1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
3 Copyright (C) 2014-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 26.
11 See file HISTORY for a list of GNU Emacs versions and release dates.
12 See files NEWS.25, NEWS.24, NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20,
13 NEWS.19, NEWS.18, and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
15 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling 'view-emacs-news'
16 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
19 +++ indicates that all necessary documentation updates are complete.
20 (This means all relevant manuals in doc/ AND lisp doc-strings.)
21 --- means no change in the manuals is needed.
22 When you add a new item, use the appropriate mark if you are sure it applies,
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 26.1
27 ** By default libgnutls is now required when building Emacs.
28 Use 'configure --with-gnutls=no' to build even when GnuTLS is missing.
30 ** GnuTLS version 2.12.2 or later is now required, instead of merely
31 version 2.6.6 or later.
33 ** The new option 'configure --enable-gcc-warnings=warn-only' causes
34 GCC to issue warnings without stopping the build. This behavior is
35 now the default in developer builds. As before, use
36 '--disable-gcc-warnings' to suppress GCC's warnings, and
37 '--enable-gcc-warnings' to stop the build if GCC issues warnings.
40 ** The Emacs server now has socket-launching support. This allows
41 socket based activation, where an external process like systemd can
42 invoke the Emacs server process upon a socket connection event and
43 hand the socket over to Emacs. Emacs uses this socket to service
44 emacsclient commands. This new functionality can be disabled with the
45 configure option '--disable-libsystemd'.
47 ** New configure option '--disable-build-details' attempts to build an
48 Emacs that is more likely to be reproducible; that is, if you build
49 and install Emacs twice, the second Emacs is a copy of the first.
50 Deterministic builds omit the build date from the output of the
51 emacs-version and erc-cmd-SV functions, and the leave the following
52 variables nil: emacs-build-system, emacs-build-time,
55 ** Emacs no longer works on IRIX. We expect that Emacs users are not
56 affected by this, as SGI stopped supporting IRIX in December 2013.
59 * Startup Changes in Emacs 26.1
62 * Changes in Emacs 26.1
65 The group 'wp', whose label was "text", is now deprecated.
66 Use the new group 'text', which inherits from 'wp', instead.
69 ** The new function 'call-shell-region' executes a command in an
70 inferior shell with the buffer region as input.
73 ** The new user option 'shell-command-dont-erase-buffer' controls
74 if the output buffer is erased between shell commands; if non-nil,
75 the output buffer is not erased; this variable also controls where
76 to set the point in the output buffer: beginning of the output,
77 end of the buffer or save the point.
78 When 'shell-command-dont-erase-buffer' is nil, the default value,
79 the behaviour of 'shell-command', 'shell-command-on-region' and
80 'async-shell-command' is as usual.
83 ** The new user option 'mouse-select-region-move-to-beginning'
84 controls the position of point when double-clicking mouse-1 on the end
85 of a parenthetical grouping or string-delimiter: the default value nil
86 keeps point at the end of the region, setting it to non-nil moves
87 point to the beginning of the region.
90 ** The new user option 'confirm-kill-processes' allows the user to
91 skip a confirmation prompt for killing subprocesses when exiting
92 Emacs. When set to t (the default), Emacs will prompt for
93 confirmation before killing subprocesses on exit, which is the same
97 ** 'find-library-name' will now fall back on looking at 'load-history'
98 to try to locate libraries that have been loaded with an explicit path
102 ** Faces in 'minibuffer-prompt-properties' no longer overwrite properties
103 in the text in functions like 'read-from-minibuffer', but instead are
104 added to the end of the face list. This allows users to say things
105 like '(read-from-minibuffer (propertize "Enter something: " 'face 'bold))'.
108 ** The new variable 'extended-command-suggest-shorter' has been added
109 to control whether to suggest shorter 'M-x' commands or not.
112 ** icomplete now respects 'completion-ignored-extensions'.
115 ** Non-breaking hyphens are now displayed with the 'nobreak-hyphen'
116 face instead of the 'escape-glyph' face.
