1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2000-09-27
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
13 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
15 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
16 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
18 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
19 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
22 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
23 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
25 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
26 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
28 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
29 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
30 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
33 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
35 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
36 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME.
39 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
40 to be visited as images.
43 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
44 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
46 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs header-line
47 (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window), so that it
48 remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled. This behavior
49 may be disabled by customizing the option `Info-use-header-line'.
52 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
53 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
56 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
62 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
63 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
64 internationalization and mail-fetching.
66 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
67 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
69 If you used procmail like in
71 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
72 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
73 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
74 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
76 this now has changed to
79 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
82 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
83 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
85 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
86 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
88 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
89 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables.
90 Separate MIME packages like SEMI will not work. There are built-in
91 facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is now just a
94 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
95 called to position point.
97 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
98 summary buffers and NOV files.
100 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
101 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
103 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
104 subtly different manner.
106 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
107 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
108 ever-changing layouts.
110 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
112 *** There is image support.
114 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
115 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
116 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
117 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
118 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
121 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
122 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
123 file that is already visited under a different name.
125 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
126 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
128 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
129 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
132 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
133 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
134 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
135 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
136 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
137 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
140 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
141 and displays information about that.
143 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
144 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
146 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
147 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
148 Postscript files are included.
150 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
153 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
154 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
156 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
157 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
158 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
159 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
160 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
161 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
164 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
165 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
166 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
167 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
169 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
170 a version-dependent component.
172 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
173 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
174 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
175 character is still bound as before.
177 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
180 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
181 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
184 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
185 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
186 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
187 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
188 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
189 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
190 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
193 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
194 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
195 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
196 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
197 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
198 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
199 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
200 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
201 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
203 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
204 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
207 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
208 point in a pop-up window.
211 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
212 displays all characters in that character set.
214 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
215 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
218 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
219 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
220 defined on newcomment.el.
223 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
225 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
226 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
229 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
230 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
231 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
232 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
235 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
236 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
237 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
238 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
241 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
242 on the display using several methods
245 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
246 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
247 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
250 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
251 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
253 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
255 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
256 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
259 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
260 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
261 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
262 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
265 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
266 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
267 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
269 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
270 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
273 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
274 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
277 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
278 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
282 ** New X resources recognized
284 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
285 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
286 is useful for debugging X problems.
290 emacs.synchronous: true
292 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
293 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
294 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
295 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
296 visual class names are
305 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
306 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
309 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
310 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
311 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
316 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
318 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
319 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
320 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
321 resource values are `true' or `on'.
325 emacs.privateColormap: true
327 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
328 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
329 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
331 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
332 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
333 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
337 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
340 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
341 all frames except the selected one.
343 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
344 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
346 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
347 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
348 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
349 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
352 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
353 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
355 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
356 read mail from the menu etc.
359 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
360 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
362 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
364 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
368 -------------------------
375 ** Changes in Outline mode.
377 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
378 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
379 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
381 ** Changes to Emacs Server
384 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
385 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
386 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
387 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
388 buffers to kill, as before.
390 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
391 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
394 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
396 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
397 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
398 use. Default is 1000.
401 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
402 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
405 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
406 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
407 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
411 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
412 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
415 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
416 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
418 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
419 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
420 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
422 ** Faces and frame parameters.
424 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
425 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
426 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
427 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
428 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
429 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
430 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
432 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
433 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
434 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
435 `default' face and vice versa.
440 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
441 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
442 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
445 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
447 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
448 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
449 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
450 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
452 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
453 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
454 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
456 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
459 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
461 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
462 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
463 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
464 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
467 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
469 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
470 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
471 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
472 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
475 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
476 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
477 under Lisp changes, below.
479 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
482 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
483 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
484 otherwise, it is hollow.
486 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
487 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
488 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
489 customizing face `fringe'.
491 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
492 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
496 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
497 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
499 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
501 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
502 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
503 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
504 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
505 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
508 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
509 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
510 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
511 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
512 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
513 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
515 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
516 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
517 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
518 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
519 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
520 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
522 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
523 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
524 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
525 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
526 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
528 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
530 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
531 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
532 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
535 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
537 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
538 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
539 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
540 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
541 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
547 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
548 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
553 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
554 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
555 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
559 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
561 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
562 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
563 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
566 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
567 have to do anything to activate it.
569 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
571 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
572 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
573 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
574 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
576 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
579 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
581 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
583 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
586 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
590 ** Hscrolling in C code.
592 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
593 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
599 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
600 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
601 Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is displayed.
602 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
603 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
606 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
608 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
609 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
610 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
611 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
612 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
614 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
616 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
619 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
620 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
622 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
624 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
625 `*') toggles the status.
627 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
629 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
631 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
632 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
635 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
637 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
638 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
639 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
640 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
641 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
642 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
647 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
648 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
649 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
652 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
653 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
654 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
655 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
656 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
657 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
659 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
662 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
664 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
665 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
666 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
669 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
670 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
672 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
673 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
674 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
677 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
679 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
680 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
681 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
682 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
684 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
685 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
686 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
687 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
689 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
690 notably at the end of lines.
692 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
693 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
696 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
698 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
699 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
700 after each match to get the replacement text.
703 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
704 you edit the replacement string.
706 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
707 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
708 lisp-complete-symbol.
711 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
713 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
714 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
715 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
716 window size by setting the following variable:
718 - User option: max-mini-window-height
720 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
721 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
722 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
726 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
728 ** Changes to hideshow.el
730 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
731 selection and traversal, includes more isearch support, and has more
732 conventional keybindings.
734 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
736 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
737 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
738 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
739 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
740 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
741 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
743 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
744 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
745 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
746 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
748 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
750 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
751 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
752 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
753 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
754 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
756 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
757 something like this in your .emacs.
759 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
761 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
763 *** New customization var: `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function'
765 Normally, `hs-hide-all' hides everything, leaving only the
766 header lines of top-level forms (and comments, unless var
767 `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is non-nil). It does this by
768 moving point to each top-level block beginning and hiding the
769 block there. In some major modes (for example, Java), this
770 behavior results in few blocks left visible, which may not be so
773 You can now set var `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' to a
774 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead
775 of the normal block-hiding function. For example, the following
776 code defines a function to hide one level down and move point
777 appropriately, and then tells hideshow to use the new function.
779 (defun ttn-hs-hide-level-1 ()
782 (setq hs-hide-all-non-comment-function 'ttn-hs-hide-level-1)
784 The name `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' was chosen to
785 emphasize that this function is not called for comment blocks,
786 only for code blocks.
788 *** Command deleted: `hs-show-region'
790 Historical Note: This command was added to handle "unbalanced
791 parentheses" emergencies back when hideshow.el used selective
792 display for implementation.
794 *** Commands rebound to more conventional keys
796 The hideshow commands used to be bound to keys of the form "C-c
797 LETTER". This is contrary to the Emacs keybinding convention,
798 which reserves that space for user modification. Here are the
799 new bindings (which includes the addition of `hs-toggle-hiding'):
801 hs-hide-block C-c C-h
802 hs-show-block C-c C-s
803 hs-hide-all C-c C-M-h
804 hs-show-all C-c C-M-s
805 hs-hide-level C-c C-l
806 hs-toggle-hiding C-c C-c
807 hs-mouse-toggle-hiding [(shift button-2)]
809 These were chosen to roughly imitate those used by Outline mode.
811 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
814 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
815 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
816 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
819 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
823 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
827 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
828 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
831 *** Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
832 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
833 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
834 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
836 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock
839 ** Changes in Font Lock
841 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
842 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
845 ** Comint (subshell) changes
847 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
848 distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
849 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
850 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
851 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
852 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
853 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
854 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
856 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
857 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
859 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
860 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
861 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
863 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
864 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
865 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
867 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
868 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
869 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
870 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
872 ** Changes to Rmail mode
874 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
875 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
876 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
877 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
878 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
881 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
882 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
883 regexp matching your mail addresses.
885 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
886 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
887 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
888 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
889 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
891 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
894 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
895 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
898 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
899 in which folder to put messages automatically.
901 ** Changes to TeX mode
903 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
906 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
908 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
909 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
910 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
911 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
912 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
913 can be edited from that buffer.
915 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
916 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
917 `A' to use all marked entries).
919 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
920 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
922 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
923 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
924 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
927 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
928 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
929 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
930 in column 1 are always made leaves.
932 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
933 has the following new features:
935 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
936 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
937 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
938 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
940 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
941 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
942 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
943 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
944 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
947 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
953 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
954 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
955 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
957 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
958 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
959 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
960 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
965 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
966 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
967 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
969 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
970 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
973 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
974 between custom options. Example:
976 (defcustom default-input-method nil
977 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
978 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
979 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
981 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
982 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
984 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
985 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
986 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
988 ** New features in evaluation commands
990 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
991 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
992 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
993 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
994 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
996 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
997 code when called with a prefix argument.
1002 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
1003 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
1004 spell-checks the current buffer.
1007 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
1010 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
1011 correction is made and re-checked.
1013 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
1015 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
1018 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
1021 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
1026 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
1027 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
1028 is, delete only empty directories.
1030 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
1031 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
1032 copy directories recursively.
1034 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
1035 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
1036 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
1038 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
1039 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
1042 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
1043 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
1044 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
1045 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
1046 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
1048 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
1051 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
1052 use the -f option when sending mail.
1056 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
1057 current user setups (although it's believed that these
1058 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
1059 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
1060 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
1061 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
1064 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
1065 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
1066 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
1067 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
1068 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
1071 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
1072 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
1073 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
1074 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
1075 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
1076 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
1078 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
1079 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
1080 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
1081 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
1082 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
1083 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
1084 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
1085 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
1087 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
1088 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
1089 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
1090 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
1093 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
1094 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
1095 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
1096 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
1097 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
1098 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
1099 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
1100 function documentation for more info.
