1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 For older news, see the file ONEWS
8 You can narrow news to the specific version by calling
9 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
12 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
13 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
14 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
15 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
17 Fixme: The notes about Emacs 23 are quite incomplete.
20 * Changes in Emacs 23.1
22 ** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
23 (It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).
25 The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
26 Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs'. utf-8-emacs is backwards
27 compatible with the UTF-8 encoding of Unicode. The `emacs-mule'
28 coding system can still read and write data in the old internal
31 There are still charsets which contain disjoint sets of characters
32 where this is necessary or useful, especially for various Far Eastern
33 sets which are problematic with Unicode.
35 Since the internal encoding is also used by default for byte-compiled
36 files -- i.e. the normal coding system for byte-compiled Lisp files is
37 now utf-8-Emacs -- Lisp containing non-ASCII characters which is
38 compiled by Emacs 23 can't be read by earlier versions of Emacs. Files
39 compiled by Emacs 20, 21, or 22 are loaded correctly as emacs-mule
40 (whether or not they contain multibyte characters), which makes loading
41 them somewhat slower than Emacs 23-compiled files. Thus it may be worth
42 recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be shared with older
45 ** There are assorted new coding systems/aliases -- see
46 M-x list-coding-systems.
48 ** New charset implementation with many new charsets.
49 See M-x list-character-sets. New charsets can be defined conveniently
50 as tables of unicodes.
52 The dimension of a charset is now 0, 1, 2, or 3, and the size of each
53 dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.
55 Generic characters no longer exist.
57 A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
58 unicodes for display &c.
60 ** The following facilities are obsolete:
62 Minor modes: unify-8859-on-encoding-mode, unify-8859-on-decoding-mode
65 * Lisp changes in Emacs 23.1
67 map-char-table's behaviour has changed.
69 New functions: characterp, max-char, map-charset-chars,
70 define-charset-alias, primary-charset, set-primary-charset,
71 unify-charset, clear-charset-maps, charset-priority-list,
72 set-charset-priority, define-coding-system,
73 define-coding-system-alias, coding-system-aliases, langinfo,
76 Changed functions: copy-sequence, decode-char, encode-char,
77 set-fontset-font, new-fontset, modify-syntax-entry, define-charset,
80 Obsoleted: char-bytes, chars-in-region, set-coding-priority,
84 * Incompatible Lisp changes
86 Deleted functions: make-coding-system, register-char-codings,
89 ** The character codes for characters from the
90 eight-bit-control/eight-bit-graphic charsets aren't now in the range
93 * Installation Changes in Emacs 22.1
96 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
97 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
101 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
104 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
105 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.4 or newer. This port
106 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
109 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with Lisp code.
112 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
113 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
114 place for game scores to be stored. You can control this with the
115 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
116 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
117 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
118 in each user's home directory.
121 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
122 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
126 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
128 The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual in Info format is built as part of the
129 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
130 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
131 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
134 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
137 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
138 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
139 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
140 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
143 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the
144 following languages: Brasilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese (both
145 with simplified and traditional characters), French, and Italian.
146 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose one of them in case your language setup
147 doesn't automatically select the right one.
150 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
153 ** Emacs now includes support for loading image libraries on demand.
154 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
155 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
156 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
159 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
162 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
165 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
168 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
169 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
172 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
175 ** Mac OS 9 port now uses the Carbon API by default. You can also
176 create non-Carbon build by specifying `NonCarbon' as a target. See
177 the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
180 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
181 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
184 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
185 much pure storage it will approximately need.
187 ** The script etc/emacs-buffer.gdb can be used with gdb to retrieve the
188 contents of buffers from a core dump and save them to files easily, should
192 ** The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el uses a different terminfo name.
193 The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el now uses "eterm-color" as its
194 terminfo name, since term.el now supports color.
197 ** Emacs Lisp source files are compressed by default if `gzip' is available.
200 * Startup Changes in Emacs 22.1
203 ** New command line option -Q or --quick.
204 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
205 the fancy startup screen.
208 ** New command line option -D or --basic-display.
209 Disables the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, and
213 ** New command line option -nbc or --no-blinking-cursor disables
214 the blinking cursor on graphical terminals.
217 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
218 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
219 can start with this line:
221 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
224 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
225 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
226 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
228 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
230 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
231 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
234 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
235 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
238 ** If the environment variable DISPLAY specifies an unreachable X display,
239 Emacs will now startup as if invoked with the --no-window-system option.
242 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
243 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
244 an interactively callable function.
247 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
248 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
249 affects the initial frame.
252 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
253 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
254 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
255 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
256 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
259 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
260 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
261 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
262 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
263 `inhibit-splash-screen').
266 ** The default is now to use a bitmap as the icon, so the command-line options
267 --icon-type, -i has been replaced with options --no-bitmap-icon, -nbi to turn
271 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
272 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
273 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
277 If the init file ~/.emacs does not exist, Emacs will try
278 ~/.emacs.d/init.el or ~/.emacs.d/init.elc. You can also put the shell
279 init file .emacs_SHELL under ~/.emacs.d.
282 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
283 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
284 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
285 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
286 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
288 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
291 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
292 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
293 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
294 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
297 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
298 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
300 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
301 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
304 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
305 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
306 the operating system or your X server.
309 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
312 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
313 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
317 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
318 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
321 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
322 previous mark if you set `set-mark-command-repeat-pop' to t. I.e. C-u
323 C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC
324 to set the mark immediately after a jump.
327 ** The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
328 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
331 ** In incremental search, C-w is changed. M-%, C-M-w and C-M-y are special.
333 See below under "incremental search changes".
336 ** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
338 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
339 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
340 directory with Dired.
342 You can get the old behavior by typing C-x C-f M-n RET, which fetches
343 the actual file name into the minibuffer.
346 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
347 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
348 it remains unchanged.
351 ** When Emacs prompts for file names, SPC no longer completes the file name.