119 ** Approximations to quotes are now displayed with the new 'homoglyph'
120 face instead of the 'escape-glyph' face.
123 ** 'C-x h' ('mark-whole-buffer') will now avoid marking the prompt
127 ** 'find-library' now takes a prefix argument to pop to a different
131 ** 'process-attributes' on Darwin systems now returns more information.
134 ** Several accessors for the value returned by 'file-attributes'
135 have been added. They are: 'file-attribute-type',
136 'file-attribute-link-number', 'file-attribute-user-id',
137 'file-attribute-group-id', 'file-attribute-access-time',
138 'file-attribute-modification-time',
139 'file-attribute-status-change-time', 'file-attribute-size',
140 'file-attribute-modes', 'file-attribute-inode-number',
141 'file-attribute-device-number' and 'file-attribute-collect'.
144 ** The new function 'buffer-hash' computes a fast, non-consing hash of
148 ** 'fill-paragraph' no longer marks the buffer as changed unless it
149 actually changed something.
152 ** The locale language name 'ca' is now mapped to the language
153 environment 'Catalan', which has been added.
156 ** 'align-regexp' has a separate history for its interactive argument.
157 'align-regexp' no longer shares its history with all other
158 history-less functions that use 'read-string'.
161 ** The networking code has been reworked so that it's more
162 asynchronous than it was (when specifying :nowait t in
163 'make-network-process'). How asynchronous it is varies based on the
164 capabilities of the system, but on a typical GNU/Linux system the DNS
165 resolution, the connection, and (for TLS streams) the TLS negotiation
166 are all done without blocking the main Emacs thread. To get
167 asynchronous TLS, the TLS boot parameters have to be passed in (see
168 the manual for details).
170 Certain process oriented functions (like 'process-datagram-address')
171 will block until socket setup has been performed. The recommended way
172 to deal with asynchronous sockets is to avoid interacting with them
173 until they have changed status to "run". This is most easily done
174 from a process sentinel.
176 ** 'make-network-process' and 'open-network-stream' sometimes allowed
177 :service to be an integer string (e.g., :service "993") and sometimes
178 required an integer (e.g., :service 993). This difference has been
179 eliminated, and integer strings work everywhere.
181 ** It is possible to disable attempted recovery on fatal signals.
183 Two new variables support disabling attempts to recover from stack
184 overflow and to avoid automatic auto-save when Emacs is delivered a
185 fatal signal. 'attempt-stack-overflow-recovery', if set to 'nil',
186 will disable attempts to recover from C stack overflows; Emacs will
187 then crash as with any other fatal signal.
188 'attempt-orderly-shutdown-on-fatal-signal', if set to 'nil', will
189 disable attempts to auto-save the session and shut down in an orderly
190 fashion when Emacs receives a fatal signal; instead, Emacs will
191 terminate immediately. Both variables are non-'nil' by default.
192 These variables are for users who would like to avoid the small
193 probability of data corruption due to techniques Emacs uses to recover
197 ** File local and directory local variables are now initialized each
198 time the major mode is set, not just when the file is first visited.
199 These local variables will thus not vanish on setting a major mode.
202 ** A second dir-local file (.dir-locals-2.el) is now accepted.
203 See the variable 'dir-locals-file-2' for more information.
206 ** International domain names (IDNA) are now encoded via the new
207 puny.el library, so that one can visit web sites with non-ASCII URLs.
210 ** The new 'timer-list' command lists all active timers in a buffer,
211 where you can cancel them with the 'c' command.
214 ** The new function 'read-multiple-choice' prompts for multiple-choice
215 questions, with a handy way to display help texts.
218 ** 'switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point' now defaults to t.
221 ** The new variable 'debugger-stack-frame-as-list' allows displaying
222 all call stack frames in a Lisp backtrace buffer as lists. Both
223 debug.el and edebug.el have been updated to heed to this variable.