1102 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
1103 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
1104 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
1105 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
1106 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
1107 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
1108 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
1109 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
1111 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1113 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1114 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1116 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
1117 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
1118 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
1119 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
1120 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
1123 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
1124 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
1125 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
1128 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
1129 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
1130 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
1131 chapter about this in the manual.
1133 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
1134 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
1135 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
1136 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
1137 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
1139 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
1140 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1141 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1143 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1144 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1146 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1147 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1148 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1151 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1152 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1153 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1154 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1157 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1158 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1159 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1162 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1163 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1164 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1165 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1168 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1169 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1170 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1171 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1172 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1174 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1175 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1176 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1178 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1180 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1181 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1182 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1183 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1185 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1186 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1187 the column specified by comment-column.
1189 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1190 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1191 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1192 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1193 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1194 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1196 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1197 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1200 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1202 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1203 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1204 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1205 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1208 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1210 ** Makefile mode changes
1212 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1214 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1215 Fontlock mode is active.
1219 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1220 so that searches can be resumed.
1222 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1223 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1224 that started the search.
1226 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1227 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1230 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1232 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1233 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1234 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1235 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1236 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1237 `secondary-selection'.
1239 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1240 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1241 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1242 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1243 usual snappy response.
1245 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1246 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1247 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1248 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1251 ** Changes in sort.el
1253 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1254 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1255 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
1258 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1261 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1262 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1263 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1265 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1266 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1268 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1269 output ^M at the end of lines.
1271 ** Shell script mode changes.
1273 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1274 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1275 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1279 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1281 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1282 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1283 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1284 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1285 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1287 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1288 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1290 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1291 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1293 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1296 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1298 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1300 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1303 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1304 variables are tagged.
1306 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1308 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1312 ** Changes in etags.el
1314 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1315 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1316 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1318 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1319 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1321 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1322 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1323 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1324 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1326 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1328 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1329 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1331 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1333 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1334 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1335 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1337 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1338 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1340 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1341 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1344 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1345 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1346 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1349 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1350 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1351 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1352 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet; there are basic 8859-14 and
1353 8859-15 fonts at <URL:http://czyborra.com/charsets/> and recent X
1354 releases have 8859-15. There are new Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix
1355 (only) and Polish slash input methods in Leim.
1358 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1359 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1360 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1362 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1365 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1368 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
1369 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1370 expression from that list, are not checked.
1372 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1373 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1374 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1375 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1377 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1380 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
1381 displays local abbrevs, only.
1385 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1386 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1387 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1388 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1389 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1390 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of atoms that identify
1391 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1392 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1393 file is registered in that backend.
1395 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1396 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1397 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1398 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1399 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1400 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1402 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1403 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1404 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1405 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1406 where it doesn't make sense.)
1408 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1409 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1410 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1414 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1415 checks are always done now.
1417 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1422 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1423 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1424 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1425 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1426 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1427 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1428 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1430 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1431 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1432 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1433 commit, you can either use C-u C-x v m to perform an update on the
1434 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1435 entire directory tree.
1437 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1438 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1439 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1440 "watched" by other developers.)
1442 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1444 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1445 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1446 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1447 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1448 a version system named FOO, you write a library named vc-foo.el, which
1449 provides a number of functions vc-foo-... (see commentary at the end
1450 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1451 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the atom
1452 `FOO' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1454 ** New modes and packages
1457 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1458 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1459 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1460 on certain projects.
1463 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1464 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1466 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1468 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1469 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1470 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1471 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1472 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1473 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1474 corresponding file is read.
1477 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1480 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1481 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1483 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1484 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1485 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1488 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1489 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1490 separate Texinfo file.
1493 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1494 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1495 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1496 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1497 enter checkin log messages.
1500 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1501 without invoking external programs.
1503 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1504 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1505 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1506 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1507 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1509 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1510 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1513 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1514 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1516 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1517 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1518 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1519 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1520 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1523 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1524 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1525 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1526 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1529 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1530 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1531 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1533 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1536 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1538 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1540 ; comment (until end of line)
1544 $A default non-terminal
1545 $"C" default terminal
1546 $?C? default special
1547 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1548 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1549 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1550 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1551 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1552 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1553 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1554 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1555 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1556 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1557 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1558 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1559 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1560 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1561 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1563 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1565 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1566 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1567 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1568 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1569 equal signs of assignments.
1572 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1573 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1576 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1577 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1578 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1579 customize the package.
1581 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1583 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1584 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1585 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1586 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1587 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1588 which answers different needs.
1591 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1592 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1593 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1594 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1595 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1599 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1600 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1603 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1606 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1608 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1610 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-shell-mode' and
1611 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
1612 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
1613 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
1614 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
1615 and background colors.
1617 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1621 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1624 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1627 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1629 *** whitespace.el ???
1631 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1632 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1633 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1634 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1635 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1636 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1637 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1639 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1641 Here is an example of columns:
1644 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1645 porcupine strawberry airplane
1647 Doing the following settings:
1649 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1650 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1651 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1652 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1655 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1657 M-x delimit-columns-region
1661 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1662 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1663 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1665 delim-col has the following options:
1667 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1670 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1671 between each column.
1673 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1676 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1679 delim-col has the following commands:
1681 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1682 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1685 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1686 were operated on recently.
1688 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1690 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1691 recentf at Emacs startup.
1693 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1694 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1695 file list can be displayed:
1697 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1698 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1699 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1701 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1702 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1704 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1708 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1709 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1710 specific to Message mode.
1713 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1714 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1715 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1718 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1719 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1720 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1722 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1723 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1726 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1728 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1729 minibuffer with completion.
1731 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1732 with the diary features.
1734 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1735 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1737 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1740 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
1743 ** Withdrawn packages
1745 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1746 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1748 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1750 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1753 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1754 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1757 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
1758 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
1761 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
1762 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
1764 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
1765 with the more general `:mask' property.
1767 ** Image specifications accept more `:algorithm's.
1769 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
1773 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1774 is running in batch mode. For example,
1776 (message "%s" (read t))
1778 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1782 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1783 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1785 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1786 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1790 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1793 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1795 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1796 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1798 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1800 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1801 comparison is done with `eq'.
1803 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1805 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1809 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1810 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1811 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1813 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1814 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1816 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1817 function was declared obsolete.
1819 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1820 retained as an alias).
1822 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1823 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1824 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1826 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1828 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1830 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1831 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1833 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1835 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1837 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1839 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1840 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1841 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1842 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1845 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1846 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1847 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1848 minibuffer even if it is active.
1850 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1851 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1852 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1853 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1854 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1855 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1857 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1858 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1859 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1860 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1861 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1862 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1863 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1865 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1866 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1867 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1869 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1870 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1871 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1872 Default value is nil.
1874 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1877 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1878 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1879 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1881 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1884 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1885 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1886 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1887 than replacing the local map.
1889 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1890 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1892 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1895 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1898 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1900 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1902 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1903 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1904 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1905 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1907 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1908 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1909 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1910 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1912 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1913 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1914 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1915 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1917 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1918 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1919 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1921 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1922 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1923 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1924 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1925 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1926 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1927 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1930 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1932 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1933 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1934 character set as previously.
1936 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1937 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1938 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1940 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1941 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1942 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1943 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1945 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1946 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1948 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1949 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1952 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1953 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1955 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1956 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1957 buffers and strings.
1959 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1960 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1961 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1962 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1963 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1964 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1965 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1968 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1969 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1970 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1972 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1973 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1974 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1975 may differ between buffer and string text.
1977 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1978 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1980 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1981 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1982 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1983 `composition' from STRING.
1985 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1986 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1988 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1991 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1992 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1993 character set is not used.
1995 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1996 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1997 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
2000 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
2001 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
2002 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
2005 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
2006 that offset in the file before writing.
2008 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
2009 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
2011 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
2012 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
2013 from which the command was issued.
2015 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
2016 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
2017 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
2018 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
2021 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
2022 to `window-buffer-height'.
2024 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
2026 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
2027 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
2028 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
2030 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
2033 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
2034 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
2036 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
2037 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
2038 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
2040 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
2041 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
2042 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
2043 is currently displayed in some window.
2045 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
2046 argument function's results.
2048 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
2049 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
2051 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
2052 header in the list of headers passed to it.
2054 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
2055 ignores differences in case and text representation.
2057 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
2058 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
2061 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
2062 nil don't display a cursor
2063 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
2064 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
2065 others display a box cursor.
2067 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
2068 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
2069 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
2070 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
2072 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
2073 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
2074 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
2075 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
2079 (string-to-syntax "()")
2082 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
2085 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
2086 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
2093 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
2098 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
2103 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
2110 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
2111 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
2114 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
2115 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
2116 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
2117 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
2120 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
2122 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
2123 for a regexp in a string.
2125 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
2126 `mouse-position-function'.
2128 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
2129 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
2131 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
2132 Keywords are now always considered constants.
2135 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
2138 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
2139 returned by function `recent-keys'.
2142 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
2143 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
2144 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
2145 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
2149 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
2150 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
2153 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
2154 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
2155 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
2156 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
2159 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
2160 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
2161 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
2162 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
2165 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
2166 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
2167 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
2170 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
2171 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
2174 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
2176 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
2177 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
2178 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
2182 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
2183 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
2186 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
2187 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
2190 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
2191 instead of being optional.
2194 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
2195 modify read-only text.
