in the title.
11492 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
11493 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
11494 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
11495 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
11496 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
11497 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
11499 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
11500 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
11501 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
11502 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
11504 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
11506 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
11507 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
11508 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
11509 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
11510 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
11511 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
11513 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
11514 Editing group once the package is loaded.
11516 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
11517 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
11518 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
11520 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
11521 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
11525 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
11526 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
11527 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
11529 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
11530 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
11531 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
11532 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
11535 o URLs are automatically skipped
11536 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
11538 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
11540 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
11542 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
11543 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
11544 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
11545 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
11547 *** New recursive parser.
11549 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
11550 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
11551 recursive parser scans the individual files.
11553 *** Parsing only part of a document.
11555 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
11556 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
11557 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
11559 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
11561 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
11563 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
11565 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
11567 *** Using multiple selection buffers
11569 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
11570 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
11572 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
11574 *** References to external documents.
11576 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
11577 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
11578 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
11579 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
11580 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
11581 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
11582 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
11584 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
11586 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
11587 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
11589 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
11590 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
11592 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
11594 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
11595 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
11597 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
11599 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
11600 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
11601 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
11602 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
11603 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
11604 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
11607 *** Support for the varioref package
11609 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
11613 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
11614 and citations are created. These hooks are
11615 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
11616 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
11618 *** Citations outside LaTeX
11620 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
11621 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
11623 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
11625 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
11626 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
11629 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
11631 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
11632 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
11633 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
11634 directories that contain the same file name.
11636 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
11637 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
11638 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
11639 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
11640 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
11641 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
11642 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
11645 ** New modes and packages
11647 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
11648 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
11649 it, but some do not.
11651 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
11654 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
11655 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
11656 around in a buffer.
11658 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
11660 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
11661 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
11662 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
11663 established system of notation similar to Chess.
11665 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
11666 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
11667 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
11669 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
11670 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
11671 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc.); others are implementations of
11672 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
11673 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
11676 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
11677 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
11679 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
11680 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
11681 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
11682 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
11684 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
11686 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
11687 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
11688 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
11689 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
11690 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc.)
11691 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
11692 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
11693 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
11694 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
11695 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
11696 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
11698 Platform-specific modes:
11700 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
11701 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
11702 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
11703 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
11704 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
11705 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
11706 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
11707 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
11708 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
11710 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11712 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
11713 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
11714 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
11715 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
11717 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
11718 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
11719 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
11721 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
11722 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
11723 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
11724 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
11726 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
11727 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
11728 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
11731 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
11732 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
11733 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
11734 current input method for reading this one event.
11736 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
11737 now control whether to output certain characters as
11738 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
11739 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
11740 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
11741 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
11743 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11745 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
11746 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
11748 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
11749 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
11750 always increases point by 1.
11752 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
11753 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
11755 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
11757 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
11758 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
11759 default value changed. For example,
11761 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
11766 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
11769 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
11770 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
11771 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
11772 `:version' in the top level group.
11774 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
11776 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
11777 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
11779 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
11780 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
11781 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
11784 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
11785 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
11788 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
11789 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
11790 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
11792 ** Frame-local variables.
11794 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
11795 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
11796 local bindings for that variable.
11798 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
11799 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
11800 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
11803 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
11804 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
11805 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
11806 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
11808 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
11809 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
11810 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
11811 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
11813 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
11814 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
11815 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
11816 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
11817 See the documentation in sregex.el.
11819 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
11820 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
11821 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
11822 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
11824 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
11825 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
11827 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
11828 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
11829 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
11831 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
11832 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
11833 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
11834 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
11836 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
11837 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
11840 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
11841 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
11842 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
11843 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
11844 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
11846 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
11847 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
11848 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
11849 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
11851 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
11852 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
11853 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
11854 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
11855 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
11857 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
11858 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
11859 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
11860 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
11862 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
11863 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
11864 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
11866 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
11867 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
11868 was directed to display this buffer.
11870 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
11871 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
11872 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
11873 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
11874 set-window-configuration.
11876 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
11877 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
11878 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
11879 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
11881 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
11882 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
11883 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
11885 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
11886 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
11887 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
11889 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
11890 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
11892 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
11893 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
11895 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
11896 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
11897 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
11899 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
11900 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
11901 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
11902 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
11906 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
11907 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
11910 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
11911 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
11912 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
11913 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
11914 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
11916 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
11918 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
11919 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
11920 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
11921 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
11924 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
11925 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
11926 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
11927 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
11928 The supported properties include
11930 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11932 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11933 item should appear in the menu.