226 * Editing Changes in Emacs 26.1
229 ** New bindings for 'query-replace-map'.
230 'undo', undo the last replacement; bound to 'u'.
231 'undo-all', undo all replacements; bound to 'U'.
233 ** 'delete-trailing-whitespace' deletes whitespace after form feed.
234 In modes where form feed was treated as a whitespace character,
235 'delete-trailing-whitespace' would keep lines containing it unchanged.
236 It now deletes whitespace after the last form feed thus behaving the
237 same as in modes where the character is not whitespace.
239 ** No more prompt about changed file when the file's content is unchanged.
240 Instead of only checking the modification time, Emacs now also checks
241 the file's actual content before prompting the user.
244 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 26.1
249 *** A new command 'ibuffer-copy-buffername-as-kill'; bound
253 *** New command 'ibuffer-change-marks'; bound to '* c'.
256 *** A new command 'ibuffer-mark-by-locked' to mark
257 all locked buffers; bound to '% L'.
260 *** A new option 'ibuffer-locked-char' to indicate
261 locked buffers; Ibuffer shows a new column displaying
262 'ibuffer-locked-char' for locked buffers.
265 *** A new command 'ibuffer-unmark-all-marks' to unmark
266 all buffers without asking confirmation; bound to
267 'U'; 'ibuffer-do-replace-regexp' bound to 'r'.
270 *** A new command 'ibuffer-mark-by-content-regexp' to mark buffers
271 whose content matches a regexp; bound to '% g'.
274 *** Two new options 'ibuffer-never-search-content-name' and
275 'ibuffer-never-search-content-mode' used by
276 'ibuffer-mark-by-content-regexp'.
280 *** Support for opening links to man pages in Man or WoMan mode.
285 *** Messages from CMake are now recognized.
290 *** A new option 'dired-always-read-filesystem' default to nil.
291 If non-nil, buffers visiting files are reverted before search them;
292 for instance, in 'dired-mark-files-containing-regexp' a non-nil value
293 of this option means the file is revisited in a temporary buffer;
294 this temporary buffer is the actual buffer searched: the original buffer
295 visiting the file is not modified.
298 *** In wdired, when editing files to contain slash characters,
299 the resulting directories are automatically created. Whether to do
300 this is controlled by the 'wdired-create-parent-directories' variable.
303 *** 'W' is now bound to 'browse-url-of-dired-file', and is useful for
304 viewing HTML files and the like.
308 *** Edebug can be prevented from pausing 1 second after reaching a
309 breakpoint (e.g. with "f" and "o") by customizing the new option
310 'edebug-sit-on-break'.
314 *** 'eshell-input-filter's value is now a named function
315 'eshell-input-filter-default', and has a new custom option
316 'eshell-input-filter-initial-space' to ignore adding commands prefixed
317 with blank space to eshell history.
322 *** A new 's' command for switching to another eww buffer via the minibuffer.
325 *** The 'o' command ('shr-save-contents') has moved to 'O' to avoid collision
326 with the 'o' command from 'image-map'.
329 *** A new command 'C' ('eww-toggle-colors') can be used to toggle
330 whether to use the HTML-specified colors or not. The user can also
331 customize the 'shr-use-colors' variable.
334 *** Images that are being loaded are now marked with gray
335 "placeholder" images of the size specified by the HTML. They are then
336 replaced by the real images asynchronously, which will also now
337 respect width/height HTML specs (unless they specify widths/heights
338 bigger than the current window).
343 *** Images are automatically scaled before displaying based on the
344 'image-scaling-factor' variable (if Emacs supports scaling the images
348 *** Images inserted with 'insert-image' and related functions get a
349 keymap put into the text properties (or overlays) that span the
350 image. This keymap binds keystrokes for manipulating size and
351 rotation, as well as saving the image to a file. These commands are
352 also available in 'image-mode'.
355 *** A new library for creating and manipulating SVG images has been
356 added. See the "SVG Images" section in the lispref manual for
360 *** New setf-able function to access and set image parameters is
361 provided: 'image-property'.