2198 ** New functions and variables for locales.
2200 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
2201 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
2202 time functions like strftime. The new variables
2203 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
2204 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
2206 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
2207 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
2208 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
2209 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
2210 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
2211 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
2212 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
2215 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
2216 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
2217 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
2221 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
2222 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
2225 ** New function `propertize'
2227 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
2228 strings with text properties.
2230 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
2232 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
2233 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
2234 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
2235 specified value of that property. Example:
2237 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
2240 ** push and pop macros.
2242 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
2243 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
2244 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
2246 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
2247 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
2248 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
2250 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
2252 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
2253 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
2255 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
2256 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
2257 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
2258 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2260 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
2261 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
2262 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
2263 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2266 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
2267 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
2269 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
2270 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
2271 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2272 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
2273 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2275 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2277 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
2278 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2279 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2280 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2281 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2282 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2283 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2284 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2285 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2286 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2287 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2288 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2289 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2290 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2291 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2294 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2296 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2298 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2300 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2301 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2305 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2306 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2307 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2311 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2312 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2314 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2316 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2317 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2318 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2319 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2320 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2322 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2324 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2325 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2326 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2330 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2331 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2332 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2333 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2334 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2336 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2338 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2340 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2342 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2344 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2346 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2349 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2351 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2353 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2355 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2357 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2359 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2361 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2363 Returns the size of TABLE.
2365 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2367 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2369 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2371 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2373 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2377 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2379 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2382 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2384 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2385 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2387 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2389 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2391 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2393 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2394 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2396 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2398 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2400 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2402 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2403 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2404 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2405 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2406 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2408 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2410 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2411 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2412 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2414 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2415 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2417 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2418 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2420 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2421 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2423 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2424 'case-fold-string-hash))
2426 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2429 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2431 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2432 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2433 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2436 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2438 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2439 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2442 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2443 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2444 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2445 is too short to reach that column.
2448 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2449 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2450 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2451 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2453 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2454 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2455 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2458 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2459 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2462 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2463 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2466 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2467 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2468 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2469 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2470 temporary-file-directory instead.
2473 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2474 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2475 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2476 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2479 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2480 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2483 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2485 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2486 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2487 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2490 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2492 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2493 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2494 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2495 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2496 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2497 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2499 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2500 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2501 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2502 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2505 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2507 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2508 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2509 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2512 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2513 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2517 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2519 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2520 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2523 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2526 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2528 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2529 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2532 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2534 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2535 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2541 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2542 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2544 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2545 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2546 to enable sound support.
2548 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2549 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2550 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2551 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2552 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2554 The following sound properties are supported:
2558 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2559 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2563 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2564 may be present, but not both.
2568 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2569 0..1. This property is optional.
2571 Other properties are ignored.
2573 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2575 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2578 ** Changes to garbage collection
2580 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2581 of live and free strings.
2583 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2584 strings that have been consed so far.
2587 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2590 *** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
2593 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2595 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2598 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2600 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2602 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2603 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2604 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2605 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2606 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2608 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
2611 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
2613 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
2614 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
2615 or omitted means use the selected frame.
2618 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2619 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2622 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2626 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
2630 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2632 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2633 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2634 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2635 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2637 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2638 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2640 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2641 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2642 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2643 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2644 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2645 just display it black instead.
2647 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2650 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2654 ** New face implementation.
2656 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2657 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2662 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2664 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2666 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2667 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2669 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2671 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2673 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2675 6. Foreground color.
2677 7. Background color.
2679 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2681 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2683 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2685 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2687 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2690 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2691 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2693 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2694 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2695 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2696 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2697 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2698 attributes mentioned above.
2700 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2701 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2704 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2705 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2711 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2712 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2713 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2714 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2715 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2716 results in a fully-specified face.
2719 *** Face realization.
2721 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2722 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2723 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2724 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2725 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2726 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2728 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2729 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2730 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2731 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2733 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2734 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2735 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2736 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2737 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2739 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2740 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2741 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2742 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2743 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2746 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2747 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2748 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2749 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2752 **** Clearing face caches.
2754 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2755 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2761 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2762 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2763 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2765 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2766 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2767 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2768 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2769 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2771 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2772 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2773 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2775 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2777 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2778 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2779 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2780 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2781 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2782 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2783 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2785 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2786 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2792 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2793 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2796 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2797 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2798 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2799 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2800 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2803 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2805 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2808 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2810 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2812 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2813 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2814 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2816 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2817 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2818 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2819 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2820 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2821 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2822 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2823 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2824 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2825 of the face font sort order.
2827 - Function: x-font-family-list
2829 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2830 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2831 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2832 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2834 - Variable: font-list-limit
2836 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2837 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2838 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2841 *** Setting face attributes.
2843 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2844 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2845 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2848 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2849 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2851 The following attributes are recognized:
2855 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2856 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2857 and `?' are allowed.
2861 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2862 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2863 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2864 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2868 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
2869 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
2870 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
2871 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
2875 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2876 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2877 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2881 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2882 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2885 `:foreground', `:background'
2887 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2891 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2892 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2893 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2898 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2899 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2900 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2905 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2906 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2907 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2908 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2912 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2913 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2914 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2915 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2916 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2917 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2918 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2919 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2920 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2921 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2922 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2923 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2924 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2925 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2926 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2927 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2932 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2933 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2937 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2938 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2939 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2940 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2941 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2942 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2944 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2945 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2949 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2950 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2951 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2954 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2955 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2956 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2958 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2963 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
2964 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
2965 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
2967 *** Face attributes and X resources
2969 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2972 Face attribute X resource class
2973 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2974 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2975 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2976 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2977 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2978 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2979 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2980 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2981 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2982 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2983 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2984 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2985 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2986 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2987 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2988 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2989 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2990 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2991 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2992 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2995 *** Text property `face'.
2997 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2998 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2999 specification can be
3001 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
3003 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
3004 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
3005 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
3006 for face attribute names.
3008 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
3009 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
3010 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
3013 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
3015 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
3016 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
3017 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
3018 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
3019 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
3020 used to clear the mapping table.
3022 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
3024 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
3025 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
3026 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
3027 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
3028 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
3029 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
3030 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
3031 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
3032 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
3033 modify their color-related behavior.
3035 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
3038 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
3040 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
3041 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
3042 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
3043 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
3044 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
3045 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
3046 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
3047 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
3048 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
3051 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
3053 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
3055 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
3056 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
3057 Otherwise, it returns zero.
3059 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
3061 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
3062 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
3063 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
3065 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
3066 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
3067 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
3068 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
3069 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
3070 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
3071 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
3074 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
3075 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
3076 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
3078 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
3080 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
3082 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
3084 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3085 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
3086 constrained position if that is is different.
3088 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
3089 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
3090 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
3091 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
3092 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3093 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
3094 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
3095 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
3096 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
3098 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
3099 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
3100 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
3101 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
3102 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
3104 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
3105 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
3107 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
3109 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
3111 Delete the field surrounding POS.
3112 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3113 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3115 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3117 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
3118 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3119 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3120 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
3121 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
3123 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3125 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
3126 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3127 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3128 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
3129 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
3131 - Function: field-string &optional POS
3133 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
3134 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3135 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3137 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
3139 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
3140 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3141 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3146 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
3147 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
3148 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
3149 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
3151 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
3152 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
3153 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
3154 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
3157 IMAGE is an image specification.
3159 *** Image specifications
3161 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
3162 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
3163 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
3164 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
3165 described below are ignored.
3167 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
3171 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
3172 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
3173 to use for its ascent.
3175 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
3176 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
3178 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
3179 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
3180 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
3181 overlays that apply to the image.
3185 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
3186 margin around the image. Default is 0.
3190 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
3195 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
3197 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
3198 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
3200 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
3201 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
3202 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
3203 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
3204 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
3205 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
3206 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
3207 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
3210 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
3212 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
3214 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
3215 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
3216 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
3217 of the factors' absolute values.
3219 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
3225 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
3231 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
3236 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
3237 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
3238 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
3239 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
3240 image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from the corners is
3241 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
3242 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
3245 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
3246 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
3251 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
3252 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
3253 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
3254 may be present in the image specification.
3258 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
3259 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
3260 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
3261 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
3263 *** Supported image types
3265 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
3267 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
3268 properties supported are
3272 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
3273 is the frame's foreground.
3277 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
3278 the frame's background color.
3280 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
3281 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
3282 instead of a `:file' property.
3286 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
3290 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
3296 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
3297 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
3299 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
3301 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
3304 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
3305 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
3308 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
3310 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
3311 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
3312 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
3313 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
3315 Additional image properties supported are:
3317 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
3319 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
3320 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
3323 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
3324 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
3326 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
3327 to display compressed images.
3329 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
3331 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
3332 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
3335 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
3337 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
3338 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
3341 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
3343 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
3344 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3347 **** GIF, image type `gif'
3349 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
3350 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3352 Additional image properties supported are:
3356 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3357 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3359 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3360 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3361 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3364 (defun show-anim (file max)
3365 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3366 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3368 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3371 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3374 (goto-char (point-min))
3375 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3376 (insert-image img "x"))
3377 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3379 **** PNG, image type `png'
3381 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3382 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3385 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3387 Additional image properties supported are:
3391 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3392 integer. This is a required property.
3396 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3397 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3401 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3402 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3403 files. This is an required property.
3405 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3410 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3411 which are supported in the current configuration.
3413 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3414 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3415 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3416 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3417 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3419 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3421 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3422 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3423 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3424 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3425 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3431 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3434 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3435 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3436 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3437 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3438 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3439 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3440 of the display margins.