352 This is so filenames with embedded spaces could be input without the
353 need to quote the space with a C-q. The underlying changes in the
354 keymaps that are active in the minibuffer are described below under
355 "New keymaps for typing file names".
358 ** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
359 M-o M-o requests refontification.
362 ** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
364 See below for more details.
367 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
368 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
369 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
370 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
371 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
372 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
374 * Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
377 ** !MEM FULL! at the start of the mode line indicates that Emacs
378 cannot get any more memory for Lisp data. This often means it could
379 crash soon if you do things that use more memory. On most systems,
380 killing buffers will get out of this state. If killing buffers does
381 not make !MEM FULL! disappear, you should save your work and start
385 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
386 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
389 ** You can now switch buffers in a cyclic order with C-x C-left
390 (previous-buffer) and C-x C-right (next-buffer). C-x left and
391 C-x right can be used as well. The functions keep a different buffer
392 cycle for each frame, using the frame-local buffer list.
395 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
398 ** M-SPC (just-one-space) when given a numeric argument N
399 converts whitespace around point to N spaces.
402 ** C-x 5 C-o displays a specified buffer in another frame
403 but does not switch to that frame. It's the multi-frame
404 analogue of C-x 4 C-o.
407 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
408 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
411 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
412 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
415 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
416 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
417 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
418 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
421 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
422 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
423 in Indented-Text mode.
426 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variable references.
428 Substrings of the form `$foo' and `${foo}' in the specified new value
429 now refer to the value of environment variable foo. To include a `$'
430 in the value, use `$$'.
433 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
434 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
438 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
441 ** The command `list-faces-display' now accepts a prefix arg.
442 When passed, the function prompts for a regular expression and lists
443 only faces matching this regexp.
445 ** Mark command changes:
448 *** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
449 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
450 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
453 *** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times.
455 If you type C-M-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h
456 (mark-paragraph), or C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region
457 extends each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC
458 M-C-SPC, for example. This feature also works for
459 mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to a key. It also extends the
460 region when the mark is active in Transient Mark mode, regardless of
461 the last command. To start a new region with one of marking commands
462 in Transient Mark mode, you can deactivate the active region with C-g,
463 or set the new mark with C-SPC.
466 *** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
468 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
469 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
473 *** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
474 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
475 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
476 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
477 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
480 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
481 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
482 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
485 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
486 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
487 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
491 *** Movement commands `beginning-of-buffer', `end-of-buffer',
492 `beginning-of-defun', `end-of-defun' do not set the mark if the mark
493 is already active in Transient Mark mode.
495 ** Help command changes:
498 *** Changes in C-h bindings:
500 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
502 C-h d runs apropos-documentation.
504 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
507 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
508 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
510 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
511 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
513 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
514 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
515 run by the key sequence.
516 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
517 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
520 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
521 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
522 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
523 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
524 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
525 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
526 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
527 new-kill-line is on C-k
530 *** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
531 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
532 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
533 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
536 *** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
537 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
540 *** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
541 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
542 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
543 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
544 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
545 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
546 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node'). In
547 addition, it now makes hyperlinks to URLs as well if the URL is
548 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `URL'.
551 *** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
552 description various information about a character, including its
553 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
554 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
555 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
558 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
559 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
562 *** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
563 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
564 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
565 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
566 keyboard oriented alternative.
569 *** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
570 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
571 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
572 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
573 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
576 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
577 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
578 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
582 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
583 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
584 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
585 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
586 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
589 ** Incremental Search changes:
592 *** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
593 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
594 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
595 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
599 *** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
600 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
601 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
602 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
605 *** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
606 at the end of a line.
609 *** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
610 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
611 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
614 *** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
615 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
616 search string used as the string to replace.
619 *** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
620 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
621 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
623 ** Replace command changes:
626 *** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
627 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
628 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
631 *** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
632 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
633 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
634 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
635 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
636 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
637 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
638 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
639 can be edited for each replacement.
642 *** query-replace uses isearch lazy highlighting when the new user option
643 `query-replace-lazy-highlight' is non-nil.
646 *** The current match in query-replace is highlighted in new face
647 `query-replace' which by default inherits from isearch face.
649 ** Local variables lists:
652 *** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
653 suffix from every line before processing all the lines.
656 *** Text properties in local variables.
658 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
659 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
662 *** If the local variables list contains any variable-value pairs that
663 are not known to be safe, Emacs shows a prompt asking whether to apply
664 the local variables list as a whole. In earlier versions, a prompt
665 was only issued for variables explicitly marked as risky (for the
666 definition of risky variables, see `risky-local-variable-p').
668 At the prompt, you can choose to save the contents of this local
669 variables list to `safe-local-variable-values'. This new customizable
670 option is a list of variable-value pairs that are known to be safe.
671 Variables can also be marked as safe with the existing
672 `safe-local-variable' property (see `safe-local-variable-p').
673 However, risky variables will not be added to
674 `safe-local-variable-values' in this way.
677 *** The variable `enable-local-variables' controls how local variable
678 lists are handled. t, the default, specifies the standard querying
679 behavior. :safe means use only safe values, and ignore the rest.
680 nil means ignore them all. Anything else means always query.
683 *** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
684 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
685 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
686 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
690 *** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
691 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
692 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
693 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
694 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
695 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
697 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
698 confirmation as before.
700 ** File operation changes:
703 *** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
704 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
705 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
706 is only rarely needed.
709 *** find-file-read-only visits multiple files in read-only mode,
710 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
713 *** find-alternate-file replaces the current file with multiple files,
714 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
717 *** Auto Compression mode is now enabled by default.
720 *** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
722 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
723 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
724 directory with Dired.
727 *** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
728 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
729 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
733 *** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
734 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
737 *** The commands copy-file, rename-file, make-symbolic-link and
738 add-name-to-file, when given a directory as the "new name" argument,
739 convert it to a file name by merging in the within-directory part of
740 the existing file's name. (This is the same convention that shell
741 commands cp, mv, and ln follow.) Thus, M-x copy-file RET ~/foo RET
742 /tmp RET copies ~/foo to /tmp/foo.