364 ** The default 'Info-default-directory-list' no longer checks some obsolete
365 directory suffixes (gnu, gnu/lib, gnu/lib/emacs, emacs, lib, lib/emacs)
366 when searching for info directories.
369 ** The commands that add ChangeLog entries now prefer a VCS root directory
370 for the ChangeLog file, if none already exists. Customize
371 'change-log-directory-files' to nil for the old behavior.
374 ** Support for non-string values of 'time-stamp-format' has been removed.
379 *** 'message-use-idna' now defaults to t (because Emacs comes with
380 built-in IDNA support now).
383 *** When sending HTML messages with embedded images, and you have
384 exiftool installed, and you rotate images with EXIF data (i.e.,
385 JPEGs), the rotational information will be inserted into the outgoing
386 image in the message. (The original image will not have its
387 orientation affected.)
390 *** The 'message-valid-fqdn-regexp' variable has been removed, since
391 there are now top-level domains added all the time. Message will no
392 longer warn about sending emails to top-level domains it hasn't heard
395 *** 'message-beginning-of-line' (bound to C-a) understands folded headers.
396 In 'visual-line-mode' it will look for the true beginning of a header
397 while in non-'visual-line-mode' it will move the point to the indented
403 *** New connection method "sg", which supports editing files under a
407 *** New connection method "doas" for OpenBSD hosts.
410 *** New connection method "gdrive", which allows to access Google
411 Drive onsite repositories.
414 Setting the "ENV" environment variable in 'tramp-remote-process-environment'
415 enables reading of shell initialization files.
418 ** 'auto-revert-use-notify' is set back to t in 'global-auto-revert-mode'.
423 *** Support for completing attribute values, at-rules, bang-rules,
424 HTML tags, classes and IDs using the 'completion-at-point' command.
425 Completion candidates for HTML classes and IDs are retrieved from open
429 ** Emacs now supports character name escape sequences in character and
430 string literals. The syntax variants \N{character name} and
431 \N{U+code} are supported.
434 ** Prog mode has some support for multi-mode indentation.
435 This allows better indentation support in modes that support multiple
436 programming languages in the same buffer, like literate programming
437 environments or ANTLR programs with embedded Python code.
439 A major mode can provide indentation context for a sub-mode through
440 the 'prog-indentation-context' variable. To support this, modes that
441 provide indentation should use 'prog-widen' instead of 'widen' and
442 'prog-first-column' instead of a literal zero. See the node
443 "Mode-Specific Indent" in the ELisp manual for more details.
447 *** New variable 'erc-default-port-tls' used to connect to TLS IRC
453 *** The new function 'url-cookie-delete-cookie' can be used to
454 programmatically delete all cookies, or cookies from a specific
458 *** 'url-retrieve-synchronously' now takes an optional timeout parameter.
461 *** The URL package now support HTTPS over proxies supporting CONNECT.
464 *** 'url-user-agent' now defaults to 'default', and the User-Agent
465 string is computed dynamically based on 'url-privacy-level'.
467 ** VC and related modes
470 *** The VC state indicator in the mode line now defaults to more
471 colorful faces to make it more obvious to the user what the state is.
472 See the 'vc-faces' customization group.
476 *** Opening a .h file will turn C or C++ mode depending on language used.
477 This is done with the help of 'c-or-c++-mode' function which analyses
478 contents of the buffer to determine whether it's a C or C++ source
482 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 26.1
484 ** New Elisp data-structure library 'radix-tree'.
487 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 26.1
490 ** Resizing a frame no longer runs 'window-configuration-change-hook'.
491 Put your function on 'window-size-change-functions' instead.
493 ** 'C-up', 'C-down', 'C-left' and 'C-right' are now defined in term
494 mode to send the same escape sequences that xterm does. This makes
495 things like forward-word in readline work.
498 ** hideshow mode got four key bindings that are analogous to outline
499 mode bindings: 'C-c @ C-a', 'C-c @ C-t', 'C-c @ C-d', and 'C-c @ C-e.'