3442 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3443 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3444 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3445 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3451 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3452 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3453 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3454 that have a `help-echo' property.
3456 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3457 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3458 the window in which the help was found.
3460 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3461 `help-echo' text property was found.
3463 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3464 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3466 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3467 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3470 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3471 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3473 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3474 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3475 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3476 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3477 used as help string.
3479 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3480 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3481 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3484 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3486 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3487 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3489 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3490 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3491 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3492 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3495 (global-set-key [A-down]
3498 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3499 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3500 (global-set-key [A-up]
3503 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3504 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3507 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3509 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3510 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3511 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3512 is called with one argument, POS.
3514 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3515 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3516 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3517 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3518 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3521 ** Tool bar support.
3523 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3524 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3525 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3526 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3527 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3528 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3530 *** Tool bar item definitions
3532 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3533 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3534 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3536 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3537 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3538 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3539 property (see below).
3541 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3542 binding are currently ignored.
3544 The following properties are recognized:
3548 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3553 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3557 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3558 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3559 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3561 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3563 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3564 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3568 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3569 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3570 meaning of each of the four elements:
3572 Index Use when item is
3573 ----------------------------------------
3574 0 enabled and selected
3575 1 enabled and deselected
3576 2 disabled and selected
3577 3 disabled and deselected
3579 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3580 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3582 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3584 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3585 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3587 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
3588 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
3589 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
3592 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3594 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3595 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3596 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3598 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3599 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3601 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3602 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3603 pixels. Default is 1.
3605 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3606 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3608 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3610 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3613 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3614 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3615 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3617 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3619 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3621 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3624 ** Mode line changes.
3627 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3629 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3630 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3631 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3633 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3634 a `local-map' text property.
3636 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3637 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3639 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3640 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3641 `local-map' property.
3643 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3644 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3647 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3648 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3651 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3652 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3655 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3657 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3658 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3659 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3660 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3663 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3666 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3667 position in the header-line.
3670 ** Text property `display'
3672 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
3673 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
3674 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
3675 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3676 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3678 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
3680 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
3681 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
3683 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
3684 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
3685 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
3686 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3687 simpler form STRING as property value.
3689 *** Variable width and height spaces
3691 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3692 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3693 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3694 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3695 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3696 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3697 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3699 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3700 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3701 properties described below.
3703 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3704 characters having the `display' property.
3708 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3709 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3711 - :relative-width FACTOR
3713 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3714 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3715 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3716 width of that character by FACTOR.
3720 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3721 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3723 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3727 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3730 - :relative-height FACTOR
3732 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3733 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3737 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3738 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3739 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3742 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3746 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3747 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3748 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3749 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3750 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3751 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3752 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3753 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3754 as display specification.
3756 *** Other display properties
3758 - :space-width FACTOR
3760 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3761 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3766 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3768 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3769 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3770 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3771 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3772 a font is available counts as a step.
3774 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3775 as tall as the frame's default font.
3777 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3778 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3780 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3781 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3785 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3786 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3787 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3788 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3789 `:height' subproperty.
3791 *** Conditional display properties
3793 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3794 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3795 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3796 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3797 the text having the `display' property.
3799 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3803 ** New menu separator types.
3805 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3806 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3807 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3808 to specify other menu separator types.
3810 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3812 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3815 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3817 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3819 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3821 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3823 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3825 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3827 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3829 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3831 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3833 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3834 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3836 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3838 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3840 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3842 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3844 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3846 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3848 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3850 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3852 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3854 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3856 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3858 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3860 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3862 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3864 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3865 the corresponding single-line separators.
3868 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3870 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3871 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3872 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3873 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3874 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3875 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3876 default foreground is black.
3878 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3879 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3880 `ScrollBarBackground').
3882 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3883 settings for scroll bar colors.
3886 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3887 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3890 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3891 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3892 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3893 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3894 the original window start.
3897 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3898 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3899 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3902 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3904 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3905 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3906 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3907 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3909 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3910 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3912 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3914 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3915 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3916 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3917 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3918 temporarily to nil, for example
3920 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3921 (enlarge-window 10))
3923 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3924 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3926 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3927 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3928 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3929 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3930 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3931 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3935 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3937 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3940 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3942 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3944 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3945 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3946 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3947 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3948 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3950 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3954 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3956 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3959 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3961 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3962 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3964 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3966 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3968 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3969 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3970 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3972 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3973 is the one that is used.
3975 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3976 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3977 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3978 separate from the command's regular output.
3979 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3980 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3981 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3984 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3985 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3986 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3987 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3989 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3990 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3991 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3992 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3994 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3995 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3996 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3997 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3999 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
4000 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
4001 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
4002 they never ignore case.
4004 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
4005 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
4006 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
4007 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
4008 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
4009 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
4010 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
4012 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
4013 the same format that was used in the file before.
4015 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
4016 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
4018 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
4019 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
4020 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
4022 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
4023 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
4024 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
4025 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
4026 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
4027 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
4028 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
4030 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
4031 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
4032 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
4033 format. You can now customize these variables.
4035 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
4036 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
4037 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
4038 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
4040 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
4041 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
4042 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
4044 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
4045 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
4046 doesn't have any effect.
4048 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
4051 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
4052 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
4053 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
4055 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
4056 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
4057 `auto-show-mode' command.
4059 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
4060 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
4061 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
4062 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
4063 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
4065 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
4066 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
4068 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
4069 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
4070 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
4072 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
4073 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
4074 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
4075 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
4077 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
4079 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
4080 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
4081 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
4082 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
4083 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
4085 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
4086 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
4088 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
4089 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
4090 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
4091 `?' on other systems.
4093 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
4094 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
4097 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
4098 current codepage when it starts.
4102 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
4103 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
4104 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
4105 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
4106 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
4107 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
4111 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
4112 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
4114 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
4115 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
4116 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
4117 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
4118 buffer-file-coding-system.
4120 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
4121 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
4124 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
4125 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
4126 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
4127 list of possible coding systems.
4131 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
4132 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
4133 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
4134 docstring for details.
4136 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
4137 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
4138 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
4139 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
4140 lineup functions use this feature currently.
4142 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
4143 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
4145 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
4146 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
4148 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
4149 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
4150 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
4151 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
4154 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
4155 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
4157 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
4158 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
4159 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
4160 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
4162 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
4163 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
4164 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
4165 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
4166 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
4168 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
4170 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
4172 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
4173 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
4175 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
4177 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
4178 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
4179 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
4180 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
4181 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
4185 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
4186 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
4187 Gnus manual for the full story.
4189 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
4190 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
4191 group, which is created automatically.
4193 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
4196 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
4198 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
4199 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
4201 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
4204 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
4206 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
4207 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
4209 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
4211 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
4212 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
4214 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
4215 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
4217 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
4218 control over simplification.
4220 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
4222 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
4225 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
4227 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
4229 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
4230 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
4231 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
4233 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
4234 `a' forces normal posting method.
4236 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
4239 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
4242 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
4243 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
4245 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
4248 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
4250 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
4252 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
4253 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
4255 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
4256 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
4258 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
4260 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
4263 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
4264 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
4266 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
4267 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
4269 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
4271 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
4273 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
4275 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
4277 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
4278 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
4279 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
4281 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
4282 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
4283 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
4284 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
4285 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
4287 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
4288 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
4289 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
4290 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
4292 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
4293 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
4294 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
4297 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4299 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
4300 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
4302 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
4303 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
4304 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
4305 removed from the label.
4307 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
4308 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
4310 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
4311 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
4313 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
4314 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
4317 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
4319 ** New/deleted modes and packages
4321 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
4322 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
4324 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
4325 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
4326 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
4328 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
4329 changes with a special face.
4331 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
4332 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
4333 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
4335 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
4337 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
4338 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
4339 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
4340 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
4341 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
4343 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
4344 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
4345 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
4347 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
4348 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
4349 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
4350 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
4351 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
4352 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
4353 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
4354 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
4355 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
4357 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
4358 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
4359 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
4360 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
4361 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
4364 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
4365 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
4366 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
4367 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
4368 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
4369 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4371 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4372 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4373 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4374 was not documented clearly before.
4376 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4377 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4379 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4381 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4382 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4383 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4384 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4386 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4387 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4388 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4390 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4392 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4393 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4395 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4396 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4399 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4400 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4401 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4402 file names and attributes are returned.
4404 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4405 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4406 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4407 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4410 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4411 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4413 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4415 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4416 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4417 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4420 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4421 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4424 The new function process-running-child-p
4425 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4426 terminal to its own child process.
4428 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4429 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4430 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4431 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4433 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4434 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4436 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4437 :included is an alias for :visible.
4439 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4440 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4441 to move or copy menu entries.
4443 ** Multibyte editing changes
4445 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4446 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4447 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4448 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4449 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4450 (setq char (sref str idx)
4451 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4452 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4454 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4455 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4456 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4458 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4459 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4460 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4462 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4464 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4465 across the boundary.
4467 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4468 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4469 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4470 contains 8-bit characters.
4471 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4472 contains invalid characters.
4474 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4475 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4476 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4477 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4480 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4481 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4482 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4483 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4485 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4486 compose Thai characters in a string.
4488 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4489 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4490 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4491 menus should always use the third argument.
4493 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4494 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4495 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4496 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4498 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4499 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4500 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4501 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4503 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4504 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4505 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4508 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4510 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4511 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4512 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4514 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4515 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4516 means to clear out that attribute.
4518 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4519 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4521 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4522 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4523 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4524 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4526 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4527 the gap of the current buffer.