745 *** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
746 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
747 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
750 *** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
751 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
752 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
755 *** The new option `write-region-inhibit-fsync' disables calls to fsync
756 in `write-region'. This can be useful on laptops to avoid spinning up
757 the hard drive upon each file save. Enabling this variable may result
758 in data loss, use with care.
761 *** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
762 Emacs asks for confirmation.
765 *** require-final-newline now has two new possible values:
767 `visit' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's needed
768 when visiting the file.
770 `visit-save' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's
771 needed when visiting the file, and also add a newline if it's needed
772 when saving the file.
775 *** The new option mode-require-final-newline controls how certain
776 major modes enable require-final-newline. Any major mode that's
777 designed for a kind of file that should normally end in a newline
778 sets require-final-newline based on mode-require-final-newline.
779 So you can customize mode-require-final-newline to control what these
782 ** Minibuffer changes:
785 *** The new file-name-shadow-mode is turned ON by default, so that when
786 entering a file name, any prefix which Emacs will ignore is dimmed.
789 *** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
790 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
791 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
795 *** Enhanced visual feedback in `*Completions*' buffer.
797 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
798 have in common and where they begin to differ.
800 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
801 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
802 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
803 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
804 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
805 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
806 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
807 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
809 Above fontification is always done when listing completions is
810 triggered at minibuffer. If you want to fontify completions whose
811 listing is triggered at the other normal buffer, you have to pass
812 the common prefix of completions to `display-completion-list' as
816 *** File-name completion can now ignore specified directories.
817 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
818 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
819 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
820 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
821 candidate is a directory.
824 *** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
825 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
826 it remains unchanged.
829 *** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
830 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
831 elements are deleted.
833 ** Redisplay changes:
836 *** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
837 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
838 appears between the position information and the major mode.
841 *** New face `escape-glyph' highlights control characters and escape glyphs.
844 *** Non-breaking space and hyphens are now displayed with a special
845 face, either nobreak-space or escape-glyph. You can turn this off or
846 specify a different mode by setting the variable `nobreak-char-display'.
849 *** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
850 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
851 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
852 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
854 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
855 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
856 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
857 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
858 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
859 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
861 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
862 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
865 *** Moving or scrolling through images (and other lines) taller than
866 the window now works sensibly, by automatically adjusting the window's
870 *** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
871 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
872 the mode line of the currently selected window.
874 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
875 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
878 *** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
879 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
880 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
881 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
885 *** Angle icons in the fringes can indicate the buffer boundaries. In
886 addition, up and down arrow bitmaps in the fringe indicate which ways
887 the window can be scrolled.
889 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
890 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
891 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
893 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
894 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
896 The value can also be an alist which specifies the presence and
897 position of each bitmap individually.
899 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
900 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
901 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
902 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
905 *** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
906 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
907 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
908 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
909 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
911 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' can be set to nil to
912 revert to the old behavior of continuing such lines.
915 *** When a window has display margin areas, the fringes are now
916 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
917 outside those margins.
920 *** A window can now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
921 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
923 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
924 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
925 or when the frame is resized.
927 ** Cursor display changes:
930 *** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
931 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
934 *** The X resource cursorBlink can be used to turn off cursor blinking.
937 *** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
938 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
939 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
943 *** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
944 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
948 *** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
949 of the recognized cursor types.
952 *** On text terminals, the variable `visible-cursor' controls whether Emacs
953 uses the "very visible" cursor (the default) or the normal cursor.
958 *** `mode-line-highlight' is the standard face indicating mouse sensitive
959 elements on mode-line (and header-line) like `highlight' face on text
962 *** `mode-line-buffer-id' is the standard face for buffer identification
963 parts of the mode line.
966 *** `shadow' face defines the appearance of the "shadowed" text, i.e.
967 the text which should be less noticeable than the surrounding text.
968 This can be achieved by using shades of grey in contrast with either
969 black or white default foreground color. This generic shadow face
970 allows customization of the appearance of shadowed text in one place,
971 so package-specific faces can inherit from it.
974 *** `vertical-border' face is used for the vertical divider between windows.
976 ** Font-Lock changes:
979 *** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
980 M-o M-o requests refontification.
983 *** All modes now support using M-x font-lock-mode to toggle
984 fontification, even those such as Occur, Info, and comint-derived
985 modes that do their own fontification in a special way.
987 The variable `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable
988 fontification in Info, remove `turn-on-font-lock' from
992 *** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
993 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
994 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
995 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
996 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
999 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
1002 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-comment-delimiter-face'.
1005 *** Easy to overlook single character negation can now be font-locked.
1006 You can use the new variable `font-lock-negation-char-face' and the face of
1007 the same name to customize this. Currently the cc-modes, sh-script-mode,
1008 cperl-mode and make-mode support this.
1011 *** The default settings for JIT stealth lock parameters are changed.
1012 The default value for the user option jit-lock-stealth-time is now 16
1013 instead of 3, and the default value of jit-lock-stealth-nice is now
1014 0.5 instead of 0.125. The new defaults should lower the CPU usage
1015 when Emacs is fontifying in the background.
1018 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
1020 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
1021 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
1022 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
1023 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
1026 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
1028 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
1029 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
1030 refontification takes place.
1035 *** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
1036 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
1037 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
1038 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
1039 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
1040 current date and time, current line and column number in the mode-line.
1043 *** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
1046 *** You can exit dialog windows and menus by typing C-g.
1049 *** The menu item "Open File..." has been split into two items, "New File..."
1050 and "Open File...". "Open File..." now opens only existing files. This is
1051 to support existing GUI file selection dialogs better.
1054 *** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, Mac, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
1055 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
1058 *** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
1059 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+, Mac and W32).