11935 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
11936 which will be REAL-BINDING.
11937 It should return a binding to use instead.
11939 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
11940 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
11941 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
11942 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
11943 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
11946 This means that the command normally has no
11947 keyboard equivalent.
11948 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
11949 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
11950 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
11951 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
11952 value says whether this button is currently selected.
11954 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
11955 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
11957 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
11961 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
11962 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
11963 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
11964 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
11966 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
11968 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11969 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
11970 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
11971 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
11972 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
11973 forward, away from the user.
11975 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11977 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
11978 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
11979 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
11980 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
11981 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
11983 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
11985 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11986 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
11987 that were dragged and dropped.
11989 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11991 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
11993 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
11994 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
11995 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
11997 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
11998 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
11999 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
12001 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
12002 in Emacs 19 and before.
12004 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
12005 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
12007 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
12008 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
12009 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
12010 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
12012 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
12013 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
12014 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
12015 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
12016 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
12018 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
12019 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
12020 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
12021 consistent with the new representation.
12023 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
12024 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
12025 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
12026 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
12028 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
12029 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
12030 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
12032 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
12033 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
12034 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
12036 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
12037 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
12038 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
12040 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
12041 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
12043 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
12044 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
12046 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
12047 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
12048 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
12049 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
12051 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
12052 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
12054 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
12055 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
12056 buffer or string being searched.
12058 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
12059 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
12060 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
12061 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
12062 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
12063 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
12064 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
12066 *** Structure of coding system changed.
12068 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
12069 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
12070 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
12071 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
12072 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
12073 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
12074 define-coding-system-alias.
12076 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
12077 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
12078 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
12079 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
12080 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
12081 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
12082 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
12085 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
12086 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
12087 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
12088 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
12090 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
12091 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
12092 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
12093 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
12095 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
12096 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
12097 This function requires a user interaction.
12099 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
12100 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
12101 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
12102 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
12103 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
12104 select-safe-coding-system.
12106 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
12107 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
12108 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
12111 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
12112 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
12113 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
12115 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
12116 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
12117 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
12118 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
12120 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
12121 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
12122 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
12125 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
12126 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
12128 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
12129 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
12130 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
12131 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
12132 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
12133 range of characters.
12135 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
12136 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
12138 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
12139 in the current buffer at position POS.
12141 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
12142 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
12143 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
12144 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
12145 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
12146 binding input-method-function to nil.
12148 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
12149 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
12150 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
12151 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
12152 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
12154 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
12155 subsequent events of a key sequence.
12157 *** You can customize any language environment by using
12158 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
12160 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
12161 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
12162 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
12163 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
12164 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
12166 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
12168 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
12169 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
12170 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
12173 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
12174 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
12176 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
12177 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
12178 in your .emacs file.)
12180 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
12181 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
12183 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
12184 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
12186 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
12187 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
12190 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
12191 delete the character before point, as usual.
12193 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
12194 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
12195 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
12197 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
12198 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
12199 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
12200 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
12201 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
12204 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
12205 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
12206 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
12207 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
12208 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
12210 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
12211 and is an alias for it.
12213 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
12214 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
12216 ** Scrolling changes
12218 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
12219 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
12221 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
12222 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
12225 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
12226 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
12227 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
12228 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
12230 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
12231 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
12232 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
12233 recenters the window.
12235 ** International character set support (MULE)
12237 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
12238 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
12239 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
12240 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
12241 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
12242 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
12244 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
12245 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
12246 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
12247 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
12248 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
12250 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
12251 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
12252 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
12253 language, to make it possible to type them.
12255 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
12256 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
12258 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
12259 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
12261 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
12263 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
12265 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
12266 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
12267 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
12268 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
12269 characters for their work until they want to change.
12273 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
12274 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
12275 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
12276 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
12277 support several input methods.
12279 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
12280 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
12283 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
12284 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
12285 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
12286 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
12287 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
12290 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
12291 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
12292 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
12293 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
12294 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
12296 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
12297 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
12298 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
12299 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
12301 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
12302 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
12303 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
12304 the first guess is wrong.
12306 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
12307 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
12309 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
12310 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
12311 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
12312 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
12314 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
12315 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
12316 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
12317 translate automatically to and from either one.