4529 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4530 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4533 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4534 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4535 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4536 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4538 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4540 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4541 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4542 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4543 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4544 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4546 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4547 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4548 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4549 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4550 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4552 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4553 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4554 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4556 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4557 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4558 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4559 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4560 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4563 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4564 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4565 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4566 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4568 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4570 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4571 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4572 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4573 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4575 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4576 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4577 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4578 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4579 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4580 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4581 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4584 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4587 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4588 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4589 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4590 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4591 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4593 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4594 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4595 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4596 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4598 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4599 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4600 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4601 something that most users not do.
4603 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4604 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4605 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4608 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4611 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4612 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4613 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4614 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4617 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4618 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4619 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4620 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4621 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4624 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4625 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4626 to be confused by TeX commands.
4628 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4629 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4630 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4631 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4633 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4634 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4635 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4636 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4637 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4639 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4640 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4642 ** Changes in input method usage.
4644 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4645 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4648 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4650 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4651 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4653 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4654 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4656 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4658 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4660 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4661 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4663 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4664 given in the following case:
4665 o When you are using a complex input method.
4666 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4668 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4669 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4670 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4671 setting it to t is helpful.
4673 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4675 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4677 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4678 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4679 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4680 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4683 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4684 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4685 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4688 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4690 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4692 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4693 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4695 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4696 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4697 its owner and group.
4699 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4700 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4702 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4703 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4705 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4706 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4707 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4708 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4710 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4711 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4712 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4713 for writing keyboard macros.
4715 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4716 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4717 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4718 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4719 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4722 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4724 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4725 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4728 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4729 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4730 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4731 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4733 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4734 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4735 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4737 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4738 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4739 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4740 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4742 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4743 failure if the command produces no output.
4745 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4746 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4749 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4750 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4751 function and variable names.
4753 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4754 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4755 file-coding-system-alist.
4757 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4758 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4759 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4760 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4761 according to the current fontset.
4763 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4765 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4766 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4767 nonascii-insert-offset.
4769 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4770 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4771 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4772 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4774 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4775 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4777 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4778 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4780 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4781 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4784 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4785 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4787 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4788 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4789 all variables that have documentation.
4791 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4792 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4793 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4794 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4795 it should show; the default is 20.
4797 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4798 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4801 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4802 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4803 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4804 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4805 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4806 Newly added options are included as well.
4808 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4809 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4810 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4812 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4815 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4816 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4818 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4819 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4822 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4823 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4826 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4827 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4828 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4829 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4832 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4834 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4835 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4836 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4838 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4839 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4840 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4845 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4846 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4848 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4849 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4851 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4852 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4854 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4855 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4856 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4857 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4858 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4859 made invisible again.
4861 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4863 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4864 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4865 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4868 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4869 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4870 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4871 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4872 rmail-default-body-file.
4874 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4875 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4876 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4878 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4879 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4880 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4882 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4883 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4884 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4885 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4886 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4887 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4889 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4890 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4891 provided by feedmail are:
4893 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4894 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4895 there is also a queue for draft messages
4897 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4898 be prompted for confirmation
4900 **** does smart filling of address headers
4902 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4903 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4904 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4906 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4907 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4908 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4909 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4913 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4914 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4916 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4917 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4919 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4920 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4921 for a specified regexp.
4925 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4928 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4929 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4932 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4933 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4934 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4935 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4937 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4938 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4939 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4940 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4941 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4943 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4944 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4945 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4946 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4947 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4949 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4950 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4951 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4952 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4954 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4955 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4956 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4958 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4959 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4960 session to resolve them.
4962 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4963 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4964 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4967 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4968 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4969 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4970 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4971 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4972 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4975 ** Changes in Font Lock
4977 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4978 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4979 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4980 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4981 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4983 ** Frame name display changes
4985 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4986 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4987 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4988 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4990 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4991 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4994 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4996 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4997 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4998 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
5000 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
5002 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
5003 that is, the line after the last line you got.
5004 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
5006 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
5007 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
5010 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
5011 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
5012 previously sent input.
5014 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
5015 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
5016 as the search string.
5018 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
5019 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
5023 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
5024 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
5025 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
5028 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
5029 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
5030 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
5031 style is still the default however.
5033 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
5035 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
5036 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
5037 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
5039 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
5040 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
5042 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
5043 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
5045 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
5046 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
5048 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
5049 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
5051 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
5052 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
5053 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
5054 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
5056 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
5058 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
5059 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
5060 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
5062 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
5063 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
5064 expanding dynamically.
5066 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
5067 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
5069 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
5070 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
5071 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
5072 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
5074 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
5076 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5078 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
5079 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
5080 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
5081 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
5082 against the first word in the title.
5084 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
5085 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
5086 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
5087 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
5088 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
5089 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
5091 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
5092 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
5093 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
5094 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
5096 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
5098 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
5099 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
5100 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
5101 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
5102 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
5103 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
5105 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
5106 Editing group once the package is loaded.
5108 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
5109 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
5110 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
5112 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
5113 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
5117 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
5118 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
5119 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
5121 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
5122 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
5123 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
5124 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
5127 o URLs are automatically skipped
5128 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
5130 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
5132 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5134 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
5135 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
5136 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
5137 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
5139 *** New recursive parser.
5141 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
5142 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
5143 recursive parser scans the individual files.
5145 *** Parsing only part of a document.
5147 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
5148 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
5149 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
5151 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
5153 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
5155 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
5157 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
5159 *** Using multiple selection buffers
5161 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
5162 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
5164 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
5166 *** References to external documents.
5168 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
5169 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
5170 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
5171 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
5172 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
5173 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
5174 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
5176 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
5178 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
5179 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
5181 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
5182 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
5184 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
5186 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
5187 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
5189 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
5191 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
5192 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
5193 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
5194 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
5195 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
5196 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
5199 *** Support for the varioref package
5201 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
5205 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
5206 and citations are created. These hooks are
5207 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
5208 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
5210 *** Citations outside LaTeX
5212 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
5213 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
5215 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
5217 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
5218 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
5221 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
5223 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
5224 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
5225 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
5226 directories that contain the same file name.
5228 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
5229 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
5230 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
5231 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
5232 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
5233 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
5234 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
5237 ** New modes and packages
5239 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
5240 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
5241 it, but some do not.
5243 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
5246 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
5247 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
5250 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
5252 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
5253 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
5254 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
5255 established system of notation similar to Chess.
5257 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
5258 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
5259 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
5261 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
5262 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
5263 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
5264 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
5265 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
5268 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
5269 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
5271 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
5272 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
5273 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
5274 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
5276 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
5278 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
5279 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
5280 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
5281 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
5282 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
5283 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
5284 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
5285 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
5286 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
5287 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
5288 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
5290 Platform-specific modes:
5292 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
5293 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
5294 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
5295 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
5296 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
5297 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
5298 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
5299 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
5300 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
5302 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5304 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
5305 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
5306 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
5307 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
5309 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
5310 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
5311 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
5313 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
5314 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
5315 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
5316 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
5318 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
5319 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
5320 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
5323 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
5324 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
5325 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
5326 current input method for reading this one event.
5328 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
5329 now control whether to output certain characters as
5330 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
5331 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
5332 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
5333 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
5335 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5337 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
5338 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
5340 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
5341 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
5342 always increases point by 1.
5344 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
5345 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
5347 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
5349 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
5350 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
5351 default value changed. For example,
5353 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
5358 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
5361 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
5362 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
5363 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
5364 `:version' in the top level group.
5366 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
5368 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
5369 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5371 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5372 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5373 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5376 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5377 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5380 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5381 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5382 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5384 ** Frame-local variables.
5386 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5387 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5388 local bindings for that variable.
5390 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5391 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5392 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5395 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5396 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5397 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5398 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5400 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5401 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5402 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5403 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5405 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5406 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5407 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5408 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5409 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5411 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5412 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5413 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5414 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5416 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5417 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5419 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5420 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5421 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5423 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5424 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5425 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5426 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5428 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5429 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5432 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5433 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5434 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5435 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5436 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5438 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5439 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5440 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5441 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5443 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5444 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5445 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5446 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5447 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5449 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5450 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5451 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5452 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5454 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5455 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5456 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5458 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5459 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5460 was directed to display this buffer.
5462 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5463 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5464 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5465 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5466 set-window-configuration.
5468 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5469 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5470 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5471 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5473 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5474 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5475 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5477 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5478 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5479 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5481 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5482 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5484 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5485 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5487 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5488 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5489 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5491 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5492 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5493 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5494 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5498 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5499 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5502 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5503 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5504 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5505 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5506 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5508 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5510 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5511 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5512 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5513 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5516 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5517 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5518 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5519 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5520 The supported properties include
5522 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5524 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5525 item should appear in the menu.
5527 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5528 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5529 It should return a binding to use instead.
5531 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5532 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5533 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5534 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5535 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5538 This means that the command normally has no
5539 keyboard equivalent.
5540 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5541 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5542 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5543 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5544 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5546 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5547 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5549 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5553 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5554 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5555 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5556 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5558 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5560 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5561 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5562 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5563 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5564 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5565 forward, away from the user.
5567 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5569 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5570 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5571 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5572 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5573 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5575 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5577 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5578 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5579 that were dragged and dropped.
5581 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5583 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5585 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5586 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5587 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5589 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5590 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5591 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5593 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5594 in Emacs 19 and before.
5596 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5597 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5599 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5600 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5601 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5602 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5604 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5605 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5606 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5607 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5608 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5610 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5611 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5612 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5613 consistent with the new representation.
5615 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5616 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5617 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5618 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5620 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5621 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5622 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5624 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5625 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5626 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5628 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5629 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5630 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5632 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5633 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5635 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5636 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5638 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5639 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5640 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5641 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5643 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5644 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5646 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5647 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5648 buffer or string being searched.