1062 *** The Lucid menus can display multilingual text in your locale. You have
1063 to explicitly specify a fontSet resource for this to work, for example
1064 `-xrm "Emacs*fontSet: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,*"'.
1067 *** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif now pops down when pressing
1068 ESC, like they do for Gtk+, Mac and W32.
1071 *** For the Gtk+ version, you can make Emacs use the old file dialog
1072 by setting the variable `x-use-old-gtk-file-dialog' to t. Default is to use
1078 *** If you set the new variable `mouse-autoselect-window' to a non-nil
1079 value, windows are automatically selected as you move the mouse from
1080 one Emacs window to another, even within a frame. A minibuffer window
1081 can be selected only when it is active.
1084 *** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
1085 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
1086 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
1087 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
1088 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
1092 *** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
1094 Traditionally, Emacs uses a Mouse-1 click to set point and a Mouse-2
1095 click to follow a link, whereas most other applications use a Mouse-1
1096 click for both purposes, depending on whether you click outside or
1097 inside a link. Now the behavior of a Mouse-1 click has been changed
1098 to match this context-sentitive dual behavior. (If you prefer the old
1099 behavior, set the user option `mouse-1-click-follows-link' to nil.)
1101 Depending on the current mode, a Mouse-2 click in Emacs can do much
1102 more than just follow a link, so the new Mouse-1 behavior is only
1103 activated for modes which explicitly mark a clickable text as a "link"
1104 (see the new function `mouse-on-link-p' for details). The Lisp
1105 packages that are included in release 22.1 have been adapted to do
1106 this, but external packages may not yet support this. However, there
1107 is no risk in using such packages, as the worst thing that could
1108 happen is that you get the original Mouse-1 behavior when you click
1109 on a link, which typically means that you set point where you click.
1111 If you want to get the original Mouse-1 action also inside a link, you
1112 just need to press the Mouse-1 button a little longer than a normal
1113 click (i.e. press and hold the Mouse-1 button for half a second before
1116 Dragging the Mouse-1 inside a link still performs the original
1117 drag-mouse-1 action, typically copy the text.
1119 You can customize the new Mouse-1 behavior via the new user options
1120 `mouse-1-click-follows-link' and `mouse-1-click-in-non-selected-windows'.
1123 *** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
1124 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
1125 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
1126 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
1127 also disable mouse highlighting.
1130 *** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
1131 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
1132 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
1135 *** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1136 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1139 *** Emacs ignores mouse-2 clicks while the mouse wheel is being moved.
1141 People tend to push the mouse wheel (which counts as a mouse-2 click)
1142 unintentionally while turning the wheel, so these clicks are now
1143 ignored. You can customize this with the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1144 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1147 *** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
1149 ** Multilingual Environment (Mule) changes:
1152 *** Language environment and various default coding systems are setup
1153 more correctly according to the current locale name. If the locale
1154 name doesn't specify a charset, the default is what glibc defines.
1155 This change can result in using the different coding systems as
1156 default in some locale (e.g. vi_VN).
1159 *** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1160 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1161 can mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1162 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1163 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1164 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1165 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1166 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1169 *** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
1170 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
1173 *** New command `recode-region' decodes the region again by a specified
1177 *** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
1181 *** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
1185 *** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
1186 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
1187 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
1191 *** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
1192 in the current input method to input a character at point.
1195 *** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
1196 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
1197 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
1198 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
1199 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
1200 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
1201 mule-unicode-... ones.
1203 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
1204 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
1205 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
1208 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
1209 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
1210 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
1211 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
1212 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
1215 *** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
1216 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
1217 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
1218 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
1221 *** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
1222 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
1223 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
1224 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
1225 automatically according to the locale.)
1228 *** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
1229 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
1230 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
1231 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
1232 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
1236 *** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
1240 *** Improved Thai support. A new minor mode `thai-word-mode' (which is
1241 automatically activated if you select Thai as a language
1242 environment) changes key bindings of most word-oriented commands to
1243 versions which recognize Thai words. Affected commands are
1247 M-DEL (backward-kill-word)
1248 M-t (transpose-words)
1249 M-q (fill-paragraph)
1252 *** Indian support has been updated.
1253 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
1254 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
1255 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
1259 *** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
1262 *** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
1263 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
1264 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
1265 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
1266 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
1267 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
1268 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
1269 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
1270 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
1271 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
1272 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
1273 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
1276 *** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
1277 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
1278 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
1281 *** Many new coding systems are available in the `code-pages' library.
1282 These include complete versions of most of those in codepage.el, based
1283 on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now obsolete and is used
1284 only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. All coding systems defined in
1285 `code-pages' are auto-loaded.
1288 *** New variable `utf-translate-cjk-unicode-range' controls which
1289 Unicode characters to translate in `utf-translate-cjk-mode'.
1292 *** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
1293 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
1294 fontset appropriately.
1296 ** Customize changes:
1299 *** Custom themes are collections of customize options. Create a
1300 custom theme with M-x customize-create-theme. Use M-x load-theme to
1301 load and enable a theme, and M-x disable-theme to disable it. Use M-x
1302 enable-theme to enable a disabled theme.
1305 *** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
1306 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
1307 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
1311 *** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1312 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1313 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1314 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1315 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1316 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1317 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1320 *** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1321 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1322 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1323 under the "[State]" button.
1325 ** Buffer Menu changes:
1328 *** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
1329 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to T in Buffer Menu
1333 *** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1334 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1335 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1338 *** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
1339 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
1340 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
1342 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
1343 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
1344 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
1345 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
1346 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
1348 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
1349 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
1350 t, and the status is shown.
1352 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
1353 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
1358 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
1359 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
1360 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
1363 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
1364 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
1367 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
1368 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
1371 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
1372 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
1373 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
1374 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
1375 double quotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
1376 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
1379 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
1380 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
1383 *** In Dired-x, Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode.
1385 The mode toggling command is bound to M-o. A new command
1386 dired-mark-omitted, bound to * O, marks omitted files. The variable
1387 dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the mode toggling function
1391 *** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1392 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1393 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1394 directory listing into a buffer.