12319 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
12321 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
12322 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
12323 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
12326 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
12327 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
12328 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
12329 multibyte characters in that buffer.
12331 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
12332 character conversion as well.
12334 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
12336 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
12337 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
12338 requires using many fonts.
12340 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
12341 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
12343 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
12344 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
12345 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
12346 you would use a font.
12348 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
12349 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
12350 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
12352 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
12353 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
12356 *** Defining fontsets.
12358 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
12359 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
12360 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
12362 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
12363 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
12364 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
12365 standard fontset are created automatically.
12367 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
12368 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
12369 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
12370 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
12371 name is `fontset-startup'.
12373 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
12374 The resource value should have this form:
12375 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
12376 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
12377 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
12378 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
12379 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
12380 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
12381 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
12382 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
12383 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
12385 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
12386 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
12387 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
12389 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
12390 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
12391 following resource,
12392 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
12393 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
12394 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
12395 Here is the substitution rule:
12396 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
12397 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
12398 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
12399 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
12400 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
12402 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
12403 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
12404 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
12406 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
12407 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
12408 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
12409 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
12412 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
12413 defaults for a particular choice of language.
12415 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
12416 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
12417 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
12418 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
12419 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
12420 system for new files that you create.
12422 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
12423 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
12424 whole Emacs session.
12426 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
12427 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
12428 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
12430 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
12431 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
12432 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
12433 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
12434 coding systems that Emacs supports.
12436 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
12437 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
12438 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
12439 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
12440 is used for *the immediately following command*.
12442 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
12443 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
12445 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
12446 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
12448 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
12449 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
12451 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
12452 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
12453 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
12454 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
12457 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
12458 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
12459 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
12460 translated into that character code.
12462 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
12463 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
12465 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
12467 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
12468 the coding system for keyboard input.
12470 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
12471 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
12472 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
12474 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
12476 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
12477 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
12478 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
12479 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
12480 designed to work with terminals.
12482 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
12483 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
12484 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
12485 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
12486 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
12487 in the corresponding buffer.
12489 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
12491 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
12492 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
12493 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
12495 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
12496 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
12497 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
12500 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
12501 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
12503 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
12504 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
12505 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
12506 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
12508 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
12509 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
12510 related information.
12512 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
12513 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
12516 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
12517 information about the support for a particular language.
12518 You specify the language as an argument.
12520 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
12521 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
12524 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
12525 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
12526 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
12527 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
12529 A alternativnyj (Russian)
12531 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
12532 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
12533 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
12534 E euc-japan (Japanese)
12535 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12536 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
12537 K euc-korea (Korean)
12540 S shift_jis (Japanese)
12543 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
12544 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12545 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
12546 v viqr (Vietnamese)
12549 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
12550 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
12551 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
12552 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
12554 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
12555 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
12557 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
12558 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
12559 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
12560 Rmail files themselves.
12562 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
12563 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
12565 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
12568 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
12569 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
12570 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
12571 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
12572 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
12574 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
12575 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
12576 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
12579 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
12580 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
12581 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
12582 without any conversion.
12584 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
12585 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
12586 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
12587 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
12589 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
12590 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
12592 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
12593 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
12595 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
12596 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
12598 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
12599 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
12600 in the buffer before point.
12602 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
12603 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
12606 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
12607 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
12609 ** File locking works with NFS now.
12611 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
12612 in the same directory as FILENAME.
12614 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
12615 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
12616 can become a bottleneck.
12618 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
12619 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
12620 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
12621 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
12622 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
12623 so useful that the change is worth while.
12625 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
12626 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
12627 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
12628 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
12630 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
12631 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
12634 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
12635 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
12636 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
12638 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
12639 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
12640 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
12642 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
12643 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
12644 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
12646 ** Changes in View mode.
12648 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
12649 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
12651 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
12652 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
12654 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
12657 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
12658 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
12660 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
12661 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
12662 not just the selected window.
12664 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
12665 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
12666 turns View mode on or off.
12668 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
12669 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
12670 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
12672 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
12673 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
12675 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
12676 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
12677 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
12678 which version to compare with.
12680 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
12681 blocks if a match is inside the block.
12683 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
12684 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
12685 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
12686 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
12688 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
12689 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
12690 blocks, all of them or none.
12692 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
12693 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
12694 confirmation first.
12696 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
12697 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
12698 However, the mode will not be changed if
12699 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
12700 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
12701 not suitable for ordinary files, or
12702 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
12704 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
12706 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
12707 these commands do not change the major mode.