5650 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5651 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5652 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5653 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5654 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5655 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5656 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5658 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5660 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5661 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5662 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5663 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5664 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5665 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5666 define-coding-system-alias.
5668 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5669 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5670 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5671 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5672 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5673 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5674 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5677 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5678 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5679 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5680 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5682 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5683 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5684 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5685 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5687 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5688 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5689 This function requires a user interaction.
5691 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5692 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5693 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5694 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5695 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5696 select-safe-coding-system.
5698 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5699 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5700 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5703 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5704 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5705 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5707 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5708 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5709 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5710 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5712 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5713 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5714 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5717 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5718 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5720 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5721 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5722 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5723 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5724 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5725 range of characters.
5727 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5728 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5730 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5731 in the current buffer at position POS.
5733 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5734 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5735 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5736 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5737 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5738 binding input-method-function to nil.
5740 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5741 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5742 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5743 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5744 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5746 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5747 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5749 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5750 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5752 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5753 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5754 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5755 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5756 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5758 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5760 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5761 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5762 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5765 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5766 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5768 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5769 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5770 in your .emacs file.)
5772 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5773 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5775 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5776 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5778 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5779 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5782 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5783 delete the character before point, as usual.
5785 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5786 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5787 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5789 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5790 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5791 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5792 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5793 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5796 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5797 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5798 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5799 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5800 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5802 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5803 and is an alias for it.
5805 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5806 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5808 ** Scrolling changes
5810 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5811 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5813 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5814 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5817 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5818 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5819 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5820 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5822 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5823 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5824 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5825 recenters the window.
5827 ** International character set support (MULE)
5829 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5830 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5831 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5832 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5833 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5834 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5836 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5837 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5838 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5839 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5840 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5842 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5843 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5844 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5845 language, to make it possible to type them.
5847 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5848 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5850 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5851 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5853 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5855 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5857 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5858 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5859 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5860 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5861 characters for their work until they want to change.
5865 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5866 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5867 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5868 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5869 support several input methods.
5871 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5872 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5875 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5876 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5877 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5878 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5879 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5882 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5883 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5884 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5885 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5886 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5888 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5889 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5890 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5891 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5893 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5894 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5895 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5896 the first guess is wrong.
5898 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5899 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5901 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5902 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5903 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5904 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5906 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5907 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5908 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5909 translate automatically to and from either one.
5911 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5913 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5914 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5915 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5918 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5919 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5920 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5921 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5923 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5924 character conversion as well.
5926 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5928 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5929 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5930 requires using many fonts.
5932 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5933 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5935 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5936 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5937 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5938 you would use a font.
5940 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5941 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5942 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5944 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5945 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5946 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5947 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5948 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5950 *** Defining fontsets.
5952 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5953 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5954 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5956 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5957 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5958 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5959 standard fontset are created automatically.
5961 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5962 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5963 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5964 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5965 name is `fontset-startup'.
5967 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5968 The resource value should have this form:
5969 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5970 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5971 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5972 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5973 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5974 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5975 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5976 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5977 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5979 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5980 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5981 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5983 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5984 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5986 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5987 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5988 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5989 Here is the substitution rule:
5990 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5991 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5992 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5993 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5994 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5996 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5997 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5998 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
6000 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
6001 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
6002 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
6003 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
6006 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
6007 defaults for a particular choice of language.
6009 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
6010 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
6011 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
6012 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
6013 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
6014 system for new files that you create.
6016 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
6017 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
6018 whole Emacs session.
6020 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
6021 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
6022 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
6024 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
6025 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
6026 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
6027 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
6028 coding systems that Emacs supports.
6030 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
6031 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
6032 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
6033 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
6034 is used for *the immediately following command*.
6036 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
6037 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
6039 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
6040 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
6042 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
6043 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
6045 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
6046 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
6047 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
6048 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
6051 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
6052 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
6053 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
6054 translated into that character code.
6056 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
6057 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
6059 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
6061 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
6062 the coding system for keyboard input.
6064 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
6065 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
6066 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
6068 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
6070 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
6071 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
6072 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
6073 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
6074 designed to work with terminals.
6076 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
6077 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
6078 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
6079 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
6080 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
6081 in the corresponding buffer.
6083 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
6085 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
6086 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
6087 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
6089 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
6090 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
6091 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
6094 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
6095 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
6097 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
6098 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
6099 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
6100 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
6102 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
6103 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
6104 related information.
6106 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
6107 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
6110 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
6111 information about the support for a particular language.
6112 You specify the language as an argument.
6114 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
6115 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
6118 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
6119 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
6120 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
6121 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
6123 A alternativnyj (Russian)
6125 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
6126 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
6127 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
6128 E euc-japan (Japanese)
6129 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6130 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
6131 K euc-korea (Korean)
6134 S shift_jis (Japanese)
6137 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
6138 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6139 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
6143 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
6144 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
6145 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
6146 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
6148 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
6149 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
6151 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
6152 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
6153 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
6154 Rmail files themselves.
6156 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
6157 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
6159 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
6162 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
6163 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
6164 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
6165 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
6166 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
6168 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
6169 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
6170 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
6173 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
6174 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
6175 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
6176 without any conversion.
6178 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
6179 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
6180 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
6181 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
6183 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
6184 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
6186 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
6187 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
6189 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
6190 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
6192 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
6193 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
6194 in the buffer before point.
6196 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
6197 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
6200 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
6201 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
6203 ** File locking works with NFS now.
6205 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
6206 in the same directory as FILENAME.
6208 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
6209 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
6210 can become a bottleneck.
6212 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
6213 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
6214 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
6215 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
6216 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
6217 so useful that the change is worth while.
6219 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
6220 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
6221 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
6222 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
6224 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
6225 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
6228 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
6229 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
6230 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
6232 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
6233 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
6234 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
6236 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
6237 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
6238 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
6240 ** Changes in View mode.
6242 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
6243 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
6245 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
6246 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
6248 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
6251 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
6252 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
6254 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
6255 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
6256 not just the selected window.
6258 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
6259 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
6260 turns View mode on or off.
6262 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
6263 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
6264 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
6266 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
6267 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
6269 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
6270 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
6271 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
6272 which version to compare with.
6274 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
6275 blocks if a match is inside the block.
6277 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
6278 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
6279 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
6280 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
6282 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
6283 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
6284 blocks, all of them or none.
6286 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
6287 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
6290 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
6291 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
6292 However, the mode will not be changed if
6293 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
6294 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
6295 not suitable for ordinary files, or
6296 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
6298 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
6300 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
6301 these commands do not change the major mode.
6303 ** M-x occur changes.
6305 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
6306 it performs a case-sensitive search.
6308 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
6309 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
6310 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
6312 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
6313 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
6314 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
6315 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
6316 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
6318 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
6319 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
6320 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
6321 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
6323 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6324 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
6325 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
6327 ** Outline mode changes.
6329 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
6331 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
6333 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
6334 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
6335 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
6338 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
6339 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
6342 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
6343 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
6345 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
6347 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6348 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
6349 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
6350 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
6352 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
6353 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
6354 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
6356 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
6357 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
6360 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
6361 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
6362 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
6363 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
6365 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
6366 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
6367 can be. The default value is 30.
6369 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6371 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6372 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6373 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6374 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6375 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6378 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6379 compose-mail-other-frame.
6381 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6382 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6383 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6384 buffer that shows the original message.
6386 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6387 with separator lines around the contents.
6389 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6390 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6391 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6392 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6394 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6396 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6397 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6398 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6399 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6401 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6402 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6405 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6406 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6409 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6410 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6411 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6412 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6414 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6415 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6416 be taken to be magic.
6418 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6419 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6420 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6422 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6423 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6425 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6426 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6428 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6430 new key dired.el binding old key
6431 ------- ---------------- -------
6432 * c dired-change-marks c
6434 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6435 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6436 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6438 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6439 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6440 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6441 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6442 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6443 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6447 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6448 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6449 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6450 each time you run it.
6452 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6453 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6455 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6456 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6457 means to move in the opposite direction.
6459 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6460 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6462 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6463 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6464 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6465 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6470 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6472 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6475 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6476 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6478 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6481 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6483 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6485 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6487 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6488 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6489 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6491 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6493 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6495 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6496 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6498 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6499 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6500 used to pick articles.
6502 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6503 another have been added.
6505 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6507 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6508 generating lines in buffers.
6510 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6513 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6515 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6517 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6519 *** Scores can be decayed.
6521 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6523 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6524 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6526 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6529 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6531 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6532 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6534 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6536 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6537 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6539 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6540 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6542 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6545 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6546 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6548 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6550 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6552 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6554 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6556 Use the `Y c' command.
6558 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6560 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6562 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6564 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6565 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6567 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6569 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6571 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6572 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6574 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6576 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6577 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6578 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6579 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6582 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6583 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6584 particular news group. This can be done by:
6586 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6588 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6589 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6590 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6591 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6592 for reading and posting).
6594 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6595 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6596 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6597 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6600 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6601 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6603 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6604 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6605 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6606 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6607 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6609 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6610 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6614 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6615 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6616 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6617 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6618 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6621 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6622 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6623 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6624 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6625 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6626 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6628 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6629 of the current buffer.
6631 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6632 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6633 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6635 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6636 style that the Python developers like.
6638 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6639 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6640 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6644 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6645 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6646 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6648 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6649 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6652 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6653 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6655 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6656 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6657 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6658 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6660 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6661 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6663 ** Calendar changes.
6665 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6666 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6667 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6671 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6673 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6675 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6676 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6677 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6678 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6679 It defaults to `letter'.