1399 *** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
1400 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
1401 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
1402 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
1403 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
1405 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
1406 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
1408 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
1409 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
1410 lines, including any prompts.
1412 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
1413 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
1414 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
1415 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
1416 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
1417 `kill-region' if read-only properties are involved: it copies the text
1418 to the kill-ring, but does not delete it.
1421 *** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1422 modes (shell-mode, etc.) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1423 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1424 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1427 *** `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' has been renamed
1428 `comint-use-prompt-regexp'. The old name has been kept as an alias,
1429 but declared obsolete.
1431 ** M-x Compile changes:
1434 *** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
1436 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
1437 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
1438 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
1439 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
1441 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
1442 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
1443 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
1445 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
1446 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
1447 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
1448 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
1449 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
1451 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
1454 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1455 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1456 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1457 subprocesses inherit.
1460 *** New user option `compilation-disable-input'.
1461 If this is non-nil, send end-of-file as compilation process input.
1464 *** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
1465 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
1466 in new face `next-error'.
1469 *** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
1470 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
1471 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
1472 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
1473 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
1477 *** When the left fringe is displayed, an arrow points to current message in
1478 the compilation buffer.
1481 *** The new variable `compilation-context-lines' controls lines of leading
1482 context before the current message. If nil and the left fringe is displayed,
1483 it doesn't scroll the compilation output window. If there is no left fringe,
1484 no arrow is displayed and a value of nil means display the message at the top
1487 ** Occur mode changes:
1490 *** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1491 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1495 *** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
1496 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
1499 *** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
1500 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
1501 `multi-occur-in-matching-buffers' which allows you to specify the
1502 buffers to search by their filenames or buffer names. Internally,
1503 Occur mode has been rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other
1509 *** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1511 There's a new separate package grep.el, with its own submenu and
1512 customization group.
1515 *** `grep-find' is now also available under the name `find-grep' where
1516 people knowing `find-grep-dired' would probably expect it.
1519 *** New commands `lgrep' (local grep) and `rgrep' (recursive grep) are
1520 more user-friendly versions of `grep' and `grep-find', which prompt
1521 separately for the regular expression to match, the files to search,
1522 and the base directory for the search (rgrep only). Case sensitivitivy
1523 of the search is controlled by the current value of `case-fold-search'.
1525 These commands build the shell commands based on the new variables
1526 `grep-template' (lgrep) and `grep-find-template' (rgrep).
1528 The files to search can use aliases defined in `grep-files-aliases'.
1530 Subdirectories listed in `grep-find-ignored-directories' such as those
1531 typically used by various version control systems, like CVS and arch,
1532 are automatically skipped by `rgrep'.
1535 *** The grep commands provide highlighting support.
1537 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
1538 can be saved and automatically revisited.
1541 *** The new variables `grep-window-height' and `grep-scroll-output' override
1542 the corresponding compilation mode settings, for grep commands only.
1545 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlights matches in *grep*
1546 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
1547 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
1548 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
1549 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
1550 source line is highlighted.
1553 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1554 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1555 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1556 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1557 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1558 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1562 *** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1563 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1564 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1565 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1566 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1567 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1569 ** X Windows Support:
1572 *** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
1573 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
1574 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
1577 *** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1578 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1579 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1580 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1582 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1583 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1586 *** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which can
1587 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
1589 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
1590 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
1593 *** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
1594 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
1595 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
1596 and use the more appropriately result.
1599 *** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
1600 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
1601 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
1606 *** If you enable Xterm Mouse mode, Emacs will respond to mouse clicks
1607 on the mode line, header line and display margin, when run in an xterm.
1610 *** Improved key bindings support when running in an xterm.
1611 When emacs is running in an xterm more key bindings are available. The
1612 following should work:
1613 {C,S,C-S,A}-{right,left,up,down,prior,next,delete,insert,F1-12}.
1614 These key bindings work on xterm from X.org 6.8, they might not work on
1615 some older versions of xterm, or on some proprietary versions.
1617 ** Character terminal color support changes:
1620 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1621 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1622 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1623 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1624 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1625 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1626 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1627 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1628 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1631 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1632 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1633 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1634 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1635 all of these colors.
1638 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1639 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1640 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1641 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1645 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1647 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1
1649 ** ERC is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1651 ERC is a powerful, modular, and extensible IRC client for Emacs.
1653 To see what modules are available, type
1654 M-x customize-option erc-modules RET.
1656 To start an IRC session, type M-x erc-select, and follow the prompts
1657 for server, port, and nick.
1660 ** Rcirc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1662 Rcirc is an Internet relay chat (IRC) client. It supports
1663 simultaneous connections to multiple IRC servers. Each discussion
1664 takes place in its own buffer. For each connection you can join
1665 several channels (many-to-many) and participate in private
1666 (one-to-one) chats. Both channel and private chats are contained in
1669 To start an IRC session, type M-x irc, and follow the prompts for
1670 server, port, nick and initial channels.
1673 ** Newsticker is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1675 Newsticker asynchronously retrieves headlines (RSS) from a list of news
1676 sites, prepares these headlines for reading, and allows for loading the
1677 corresponding articles in a web browser. Its documentation is in a
1681 ** savehist saves minibuffer histories between sessions.
1682 To use this feature, turn on savehist-mode in your `.emacs' file.
1685 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
1686 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
1687 program files that include other program files.
1689 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
1690 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
1694 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1696 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1697 Emacs Lisp. The prefix for Calc has been changed to `C-x *' and Calc
1698 can be started with `C-x * *'. The Calc manual is separate from the
1699 Emacs manual; within Emacs, type "C-h i m calc RET" to read the
1700 manual. A reference card is available in `etc/calccard.tex' and
1704 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1705 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1708 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1710 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1711 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1712 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1713 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1716 ** Image files are normally visited in Image mode, which lets you toggle
1717 between viewing the image and viewing the text using C-c C-c.