12709 ** M-x occur changes.
12711 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
12712 it performs a case-sensitive search.
12714 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
12715 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
12716 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
12718 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
12719 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
12720 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
12721 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
12722 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
12724 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
12725 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
12726 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
12727 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
12729 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12730 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
12731 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
12733 ** Outline mode changes.
12735 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
12737 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
12739 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
12740 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
12741 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
12742 was already active.
12744 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
12745 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
12746 get confused by it.
12748 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
12749 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
12751 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
12753 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
12754 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
12755 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
12756 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
12758 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
12759 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
12760 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
12762 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
12763 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
12766 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
12767 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
12768 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
12769 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
12771 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
12772 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
12773 can be. The default value is 30.
12775 ** Changes in Mail mode.
12777 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
12778 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
12779 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
12780 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
12781 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
12784 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
12785 compose-mail-other-frame.
12787 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
12788 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
12789 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
12790 buffer that shows the original message.
12792 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
12793 with separator lines around the contents.
12795 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
12796 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
12797 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
12798 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
12800 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
12802 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
12803 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
12804 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
12805 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
12807 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
12808 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
12811 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
12812 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
12815 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
12816 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
12817 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
12818 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
12820 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
12821 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
12822 be taken to be magic.
12824 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
12825 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
12826 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
12828 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
12829 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
12831 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
12832 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
12834 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
12836 new key dired.el binding old key
12837 ------- ---------------- -------
12838 * c dired-change-marks c
12840 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
12841 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
12842 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
12844 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
12845 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
12846 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
12847 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
12848 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
12849 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
12853 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
12854 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
12855 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
12856 each time you run it.
12858 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
12859 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
12861 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
12862 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
12863 means to move in the opposite direction.
12865 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
12866 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
12868 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
12869 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
12870 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
12871 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
12876 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
12878 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
12881 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
12882 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
12884 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
12887 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
12889 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
12891 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
12893 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
12894 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
12895 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
12897 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
12899 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
12901 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
12902 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
12904 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
12905 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
12906 used to pick articles.
12908 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
12909 another have been added.
12911 `M-x gnus-change-server'
12913 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
12914 generating lines in buffers.
12916 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
12919 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
12921 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
12923 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
12925 *** Scores can be decayed.
12927 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
12929 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
12930 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
12932 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
12935 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
12937 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
12938 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
12940 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
12942 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
12943 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
12945 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
12946 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
12948 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
12951 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
12952 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
12954 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
12956 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
12958 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
12960 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
12962 Use the `Y c' command.
12964 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
12966 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
12968 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
12970 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
12971 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
12973 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
12975 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
12977 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
12978 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
12980 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
12982 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
12983 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
12984 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
12985 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
12988 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
12989 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
12990 particular news group. This can be done by:
12992 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
12994 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
12995 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
12996 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
12997 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
12998 for reading and posting).
13000 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
13001 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
13002 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
13003 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
13006 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
13007 default. Here are some of these default settings:
13009 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
13010 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
13011 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
13012 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
13013 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
13015 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
13016 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
13018 ** CC mode changes.
13020 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
13021 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
13022 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
13023 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
13024 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
13027 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
13028 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
13029 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
13030 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
13031 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
13032 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
13034 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
13035 of the current buffer.
13037 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
13038 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
13039 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
13041 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
13042 style that the Python developers like.
13044 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
13045 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
13046 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
13048 ** VC Changes [new]
13050 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
13051 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
13052 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
13054 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
13055 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
13058 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
13059 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
13061 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
13062 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
13063 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
13064 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
13066 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
13067 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
13069 ** Calendar changes.
13071 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
13072 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
13073 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
13074 following/previous years.
13076 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
13077 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
13078 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
13079 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
13080 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
13081 supposed attribute of God.
13083 ** ps-print changes
13085 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
13088 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
13090 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
13091 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
13092 printer system has this behavior, set variable
13093 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
13095 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
13096 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
13097 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
13099 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
13100 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
13102 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
13103 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
13104 printing for your printer.
13106 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
13107 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13109 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
13110 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13112 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
13113 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
13114 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
13115 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
13116 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
13117 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
13118 The default value is nil.
13120 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
13121 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
13123 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
13124 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
13125 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
13126 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
13127 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
13128 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
13129 color). The default is 0 ("black").