501 ** The grep/rgrep/lgrep functions will now ask about saving files
502 before running. This is controlled by the 'grep-save-buffers'
506 ** The variable 'text-quoting-style' no longer affects the treatment
507 of curved quotes in format arguments to functions like 'message' and
508 'format-message'. In particular, when this variable's value is
509 'grave', all quotes in formats are output as-is.
511 ** Functions like 'check-declare-file' and 'check-declare-directory'
512 now generate less chatter and more-compact diagnostics. The auxiliary
513 function 'check-declare-errmsg' has been removed.
516 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 26.1
518 ** New function 'undo-amalgamate-change-group' to get rid of
519 undo-boundaries between two states.
521 ** New var 'definition-prefixes' is a hashtable mapping prefixes to the
522 files where corresponding definitions can be found. This can be used
523 to fetch definitions that are not yet loaded, for example for 'C-h f'.
525 ** New var 'syntax-ppss-table' to control the syntax-table used in
529 ** 'define-derived-mode' can now specify an :after-hook form, which
530 gets evaluated after the new mode's hook has run. This can be used to
531 incorporate configuration changes made in the mode hook into the
534 ** Autoload files can be generated without timestamps,
535 by setting 'autoload-timestamps' to nil.
536 FIXME As an experiment, nil is the current default.
537 If no insurmountable problems before next release, it can stay that way.
540 ** 'gnutls-boot' now takes a parameter ':complete-negotiation' that
541 says that negotiation should complete even on non-blocking sockets.
544 ** New functions 'window-pixel-width-before-size-change' and
545 'window-pixel-height-before-size-change' support detecting which
546 window changed size when 'window-size-change-functions' are run.
549 ** New function 'display-buffer-reuse-mode-window' is an action function
550 suitable for use in 'display-buffer-alist'. For example, to avoid creating
551 a new window when opening man pages when there's already one, use
552 (add-to-list 'display-buffer-alist
553 '("\\`\\*Man .*\\*\\'" .
554 (display-buffer-reuse-mode-window
555 (inhibit-same-window . nil)
559 ** There is now a new variable 'flyspell-sort-corrections-function'
560 that allows changing the way corrections are sorted.
563 ** The new command 'fortune-message' has been added, which displays
564 fortunes in the echo area.
567 ** New function 'func-arity' returns information about the argument list
568 of an arbitrary function. This generalizes 'subr-arity' for functions
569 that are not built-in primitives. We recommend using this new
570 function instead of 'subr-arity'.
573 ** 'parse-partial-sexp' state has a new element. Element 10 is
574 non-nil when the last character scanned might be the first character
575 of a two character construct, i.e., a comment delimiter or escaped
576 character. Its value is the syntax of that last character.
579 ** 'parse-partial-sexp's state, element 9, has now been confirmed as
580 permanent and documented, and may be used by Lisp programs. Its value
581 is a list of currently open parenthesis positions, starting with the
582 outermost parenthesis.
585 ** 'read-color' will now display the color names using the color itself
586 as the background color.
588 ** The function 'redirect-debugging-output' now works on platforms
589 other than GNU/Linux.
592 ** The new function 'string-version-lessp' compares strings by
593 interpreting consecutive runs of numerical characters as numbers, and
594 compares their numerical values. According to this predicate,
595 "foo2.png" is smaller than "foo12.png".
598 ** The new function 'char-from-name' converts a Unicode name string
599 to the corresponding character code.
602 ** New functions 'sxhash-eq' and 'sxhash-eql' return hash codes of a
603 Lisp object suitable for use with 'eq' and 'eql' correspondingly. If
604 two objects are 'eq' ('eql'), then the result of 'sxhash-eq'
605 ('sxhash-eql') on them will be the same.
608 ** Function 'sxhash' has been renamed to 'sxhash-equal' for
609 consistency with the new functions. For compatibility, 'sxhash'
610 remains as an alias to 'sxhash-equal'.