1720 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1722 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1723 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1724 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1725 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1726 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1727 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1729 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1730 rectangle highlighting: Use C-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1731 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1732 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1734 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1735 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1736 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1737 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1738 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1739 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1740 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1742 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1743 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1744 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1746 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1747 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1749 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1750 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1751 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1752 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1754 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1755 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1756 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you can customize the
1757 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1759 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1760 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1761 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1762 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1765 ** Org mode is now part of the Emacs distribution
1767 Org mode is a mode for keeping notes, maintaining ToDo lists, and
1768 doing project planning with a fast and effective plain-text system.
1769 It also contains a plain-text table editor with spreadsheet-like
1772 The Org mode table editor can be integrated into any major mode by
1773 activating the minor Orgtbl-mode.
1775 The documentation for org-mode is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1776 type "C-h i m org RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1777 available in `etc/orgcard.tex' and `etc/orgcard.ps'.
1780 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
1781 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
1782 to increment the SOA serial.
1785 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1786 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1787 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1788 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1789 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticeable. The display method can
1790 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1793 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
1794 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
1797 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1798 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1799 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1800 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1801 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1803 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1804 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1805 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1806 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1807 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1808 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1810 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1811 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1812 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1813 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1814 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1815 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1816 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1817 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1818 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1822 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1823 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1825 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1826 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1827 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1828 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1830 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1833 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1834 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1835 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1836 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1837 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1840 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1841 the keyboard macro ring.
1843 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1844 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1846 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1847 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1848 this behavior via the variables kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1849 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1851 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1852 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1853 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1856 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
1857 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
1858 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
1861 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
1862 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
1865 ** The new package longlines.el provides a minor mode for editing text
1866 files composed of long lines, based on the `use-hard-newlines'
1867 mechanism. The long lines are broken up by inserting soft newlines,
1868 which are automatically removed when saving the file to disk or
1869 copying into the kill ring, clipboard, etc. By default, Longlines
1870 mode inserts soft newlines automatically during editing, a behavior
1871 referred to as "soft word wrap" in other text editors. This is
1872 similar to Refill mode, but more reliable. To turn the word wrap
1873 feature off, set `longlines-auto-wrap' to nil.
1876 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1878 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1879 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1880 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1881 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1882 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1883 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1886 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1887 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1888 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1889 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1891 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1894 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1895 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1896 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1900 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1901 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1902 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1903 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1906 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1907 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1910 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1911 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1912 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1913 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1914 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1915 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1917 ** The tumme.el package allows you to easily view, tag and in other ways
1918 manipulate image files and their thumbnails, using dired as the main interface.
1919 Tumme provides functionality to generate simple image galleries.
1922 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1924 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1925 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1926 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1927 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1928 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1929 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1930 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1931 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1932 `rsync' to do the copying).
1934 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1935 `su' and `sudo'. Ange-FTP is still supported via the `ftp' method.
1937 If you want to disable Tramp you should set
1939 (setq tramp-default-method "ftp")
1941 Removing Tramp, and re-enabling Ange-FTP, can be achieved by M-x
1945 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
1948 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1949 configuration files.
1952 ** The new package conf-mode.el handles thousands of configuration files, with
1953 varying syntaxes for comments (;, #, //, /* */ or !), assignment (var = value,
1954 var : value, var value or keyword var value) and sections ([section] or
1955 section { }). Many files under /etc/, or with suffixes like .cf through
1956 .config, .properties (Java), .desktop (KDE/Gnome), .ini and many others are
1960 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1963 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
1966 ** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
1967 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
1969 ** The new package scroll-lock.el provides the Scroll Lock minor mode
1970 for pager-like scrolling. Keys which normally move point by line or
1971 paragraph will scroll the buffer by the respective amount of lines
1972 instead and point will be kept vertically fixed relative to window
1973 boundaries during scrolling.
1975 ** The file t-mouse.el is now part of Emacs and provides access to mouse
1976 events from the console. It still requires gpm to work but has been updated
1977 for Emacs 22. In particular, the mode-line is now position sensitive.
1979 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1:
1984 *** Bindings for Tumme added
1985 Several new keybindings, all starting with the C-t prefix, have been
1986 added to Dired. They are all bound to commands in Tumme. As a starting
1987 point, mark some image files in a dired buffer and do C-t d to display
1988 thumbnails of them in a separate buffer.
1990 ** Changes in Hi Lock
1993 *** hi-lock-mode now only affects a single buffer, and a new function
1994 `global-hi-lock-mode' enables Hi Lock in all buffers. By default, if
1995 hi-lock-mode is used in what appears to be the initialization file, a
1996 warning message suggests to use global-hi-lock-mode instead. However,
1997 if the new variable `hi-lock-archaic-interface-deduce' is non-nil,
1998 using hi-lock-mode in an initialization file will turn on Hi Lock in all
1999 buffers and no warning will be issued (for compatibility with the
2000 behavior in older versions of Emacs).
2002 ** Changes in Allout
2004 *** Topic cryptography added, enabling easy gpg topic encryption and
2005 decryption. Per-topic basis enables interspersing encrypted-text and
2006 clear-text within a single file to your heart's content, using symmetric
2007 and/or public key modes. Time-limited key caching, user-provided
2008 symmetric key hinting and consistency verification, auto-encryption of
2009 pending topics on save, and more, make it easy to use encryption in
2012 *** `allout-view-change-hook' marked as being deprecated - use
2013 `allout-exposure-change-hook' instead. Both are currently being used, but
2014 `allout-view-change-hook' will be ignored in a subsequent allout version.
2016 *** Default command prefix changed to "\C-c " (control-c space), to avoid
2017 intruding on user's keybinding space. Customize the
2018 `allout-command-prefix' variable to your preference.