13131 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
13132 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
13134 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
13135 The default is 0 ("black").
13137 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
13138 The default is 0 ("black").
13140 border-width Specify the border width.
13141 The default is 0.4.
13143 Any other property is ignored.
13145 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
13146 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
13149 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
13150 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
13151 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
13152 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
13153 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
13154 controlling headers.
13156 *** Color management (subgroup)
13158 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
13161 *** Face Management (subgroup)
13163 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
13164 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
13165 background should be used. Valid values are:
13167 t always use face background color.
13168 nil never use face background color.
13169 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
13171 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
13173 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
13176 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
13177 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
13179 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
13182 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
13183 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
13184 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
13186 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
13190 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
13194 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
13198 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
13202 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
13204 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
13206 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
13209 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
13210 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
13211 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
13213 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
13214 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13215 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13216 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13217 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13221 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13222 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13223 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13226 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13227 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13228 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
13229 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
13230 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
13231 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13232 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13233 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13234 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
13235 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
13236 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
13239 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13241 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
13244 *** Printer management (subgroup)
13246 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
13247 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
13248 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
13249 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
13252 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
13253 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
13254 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
13256 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
13257 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
13260 *** Page settings (subgroup)
13262 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
13263 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
13264 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
13265 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
13266 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
13267 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
13270 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
13271 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
13272 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
13274 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
13275 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
13276 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
13277 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
13278 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
13279 its TO, are ignored.
13281 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
13282 pages. Valid values are:
13284 nil print all pages.
13286 `even-page' print only even pages.
13288 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
13290 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
13291 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13292 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
13293 print only the even sheet of paper.
13295 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
13296 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13297 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
13298 only the odd sheet of paper.
13300 Any other value is treated as nil.
13302 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
13303 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
13304 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
13306 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
13308 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
13309 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
13311 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
13312 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13313 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
13314 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13315 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13316 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13317 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13319 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
13320 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13321 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
13322 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
13323 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
13324 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
13325 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
13327 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
13329 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
13330 messages should be sent.
13332 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
13333 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
13334 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
13336 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
13338 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
13339 points for line numbers.
13341 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
13342 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
13344 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
13345 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
13346 to 2, the printing will look like:
13358 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
13359 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
13362 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
13363 zebra stripe is to be printed.
13365 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
13367 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
13368 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
13369 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
13370 3, the output will look like:
13384 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
13385 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
13387 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
13388 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13391 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
13392 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13395 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
13397 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
13398 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
13400 ** hideshow changes.
13402 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
13405 *** Support for java-mode added.
13407 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
13408 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
13410 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
13411 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
13412 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
13414 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
13415 robust and a lot faster.
13417 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
13419 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
13420 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
13421 documentation for more details.
13423 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
13425 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
13426 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
13427 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
13428 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
13429 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
13431 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
13432 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
13433 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
13434 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
13440 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
13441 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify
13442 the faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new
13443 custom group font-lock-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in your
13444 ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
13445 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
13447 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
13449 *** Maximum decoration
13451 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
13452 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
13453 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
13454 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
13455 to get the old behavior.
13459 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
13461 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
13462 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
13464 *** Configurable support
13466 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
13467 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
13468 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
13469 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
13470 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
13471 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
13472 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
13474 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
13475 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
13476 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
13478 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
13480 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
13481 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
13484 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
13486 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
13492 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
13493 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
13494 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
13495 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
13497 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
13499 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
13500 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
13501 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
13503 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
13505 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
13506 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
13507 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
13508 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
13509 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
13510 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
13511 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
13513 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
13514 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
13515 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
13516 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
13517 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
13518 the command M-o M-o (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
13520 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
13522 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
13523 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
13524 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
13525 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
13527 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
13530 ** Ada mode changes.
13532 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
13533 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
13534 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
13535 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
13538 *** There are two new commands:
13539 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
13540 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
13542 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
13543 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
13544 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
13546 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
13547 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
13548 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
13550 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
13551 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
13552 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
13553 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
13555 ** Scheme mode changes.
13557 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
13558 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
13559 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
13560 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
13563 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
13564 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
13565 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
13566 variables as buffer-local variables.
13568 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
13569 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
13571 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
13573 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
13574 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
13575 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
13576 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
13578 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
13579 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
13582 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
13583 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
13584 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
13585 option takes precedence.
13587 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
13588 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
13589 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
13591 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
13592 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
13595 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
13596 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
13598 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
13599 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
13602 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
13603 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
13604 these register values no longer become completely useless.