6680 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6682 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6683 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6684 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6686 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6687 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6690 *** Horizontal layout
6692 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6693 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6694 All are measured in points.
6698 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6699 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6700 All are measured in points.
6704 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6705 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6706 margin above the text.
6708 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6709 framing box is printed around the header.
6711 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6712 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6714 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6715 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6716 `ps-header-font-size'.
6720 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6721 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6722 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6723 elements to this alist.
6725 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6726 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6728 ** hideshow changes.
6730 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6733 *** Support for java-mode added.
6735 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6736 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6738 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6739 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6740 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6742 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6743 robust and a lot faster.
6745 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6747 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6748 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6749 documentation for more details.
6751 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6753 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6754 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6755 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6756 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6757 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6759 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6760 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6761 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6762 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6768 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6769 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6770 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6771 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6772 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6773 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6775 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6777 *** Maximum decoration
6779 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6780 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6781 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6782 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6783 to get the old behavior.
6787 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6789 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6790 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6792 *** Configurable support
6794 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6795 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6796 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6797 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6798 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6799 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6800 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6802 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6803 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6804 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6806 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6808 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6809 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6812 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6814 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6820 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6821 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6822 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6823 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6825 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6827 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6828 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6829 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6831 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6833 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6834 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6835 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6836 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6837 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6838 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6839 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6841 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6842 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6843 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6844 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6845 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6846 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6848 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6850 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6851 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6852 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6853 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6855 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6858 ** Ada mode changes.
6860 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6861 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6862 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6863 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6866 *** There are two new commands:
6867 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6868 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6870 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6871 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6872 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6874 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6875 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6876 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6878 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6879 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6880 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6881 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6883 ** Scheme mode changes.
6885 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6886 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6887 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6888 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6891 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6892 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6893 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6894 variables as buffer-local variables.
6896 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6899 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6901 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6902 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6903 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6904 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6906 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6907 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6910 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6911 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6912 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6913 option takes precedence.
6915 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6916 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6917 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6919 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6920 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6923 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6924 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6926 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6927 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6930 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6931 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6932 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6933 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6934 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6935 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6937 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6938 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6939 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6940 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6942 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6943 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6944 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6945 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6946 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6948 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6949 since it applies only to the current frame.
6951 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6952 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6953 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6955 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6956 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6957 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6958 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6959 instead of just the file you are editing.
6963 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6964 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6965 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6966 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6967 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6970 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6971 knows which kind of label is needed.
6973 C-c ) reftex-reference
6974 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6975 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6977 C-c [ reftex-citation
6978 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6979 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6981 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6982 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6985 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6986 can quickly jump to every section.
6988 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6989 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6990 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6991 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6992 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6994 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6996 *** Info documentation is now available.
6998 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6999 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
7001 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
7002 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
7004 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
7005 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
7007 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
7008 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
7009 appropriate functions.
7011 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
7012 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
7014 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
7017 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
7018 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
7020 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
7023 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
7024 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
7025 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
7027 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
7028 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
7029 prefixed with `ALT'.
7031 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
7032 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
7033 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
7036 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
7037 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
7038 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
7040 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
7041 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
7043 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
7044 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
7045 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
7047 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
7049 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
7051 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
7054 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
7055 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
7058 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
7061 *** Added support for imenu.
7063 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
7064 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
7065 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
7066 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
7068 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
7069 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
7071 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
7073 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
7075 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
7076 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
7077 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
7080 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
7081 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
7083 ** browse-url changes
7085 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
7086 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
7087 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
7088 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
7089 customization variables.
7091 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
7093 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
7094 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
7095 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
7099 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
7100 pops up the Info file for this command.
7102 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
7103 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
7104 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
7107 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
7108 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
7109 files in the same directory.
7111 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
7112 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
7113 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
7117 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
7118 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
7120 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
7121 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
7122 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
7123 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
7124 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
7125 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
7126 color when Viper is in insert state.
7127 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
7128 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
7129 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
7133 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
7134 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
7135 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
7136 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
7137 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
7139 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
7141 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
7142 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
7144 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
7145 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
7146 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
7148 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
7149 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
7150 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
7151 methods and protocols.
7153 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
7154 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
7155 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
7158 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
7159 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
7160 at least M times and as many as N times.
7162 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
7163 in files has changed slightly.
7165 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
7166 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
7167 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
7168 with old time-stamp-format values.
7170 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
7171 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
7172 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
7175 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
7176 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
7177 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
7178 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
7179 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
7180 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
7182 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
7183 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
7184 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
7186 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
7187 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
7188 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
7189 recommended now will continue to work then.
7191 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
7194 ** There are some additional major modes:
7196 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
7197 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
7198 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
7200 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
7201 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
7204 ** New Lisp packages include:
7206 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
7208 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
7209 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
7211 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
7213 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
7216 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
7217 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
7220 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
7221 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
7222 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
7223 strings or comments.
7225 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
7226 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
7227 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
7228 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
7231 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
7232 can visit them by short forms of their names.
7234 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
7235 Emacs Lisp function at point.
7237 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
7239 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
7240 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
7242 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
7244 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
7246 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
7248 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
7249 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
7251 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
7252 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
7253 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
7254 original place after inserting the copy.
7256 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
7259 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
7260 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
7261 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
7263 Enable mouse-drag with:
7264 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
7266 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
7268 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
7269 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
7271 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
7272 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
7276 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
7277 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
7278 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
7279 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
7280 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
7281 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
7282 instance) and vice versa.
7284 To use this package load it using
7285 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
7286 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
7287 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
7288 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
7289 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
7290 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
7292 *** Interface to ph.
7294 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
7296 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
7297 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
7300 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
7302 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
7303 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
7304 while the real cursor does not move.
7306 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
7307 for visiting your favorite web sites.
7309 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
7310 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
7314 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
7315 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
7316 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
7317 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
7319 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
7321 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
7323 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
7325 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
7326 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
7327 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
7328 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
7329 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
7331 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
7332 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
7333 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
7334 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
7335 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
7336 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
7338 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
7340 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
7341 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
7342 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
7343 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
7345 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
7346 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
7348 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
7349 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
7352 ** Basic Lisp changes
7354 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
7355 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
7357 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
7358 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
7361 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
7363 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
7365 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
7366 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
7368 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
7369 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7372 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7374 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7376 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7378 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7379 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7380 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7383 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7384 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7385 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7387 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7388 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7389 adding one of these suffixes.
7391 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7392 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7393 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7395 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7396 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7398 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7400 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7401 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7403 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7404 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7406 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7408 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7409 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7411 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7412 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7413 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7414 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7416 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7417 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7420 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7421 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7422 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7425 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7426 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7429 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7431 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7432 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7433 Then it returns that string.
7435 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7437 (with-output-to-string
7438 (princ "The buffer is ")
7439 (princ (buffer-name)))
7441 returns "The buffer is foo".
7443 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7446 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7447 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7448 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7450 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7451 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7453 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7454 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7455 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7456 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7457 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7458 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7460 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7461 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7462 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7465 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7466 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7467 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7468 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7469 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7471 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7472 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7473 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7474 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7476 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7477 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7479 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7481 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7482 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7483 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7484 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7487 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7488 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7491 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7493 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7494 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7495 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7496 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7497 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7499 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7501 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7502 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7503 more than the number of characters.
7505 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7506 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7507 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7508 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7509 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7510 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7512 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7513 and returns a string containing those characters.
7515 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7516 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7517 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7518 character, sref signals an error.
7520 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7521 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7522 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7524 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7525 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7526 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7528 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7529 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7530 to a vector of the characters in it.
7532 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7533 of a string. You call it as follows:
7535 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7537 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7538 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7539 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7540 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7541 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7543 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7544 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7546 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7547 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7549 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7550 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7551 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7552 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7554 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7556 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7558 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7559 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7560 are not included in the resulting value.
7562 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7563 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7564 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7565 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7567 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7568 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7569 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7570 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7571 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7572 column START-COLUMN.
7574 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7575 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7576 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7577 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7578 changed text, before the change.
7580 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7581 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7582 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7584 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7586 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7588 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7589 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7591 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7592 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7593 which identify the character within that character set.
7595 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7596 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7597 opposite of split-char.
7599 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7600 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7602 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7603 of all the characters in a string.
7605 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7606 and specifying coding systems.
7608 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7609 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7610 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7611 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7612 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7613 as what to do about code conversion.)
7615 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7616 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7618 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7619 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7620 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7622 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7623 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7624 to match against a file name.
7626 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7627 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7628 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7629 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7630 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7631 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7633 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7634 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7636 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7637 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7639 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7640 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7641 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7644 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7645 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7646 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7647 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7648 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7649 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7651 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7652 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7654 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7655 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7656 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7657 start the subprocess.
7659 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7660 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7661 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7662 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7663 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7665 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7666 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7669 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7670 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7671 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7672 connection permanently or until overridden.
7674 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7675 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7676 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7677 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7678 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7679 system for one operation at a time.
7681 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7682 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7684 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7685 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7686 The value is a cons cell,
7687 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7688 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7689 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7690 input to the subprocess.
7692 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7693 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7695 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7696 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7697 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7699 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7700 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7701 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7702 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7705 Thus, instead of writing
7707 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7708 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7710 you would now write this:
7712 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7713 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7717 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7718 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7719 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7720 for a description of them.
7722 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7723 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7725 (defgroup ispell nil
7726 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7729 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7730 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7731 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7732 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7733 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7735 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7736 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7737 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7738 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7739 first-level subgroups.