2020 *** Allout now uses text overlay's `invisible' property (and others) for
2021 concealed text, instead of selective-display. This simplifies the code, in
2022 particular avoiding the need for kludges for isearch dynamic-display,
2023 discretionary handling of edits of concealed text, undo concerns, etc.
2025 *** Many substantial fixes and refinements, including:
2027 - repaired inhibition of inadvertent edits to concealed text
2028 - repaired retention of topic body hanging indent upon topic depth shifts
2029 - refuse to create "containment discontinuities", where a
2030 topic is shifted deeper than the offspring-depth of its' container
2031 - bulleting variation is simpler and more accommodating, both in the
2032 default behavior and in ability to vary when creating new topics
2033 - many internal fixes and refinements
2034 - many module and function docstring clarifications
2035 - version number incremented to 2.2
2037 ** The variable `woman-topic-at-point' was renamed
2038 to `woman-use-topic-at-point' and behaves differently: if this
2039 variable is non-nil, the `woman' command uses the word at point
2040 automatically, without asking for a confirmation. Otherwise, the word
2041 at point is suggested as default, but not inserted at the prompt.
2044 ** Changes to cmuscheme
2046 *** Emacs now offers to start Scheme if the user tries to
2047 evaluate a Scheme expression but no Scheme subprocess is running.
2049 *** If a file `.emacs_NAME' (where NAME is the name of the Scheme interpreter)
2050 exists in the user's home directory or in ~/.emacs.d, its
2051 contents are sent to the Scheme subprocess upon startup.
2053 *** There are new commands to instruct the Scheme interpreter to trace
2054 procedure calls (`scheme-trace-procedure') and to expand syntactic forms
2055 (`scheme-expand-current-form'). The commands actually sent to the Scheme
2056 subprocess are controlled by the user options `scheme-trace-command',
2057 `scheme-untrace-command' and `scheme-expand-current-form'.
2060 ** Makefile mode has submodes for automake, gmake, makepp, BSD make and imake.
2062 The former two couldn't be differentiated before, and the latter three
2063 are new. Font-locking is robust now and offers new customizable
2067 ** In Outline mode, `hide-body' no longer hides lines at the top
2068 of the file that precede the first header line.
2071 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
2074 ** The terminal emulation code in term.el has been improved; it can
2075 run most curses applications now.
2078 ** M-x diff uses Diff mode instead of Compilation mode.
2081 ** Diff mode key bindings changed.
2083 These are the new bindings:
2085 C-c C-e diff-ediff-patch (old M-A)
2086 C-c C-n diff-restrict-view (old M-r)
2087 C-c C-r diff-reverse-direction (old M-R)
2088 C-c C-u diff-context->unified (old M-U)
2089 C-c C-w diff-refine-hunk (old C-c C-r)
2091 To convert unified to context format, use C-u C-c C-u.
2092 In addition, C-c C-u now operates on the region
2093 in Transient Mark mode when the mark is active.
2096 ** You can now customize `fill-nobreak-predicate' to control where
2097 filling can break lines. The value is now normally a list of
2098 functions, but it can also be a single function, for compatibility.
2100 Emacs provide two predicates, `fill-single-word-nobreak-p' and
2101 `fill-french-nobreak-p', for use as the value of
2102 `fill-nobreak-predicate'.
2105 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
2106 with special modes such as Tar mode.
2109 ** Commands `winner-redo' and `winner-undo', from winner.el, are now
2110 bound to C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an
2111 incompatible change.
2114 ** `global-whitespace-mode' is a new alias for `whitespace-global-mode'.
2117 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
2118 resync points in both windows.
2121 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
2123 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
2124 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
2127 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
2128 when Emacs visits them.
2130 ** Info mode changes:
2133 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
2134 with the number appended to the `*info*' buffer name (e.g. "*info*<2>").
2137 *** isearch in Info uses Info-search and searches through multiple nodes.
2139 Before leaving the initial Info node isearch fails once with the error
2140 message [initial node], and with subsequent C-s/C-r continues through
2141 other nodes. When isearch fails for the rest of the manual, it wraps
2142 around the whole manual to the top/final node. The user option
2143 `Info-isearch-search' controls whether to use Info-search for isearch,
2144 or the default isearch search function that wraps around the current
2148 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
2149 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
2150 search without prompting for a new search string.
2153 *** New command `Info-history-forward' (bound to r and new toolbar icon)
2154 moves forward in history to the node you returned from after using
2155 `Info-history-back' (renamed from `Info-last').
2158 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
2161 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
2162 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
2165 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
2166 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
2170 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
2171 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
2172 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
2175 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
2176 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
2179 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
2180 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
2183 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
2185 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
2186 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
2189 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
2191 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
2192 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
2193 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
2196 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
2199 *** `Info-index' offers completion.
2201 ** Lisp mode changes:
2204 *** Lisp mode now uses `font-lock-doc-face' for doc strings.
2207 *** C-u C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-prints the list after point.
2209 *** New features in evaluation commands
2212 **** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
2213 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
2216 **** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
2217 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
2218 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
2219 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
2220 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
2225 *** The CC Mode manual has been extensively revised.
2226 The information about using CC Mode has been separated from the larger
2227 and more difficult chapters about configuration.
2229 *** Changes in Key Sequences
2230 **** c-toggle-auto-hungry-state is no longer bound to C-c C-t.
2232 **** c-toggle-hungry-state is no longer bound to C-c C-d.
2233 This binding has been taken over by c-hungry-delete-forwards.
2235 **** c-toggle-auto-state (C-c C-t) has been renamed to c-toggle-auto-newline.
2236 c-toggle-auto-state remains as an alias.
2238 **** The new commands c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forwards
2239 have key bindings C-c C-DEL (or C-c DEL, for the benefit of TTYs) and
2240 C-c C-d (or C-c C-<delete> or C-c <delete>) respectively. These
2241 commands delete entire blocks of whitespace with a single
2242 key-sequence. [N.B. "DEL" is the <backspace> key.]
2244 **** The new command c-toggle-electric-mode is bound to C-c C-l.