13605 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
13606 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
13607 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
13609 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
13610 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
13611 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
13612 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
13614 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
13615 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
13616 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
13617 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
13618 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
13620 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
13621 since it applies only to the current frame.
13623 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
13624 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
13625 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
13627 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
13628 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
13629 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
13630 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
13631 instead of just the file you are editing.
13635 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
13636 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
13637 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
13638 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
13639 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
13642 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
13643 knows which kind of label is needed.
13645 C-c ) reftex-reference
13646 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
13647 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
13649 C-c [ reftex-citation
13650 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
13651 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
13653 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
13654 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
13657 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
13658 can quickly jump to every section.
13660 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
13661 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
13662 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
13663 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
13664 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
13666 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
13668 *** Info documentation is now available.
13670 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
13671 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
13673 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
13674 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
13676 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
13677 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
13679 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
13680 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
13681 appropriate functions.
13683 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
13684 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
13686 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
13689 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
13690 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
13692 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
13693 shall be delimited.
13695 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
13696 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
13697 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
13699 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
13700 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
13701 prefixed with `ALT'.
13703 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
13704 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
13705 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
13708 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
13709 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
13710 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
13712 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
13713 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
13715 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
13716 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
13717 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
13719 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
13721 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
13723 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
13724 from alien sources.
13726 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
13727 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
13730 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
13733 *** Added support for imenu.
13735 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
13736 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
13737 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
13738 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
13740 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
13741 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
13743 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
13745 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
13747 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
13748 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
13749 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
13752 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
13753 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
13755 ** browse-url changes
13757 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
13758 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
13759 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
13760 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
13761 customization variables.
13763 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
13765 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
13766 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
13767 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
13769 ** Changes in Ediff
13771 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
13772 pops up the Info file for this command.
13774 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
13775 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
13776 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
13779 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
13780 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
13781 files in the same directory.
13783 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
13784 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
13785 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
13787 ** Changes in Viper
13789 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
13790 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
13792 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
13793 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
13794 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
13795 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
13796 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
13797 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
13798 color when Viper is in insert state.
13799 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
13800 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
13801 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
13805 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
13806 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
13807 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
13808 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
13809 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
13811 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
13813 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
13814 constructs are tagged. Files are recognized by the extension .java.
13816 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
13817 recognized by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
13818 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
13820 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
13821 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
13822 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
13823 methods and protocols.
13825 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognized by the extension
13826 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
13827 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
13830 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
13831 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
13832 at least M times and as many as N times.
13834 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
13835 in files has changed slightly.
13837 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
13838 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
13839 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
13840 with old time-stamp-format values.
13842 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
13843 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
13844 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
13847 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
13848 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
13849 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
13850 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
13851 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
13852 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
13854 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
13855 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
13856 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
13858 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
13859 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
13860 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
13861 recommended now will continue to work then.
13863 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
13866 ** There are some additional major modes:
13868 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
13869 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
13870 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
13872 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
13873 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
13876 ** New Lisp packages include:
13878 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
13880 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
13881 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
13883 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
13885 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
13888 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
13889 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
13892 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
13893 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
13894 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
13895 strings or comments.
13897 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
13898 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
13899 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
13900 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
13903 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
13904 can visit them by short forms of their names.
13906 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
13907 Emacs Lisp function at point.
13909 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
13911 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
13912 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
13914 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
13916 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
13918 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
13920 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
13921 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
13923 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
13924 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
13925 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
13926 original place after inserting the copy.
13928 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
13931 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
13932 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
13933 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
13935 Enable mouse-drag with:
13936 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
13938 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
13940 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
13941 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
13943 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
13944 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
13948 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
13949 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
13950 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
13951 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
13952 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
13953 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
13954 instance) and vice versa.
13956 To use this package load it using
13957 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
13958 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
13959 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
13960 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
13961 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
13962 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
13964 *** Interface to ph.
13966 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
13968 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
13969 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
13972 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
13974 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
13975 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
13976 while the real cursor does not move.
13978 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
13979 for visiting your favorite web sites.