7741 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7743 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7744 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7748 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7749 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7750 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7751 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7752 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7753 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7755 ** Text property changes
7757 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7760 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7761 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7762 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7763 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7764 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7766 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7767 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7768 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7769 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7771 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7772 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7773 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7775 ** Changes in invisibility features
7777 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7778 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7779 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7780 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7781 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7782 make the overlay visible.
7784 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7785 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7786 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7787 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7788 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7789 t when it should hide it.
7791 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7793 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7794 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7795 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7796 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7797 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7798 Here is an example of how to do this:
7800 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7801 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7802 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7803 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7806 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7809 ;; When done with the overlays:
7810 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7812 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7814 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7816 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7817 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7818 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7819 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7821 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7822 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7823 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7825 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7826 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7828 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7829 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7831 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7832 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7833 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7835 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7836 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7837 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7838 determine the syntax type of the character.
7840 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7841 of the current buffer.
7843 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7844 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7845 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7847 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7848 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7849 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7850 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7851 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7853 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7856 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7857 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7858 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7860 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7861 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7862 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7863 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7864 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7866 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7867 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7868 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7870 ** Changes in face features
7872 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7873 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7875 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7876 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7878 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7879 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7881 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7882 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7884 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7885 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7886 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7887 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7890 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7891 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7893 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7895 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7896 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7897 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7898 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7900 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7903 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7904 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7906 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7907 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7909 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7910 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7912 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7913 character code conversion as well as other things.
7915 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7916 (formerly it did not).
7918 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7919 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7921 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7922 instead of constant strings.
7924 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7925 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7926 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7928 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7929 in the same way as before.
7931 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7932 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7933 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7935 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7936 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7937 else, and returns nil.
7939 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7940 directory cannot be listed.
7942 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7944 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7945 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7946 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7947 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7950 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7951 It is available through the history command M-n.
7953 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7954 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7955 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7956 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7957 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7959 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7960 argument in this way.
7962 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7963 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7964 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7966 ** Echo area features
7968 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7969 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7970 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7971 after the echo area is cleared.
7973 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7974 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7976 ** Keyboard input features
7978 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7979 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7981 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7982 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7985 ** Frame-related changes
7987 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7988 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7989 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7991 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7992 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7993 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7995 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7996 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7997 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7998 in the selected frame.
8000 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
8001 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
8002 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
8004 ** X Windows features
8006 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
8007 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
8008 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
8010 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
8011 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
8013 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
8014 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
8015 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
8017 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
8018 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
8020 ** Subprocess features
8022 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
8023 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
8026 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
8027 and returns the output from the command as a string.
8029 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
8030 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
8032 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
8033 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
8035 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
8036 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
8037 goes after the other menu items.
8039 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
8040 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
8041 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
8044 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
8045 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
8047 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
8048 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
8051 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
8052 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
8053 but its hook is still run.
8055 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
8056 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
8058 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
8059 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
8060 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
8062 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
8063 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
8064 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
8067 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
8068 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
8070 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
8071 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
8072 functions like display-time.
8074 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
8075 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
8077 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
8078 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
8079 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
8081 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
8082 if there is an error in compilation.
8084 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
8085 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
8086 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
8087 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
8089 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
8090 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
8091 the *scratch* buffer.
8093 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
8094 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
8095 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
8096 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
8098 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
8099 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
8100 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
8102 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
8103 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
8104 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
8105 and compose-mail-other-frame.
8107 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
8108 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
8109 full name of the specified user will be returned.
8111 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
8112 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
8113 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
8114 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
8115 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
8118 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
8119 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
8120 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
8121 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
8123 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
8124 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
8125 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
8126 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
8128 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
8130 ** imenu.el changes.
8132 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
8133 item from menu created by imenu.
8135 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
8136 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
8137 select one of those items.
8139 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
8141 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
8143 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
8144 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
8146 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
8147 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
8148 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
8150 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
8152 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
8153 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
8155 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
8156 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
8157 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
8158 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
8159 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
8162 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
8163 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
8165 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
8166 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
8167 as in previous Emacs versions.
8169 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
8170 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
8171 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
8174 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
8175 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
8176 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
8177 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
8180 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
8181 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
8182 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
8183 line and then executing the macro.
8185 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
8187 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
8188 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
8189 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
8194 *** Font Lock support modes
8196 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
8197 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
8198 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
8199 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
8200 Font Lock mode is enabled.
8202 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
8204 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
8210 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
8211 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
8212 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
8213 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
8214 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
8215 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
8216 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
8218 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
8220 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
8222 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
8224 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8226 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
8229 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
8234 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
8235 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
8236 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
8237 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
8239 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
8240 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
8242 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
8243 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
8246 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
8247 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
8249 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
8251 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
8253 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
8255 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
8258 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
8260 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
8262 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
8264 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
8266 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
8269 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
8271 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
8273 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
8275 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
8277 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
8279 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
8281 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
8283 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
8286 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
8288 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
8291 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
8293 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
8294 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
8296 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
8298 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
8300 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
8302 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
8304 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
8307 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
8309 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
8310 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
8312 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
8313 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
8314 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
8316 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
8317 articles with the `*' command.
8319 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
8321 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
8323 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
8325 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
8327 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
8328 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
8330 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
8333 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
8335 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
8337 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
8339 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
8341 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
8343 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
8345 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
8347 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
8349 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
8351 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
8352 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
8354 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
8357 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
8359 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
8360 buffer to allow easier treatment.
8362 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
8364 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
8366 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
8368 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8371 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8373 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8375 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8376 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8378 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8380 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8382 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8384 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8386 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8388 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8391 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8393 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8394 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8395 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8398 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8401 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8404 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8405 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8408 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8409 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8410 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8411 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8412 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8415 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8417 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8419 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8420 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8421 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8422 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8423 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8425 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8426 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8427 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8429 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8431 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8432 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8433 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8434 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8435 chapter of the manual for details.
8437 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8438 customization variables take effect.
8440 ** Marking with the mouse.
8442 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8443 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8444 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8446 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8448 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8450 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8451 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8453 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8454 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8455 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8456 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8457 applications, these problems are significant.
8459 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8460 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8461 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8462 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8463 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8465 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8466 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8468 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8469 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8470 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8471 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8472 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8473 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8475 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8477 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8478 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8479 minibuffer contains.
8481 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8483 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8484 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8485 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8486 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8488 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8489 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8490 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8491 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8493 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8494 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8496 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8497 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8498 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8500 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8501 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8502 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8503 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8505 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8507 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8508 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8510 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8512 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8513 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8514 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8515 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8516 immediately after the selected one.
8518 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8519 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8521 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8523 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8524 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8525 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8526 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8529 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8530 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8533 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8534 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8535 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8536 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8537 now that the bug is fixed.
8539 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8541 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8542 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8543 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8544 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8546 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8547 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8548 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8549 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8551 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8552 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8553 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8555 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8556 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8557 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8558 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8561 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8562 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8564 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8565 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8566 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8567 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8569 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8570 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8571 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8572 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8573 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8574 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8576 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8577 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8578 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8579 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8581 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8582 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8583 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8585 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8586 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8587 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8588 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8589 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8590 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8591 to a limitation in font-lock).
8593 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8595 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8596 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8597 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8600 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8601 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8603 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8605 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8607 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8609 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8611 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8612 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8613 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8614 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8615 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8616 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8618 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8621 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8622 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8624 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8629 *** Global Font Lock mode
8631 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8632 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8633 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8634 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8635 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8637 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8639 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8643 *** Local Refontification
8645 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8646 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8647 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8648 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8650 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8651 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8652 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8653 above and below point.
8655 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8659 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8660 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8661 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8662 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8663 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8666 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8668 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8669 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8671 ** hide-show changes.
8673 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8674 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8677 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8678 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8680 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8681 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8682 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8686 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8687 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8689 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8690 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8692 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8694 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8695 pressing both mouse buttons.
8697 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8698 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8701 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8704 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8706 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8707 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8709 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8711 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8713 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8715 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8717 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8719 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8721 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8722 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8723 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8724 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8725 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8727 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8729 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8730 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8731 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8734 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8737 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8739 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8740 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8742 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8743 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8745 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8746 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8747 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8749 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8750 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8753 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8755 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8756 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8757 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8759 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8760 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8761 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8763 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8764 up if too much time passes.
8766 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8768 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8769 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8770 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8773 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8774 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8775 call looks like this:
8777 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8779 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8780 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8781 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8784 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8785 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8788 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8789 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8790 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8791 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8793 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8794 idle for SECS seconds.
8796 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8797 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8798 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8801 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8802 there is no answer within a certain time.
8804 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8806 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8807 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8808 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8810 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8811 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8812 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8813 arguments in between are ignored.
8815 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8816 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8818 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8819 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8820 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8821 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8824 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8825 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8826 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8827 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8828 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8829 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8831 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8832 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8833 systems with limited file name syntax.
8835 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8836 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8837 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8840 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8841 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8842 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8844 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8845 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8846 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8847 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8848 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8850 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8851 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8852 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8854 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8855 marker from its buffer position.
8857 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8858 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8859 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8861 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8862 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8863 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8864 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8865 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8866 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8868 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8869 errors that happen often during editing.
8871 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8872 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8873 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8875 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8876 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8878 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8879 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8880 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8881 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8882 and not get-buffer-window.
8884 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8885 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8886 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8888 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8889 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8890 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8891 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8892 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8893 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8894 over and over for the same text.
8896 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8898 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8899 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8901 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8904 in addition to the normal
8908 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8909 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8910 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8914 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8916 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8917 Copyright information:
8919 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8921 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8922 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8923 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8924 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8926 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8927 of this document, or of portions of it,
8928 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8929 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8933 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"