613 ** Time conversion functions that accept a time zone rule argument now
614 allow it to be OFFSET or a list (OFFSET ABBR), where the integer
615 OFFSET is a count of seconds east of Universal Time, and the string
616 ABBR is a time zone abbreviation. The affected functions are
617 'current-time-string', 'current-time-zone', 'decode-time',
618 'format-time-string', and 'set-time-zone-rule'.
620 ** New built-in function 'mapcan' which avoids unnecessary consing (and garbage
624 ** The new functions 'make-nearby-temp-file' and 'temporary-file-directory'
625 can be used for creation of temporary files of remote or mounted directories.
628 ** The new error 'file-missing', a subcategory of 'file-error', is now
629 signaled instead of 'file-error' if a file operation acts on a file
633 ** The function 'delete-directory' no longer signals an error when
634 operating recursively and when some other process deletes the directory
635 or its files before 'delete-directory' gets to them.
637 ** Changes in Frame- and Window- Handling
640 *** Support for side windows is now official. The display action
641 function 'display-buffer-in-side-window' will display its buffer in a
642 side window. Functions for toggling all side windows on a frame,
643 changing and reversing the layout of side windows and returning the main
644 (major non-side) window of a frame are provided. For details consult
645 the section "Side Windows" in the Elisp manual.
648 *** Support for atomic windows - rectangular compositions of windows
649 treated by 'split-window', 'delete-window' and 'delete-other-windows'
650 like a single live window - is now official. For details consult the
651 section "Atomic Windows" in the Elisp manual.
654 *** New 'display-buffer' alist entry 'window-parameters' allows to
655 assign window parameters to the window used for displaying the buffer.
658 *** New window parameter 'no-delete-other-window' prevents that
659 its window gets deleted by 'delete-other-windows'.
662 *** New command 'window-swap-states' swaps the states of two live
666 * Changes in Emacs 26.1 on Non-Free Operating Systems
668 ** Intercepting hotkeys on Windows 7 and later now works better.
669 The new keyboard hooking code properly grabs system hotkeys such as
670 Win-* and Alt-TAB, in a way that Emacs can get at them before the
671 system. This makes the 'w32-register-hot-key' functionality work
672 again on all versions of MS-Windows starting with Windows 7. On
673 Windows NT and later you can now register any hotkey combination. (On
674 Windows 9X, the previous limitations, spelled out in the Emacs manual,
677 ** 'convert-standard-filename' no longer mirrors slashes on MS-Windows.
678 Previously, on MS-Windows this function converted slash characters in
679 file names into backslashes. It no longer does that. If your Lisp
680 program used 'convert-standard-filename' to prepare file names to be
681 passed to subprocesses (which is not the recommended usage of that
682 function), you will now have to mirror slashes in your application
683 code. One possible way is this:
686 (while (string-match "/" file-name start)
687 (aset file-name (match-beginning 0) ?\\)
688 (setq start (match-end 0))))
690 ** GUI sessions now treat SIGINT like Posix platforms do.
691 The effect of delivering a Ctrl-C (SIGINT) signal to a GUI Emacs on
692 MS-Windows is now the same as on Posix platforms -- Emacs saves the
693 session and exits. In particular, this will happen if you start
694 emacs.exe from the Windows shell, then type Ctrl-C into that shell's
698 ** 'signal-process' supports SIGTRAP on Windows XP and later.
699 The 'kill' emulation on Windows now maps SIGTRAP to a call to the
700 'DebugBreakProcess' API. This causes the receiving process to break
701 execution and return control to the debugger. If no debugger is
702 attached to the receiving process, the call is typically ignored.
703 This is in contrast to the default action on POSIX Systems, where it
704 causes the receiving process to terminate with a core dump if no
705 debugger has been attached to it.
708 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
709 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
711 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
712 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
713 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
714 (at your option) any later version.
716 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
717 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
718 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
719 GNU General Public License for more details.
721 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
722 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
728 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"