13981 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
13982 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
13986 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
13987 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
13988 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
13989 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
13991 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
13993 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
13995 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
13997 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
13998 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
13999 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
14000 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
14001 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
14003 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
14004 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
14005 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
14006 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
14007 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
14008 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
14010 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
14012 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
14013 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
14014 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
14015 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
14017 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
14018 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
14020 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
14021 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
14024 ** Basic Lisp changes
14026 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
14027 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
14029 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
14030 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
14033 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
14035 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
14037 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
14038 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
14040 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
14041 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
14044 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
14046 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
14048 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
14050 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
14051 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
14052 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
14055 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
14056 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
14057 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
14059 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
14060 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
14061 adding one of these suffixes.
14063 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
14064 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
14065 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
14067 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
14068 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
14070 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
14072 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
14073 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
14075 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
14076 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
14078 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
14080 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
14081 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
14083 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
14084 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
14085 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
14086 works using `save-current-buffer'.
14088 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
14089 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
14092 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
14093 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
14094 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
14097 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
14098 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
14101 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
14103 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
14104 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
14105 Then it returns that string.
14107 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
14109 (with-output-to-string
14110 (princ "The buffer is ")
14111 (princ (buffer-name)))
14113 returns "The buffer is foo".
14115 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
14118 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
14119 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
14120 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
14122 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
14123 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
14125 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
14126 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
14127 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
14128 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
14129 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
14130 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
14132 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
14133 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
14134 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
14137 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
14138 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
14139 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
14140 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
14141 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
14143 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
14144 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
14145 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
14146 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
14148 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
14149 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
14151 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
14153 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
14154 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
14155 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
14156 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
14159 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
14160 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
14163 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
14165 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
14166 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
14167 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
14168 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
14169 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
14171 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
14173 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
14174 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
14175 more than the number of characters.
14177 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
14178 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
14179 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
14180 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
14181 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
14182 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
14184 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
14185 and returns a string containing those characters.
14187 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
14188 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
14189 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
14190 character, sref signals an error.
14192 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
14193 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
14194 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14196 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
14197 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
14198 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14200 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
14201 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
14202 to a vector of the characters in it.
14204 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
14205 of a string. You call it as follows:
14207 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
14209 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
14210 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
14211 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
14212 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
14213 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
14215 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
14216 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14218 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
14219 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14221 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
14222 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
14223 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
14224 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
14226 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
14228 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
14230 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
14231 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
14232 are not included in the resulting value.
14234 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
14235 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
14236 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
14237 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
14239 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
14240 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
14241 character extends across that column), then the padding character
14242 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
14243 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
14244 column START-COLUMN.
14246 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
14247 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
14248 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
14249 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
14250 changed text, before the change.
14252 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
14253 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
14254 one character set for each script, not for each language.
14256 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
14258 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
14260 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
14261 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
14263 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
14264 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
14265 which identify the character within that character set.
14267 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
14268 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
14269 opposite of split-char.
14271 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
14272 of all the characters between BEG and END.
14274 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
14275 of all the characters in a string.
14277 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
14278 and specifying coding systems.
14280 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
14281 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
14282 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
14283 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
14284 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
14285 as what to do about code conversion.)
14287 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
14288 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
14290 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14291 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14292 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
14294 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14295 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
14296 to match against a file name.
14298 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14299 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14300 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14301 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14302 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14303 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14305 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14306 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14308 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
14309 the coding system to use for network sockets.
14311 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14312 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
14313 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
14316 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14317 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14318 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14319 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14320 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14321 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14323 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14324 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14326 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14327 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14328 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
14329 start the subprocess.
14331 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
14332 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
14333 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
14334 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
14335 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
14337 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
14338 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
14341 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
14342 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
14343 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
14344 connection permanently or until overridden.
14346 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
14347 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
14348 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
14349 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
14350 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
14351 system for one operation at a time.
14353 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
14354 files, subprocesses or network connections.
14356 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
14357 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
14358 The value is a cons cell,
14359 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
14360 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
14361 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
14362 input to the subprocess.
14364 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
14365 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
14367 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
14368 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
14369 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
14371 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
14372 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
14373 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
14374 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
14377 Thus, instead of writing
14379 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
14380 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
14382 you would now write this:
14384 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
14385 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
14389 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
14390 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
14391 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
14392 for a description of them.
14394 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
14395 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
14397 (defgroup ispell nil
14398 "Spell checking using Ispell."
14401 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
14402 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
14403 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
14404 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
14405 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
14407 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
14408 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
14409 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
14410 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
14411 first-level subgroups.
14413 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
14415 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
14416 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
14420 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
14421 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
14422 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
14423 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
14424 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
14425 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
14427 ** Text property changes
14429 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
14432 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
14433 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
14434 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
14435 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
14436 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
14438 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
14439 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
14440 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
14441 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
14443 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
14444 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
14445 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
14447 ** Changes in invisibility features
14449 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
14450 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
14451 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
14452 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
14453 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
14454 make the overlay visible.
14456 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
14457 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
14458 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
14459 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
14460 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
14461 t when it should hide it.
14463 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
14465 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
14466 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
14467 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
14468 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
14469 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
14470 Here is an example of how to do this:
14472 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
14473 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14474 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
14475 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14478 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
14481 ;; When done with the overlays:
14482 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14483 ;; Or respectively:
14484 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14486 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
14488 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
14489 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
14490 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
14491 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
14493 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
14494 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
14495 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
14497 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
14498 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
14500 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
14501 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
14503 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
14504 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
14505 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
14507 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
14508 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
14509 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
14510 determine the syntax type of the character.
14512 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
14513 of the current buffer.
14515 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
14516 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
14517 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
14519 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
14520 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
14521 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
14522 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
14523 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
14525 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
14528 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
14529 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
14530 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
14532 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
14533 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
14534 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
14535 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
14536 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
14538 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
14539 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
14540 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
14542 ** Changes in face features
14544 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
14545 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
14547 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
14548 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
14550 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
14551 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
14553 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
14554 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
14556 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
14557 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
14558 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
14559 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
14562 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
14563 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
14565 ** Changes in file-handling functions
14567 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
14568 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
14569 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
14570 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
14572 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
14575 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
14576 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
14578 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
14579 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
14581 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
14582 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
14584 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
14585 character code conversion as well as other things.
14587 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
14588 (formerly it did not).
14590 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
14591 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
14593 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
14594 instead of constant strings.
14596 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
14597 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
14598 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
14600 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
14601 in the same way as before.
14603 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
14604 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
14605 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
14607 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
14608 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
14609 else, and returns nil.
14611 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
14612 directory cannot be listed.
14614 ** Changes in minibuffer input
14616 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
14617 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
14618 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
14619 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
14622 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
14623 It is available through the history command M-n.
14625 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
14626 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
14627 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
14628 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
14629 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
14631 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
14632 argument in this way.
14634 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
14635 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
14636 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
14638 ** Echo area features
14640 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
14641 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
14642 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
14643 after the echo area is cleared.
14645 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
14646 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
14648 ** Keyboard input features
14650 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
14651 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
14653 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
14654 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
14655 by keyboard macros.
14657 ** Frame-related changes
14659 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
14660 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
14661 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
14663 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
14664 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
14665 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
14667 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
14668 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
14669 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
14670 in the selected frame.
14672 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
14673 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
14674 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
14676 ** X Windows features
14678 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
14679 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
14680 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
14682 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
14683 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
14685 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
14686 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
14687 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
14689 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
14690 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
14692 ** Subprocess features
14694 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
14695 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
14698 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
14699 and returns the output from the command as a string.
14701 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
14702 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
14704 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
14705 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
14707 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
14708 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
14709 goes after the other menu items.
14711 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
14712 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
14713 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
14716 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
14717 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
14719 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
14720 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
14723 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
14724 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
14725 but its hook is still run.
14727 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
14728 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
14730 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
14731 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
14732 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
14734 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
14735 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
14736 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
14739 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
14740 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
14742 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
14743 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
14744 functions like display-time.
14746 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
14747 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
14749 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
14750 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
14751 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
14753 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
14754 if there is an error in compilation.
14756 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
14757 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
14758 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
14759 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
14761 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
14762 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
14763 the *scratch* buffer.
14765 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
14766 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
14767 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
14768 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
14770 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
14771 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
14772 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
14774 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
14775 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
14776 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
14777 and compose-mail-other-frame.
14779 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
14780 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
14781 full name of the specified user will be returned.
14783 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
14784 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
14785 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
14786 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
14787 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
14790 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
14791 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
14792 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
14793 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
14795 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
14796 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
14797 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
14798 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
14800 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
14802 ** imenu.el changes.
14804 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
14805 item from menu created by imenu.
14807 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
14808 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
14809 select one of those items.
14811 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
14813 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
14814 Copyright information:
14816 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
14817 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
14819 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
14820 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
14821 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
14822 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
14824 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
14825 of this document, or of portions of it,
14826 under the above conditions, provided also that they
14827 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
14831 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
14834 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793