2246 **** The new command c-subword-mode is bound to C-c C-w.
2248 *** C-c C-s (`c-show-syntactic-information') now highlights the anchor
2252 **** Electric Minor Mode toggles the electric action of non-alphabetic keys.
2253 The new command c-toggle-electric-mode is bound to C-c C-l. Turning the
2254 mode off can be helpful for editing chaotically indented code and for
2255 users new to CC Mode, who sometimes find electric indentation
2256 disconcerting. Its current state is displayed in the mode line with an
2259 **** Subword Minor Mode makes Emacs recognize word boundaries at upper case
2260 letters in StudlyCapsIdentifiers. You enable this feature by C-c C-w. It can
2261 also be used in non-CC Mode buffers. :-) Contributed by Masatake YAMATO.
2265 **** `comment-close-slash'.
2266 With this clean-up, a block (i.e. c-style) comment can be terminated by
2267 typing a slash at the start of a line.
2269 **** `c-one-liner-defun'
2270 This clean-up compresses a short enough defun (for example, an AWK
2271 pattern/action pair) onto a single line. "Short enough" is configurable.
2273 *** Font lock support.
2274 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
2275 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
2276 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
2277 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
2278 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
2279 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
2281 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
2282 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
2283 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
2284 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
2285 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
2286 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
2287 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
2288 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
2289 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
2291 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
2292 fontification in mind; Just-In-Time-Lock mode should be enabled for
2293 the highest font lock level (by default, it is). Fontifying a file
2294 with several thousand lines in one go can take the better part of a
2297 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
2298 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
2299 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
2300 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
2301 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
2302 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
2304 **** Support for documentation comments.
2305 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
2306 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
2307 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
2308 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
2310 Currently three kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Sun's
2311 Javadoc, Autodoc (which is used in Pike) and GtkDoc (used in C). (The
2312 last was contributed by Masatake YAMATO). This is by no means a
2313 complete list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor
2314 of choice is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2316 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
2317 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
2318 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
2319 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
2322 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
2323 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
2324 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
2325 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
2326 not as configurable as it ought to be.
2328 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
2329 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
2330 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
2331 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
2332 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
2334 *** Support for the AWK language.
2335 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
2336 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
2337 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
2340 **** Indentation Engine
2341 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
2343 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
2344 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
2345 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
2346 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
2347 definition, or structured statement.
2349 The predefined line-up functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
2350 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't
2351 be any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
2354 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
2355 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
2356 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
2357 the AWK language itself.
2359 **** Comment and Movement Commands
2360 These commands all work for AWK buffers. The notion of "defun" has
2361 been augmented to include AWK pattern-action pairs - the standard
2362 "defun" commands on key sequences C-M-a, C-M-e, and C-M-h use this
2363 extended definition.
2365 **** "awk" style, Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
2366 A new style, "awk" has been introduced, and this is now the default
2367 style for AWK code. With auto-newline enabled, the clean-up
2368 c-one-liner-defun (see above) is useful.
2370 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
2371 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
2372 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
2373 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
2374 composition-close, and incomposition.
2376 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
2377 The new functions `c-hungry-backspace' and `c-hungry-delete-forward'
2378 provide hungry deletion without having to toggle a mode. They are
2379 bound to C-c C-DEL and C-c C-d (and several variants, for the benefit
2380 of different keyboard setups. See "Changes in key sequences" above).
2382 *** Better control over `require-final-newline'.
2384 The variable `c-require-final-newline' specifies which of the modes
2385 implemented by CC mode should insert final newlines. Its value is a
2386 list of modes, and only those modes should do it. By default the list
2387 includes C, C++ and Objective-C modes.
2389 Whichever modes are in this list will set `require-final-newline'
2390 based on `mode-require-final-newline'.
2392 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
2394 The elements in the syntactic context returned by `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2395 and stored in `c-syntactic-context' has been changed somewhat to allow
2396 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
2397 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
2399 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
2403 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
2405 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
2408 This change might affect code that calls `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2409 directly, and custom lineup functions if they use
2410 `c-syntactic-context'. However, the argument given to lineup
2411 functions is still a single cons cell with nil or an integer in the
2414 *** API changes for derived modes.
2416 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
2417 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
2418 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
2419 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
2420 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
2422 **** New language variable system.
2423 These are variables whose values vary between CC Mode's different
2424 languages. See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
2426 **** New initialization functions.
2427 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
2428 give better control: `c-basic-common-init', `c-font-lock-init', and
2429 `c-init-language-vars'.
2431 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
2432 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
2433 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
2434 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
2436 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
2437 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
2438 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
2439 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
2440 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2442 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
2443 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
2444 its substatement. E.g:
2450 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
2452 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
2453 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
2454 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
2455 variable `c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros'. A new syntactic symbol
2456 `cpp-define-intro' has been added to control the initial indentation
2459 **** New lineup function `c-lineup-cpp-define'.
2461 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
2462 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
2463 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
2464 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
2465 much line `c-lineup-dont-change', which was used earlier, but handles
2466 empty lines within the macro better.
2468 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
2469 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
2470 `c-context-line-break' and `c-context-open-line'.
2472 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2473 `c-backslash-region' tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
2474 variable `c-backslash-max-column' puts a limit on how far out
2475 backslashes can be moved.
2477 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2478 This is controlled by the new variable `c-auto-align-backslashes'. It
2479 affects `c-context-line-break', `c-context-open-line' and newlines
2480 inserted in Auto-Newline mode.
2482 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
2483 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
2484 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
2485 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
2486 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
2487 backslash) in the macro.
2489 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
2490 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
2491 the variable `c-indent-comment-alist'. The indentation behavior is
2492 based on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after
2493 #else and #endif but indentation to `comment-column' in most other
2494 cases (something which was hardcoded earlier).
2496 *** New function `c-context-open-line'.
2497 It's the open-line equivalent of `c-context-line-break'.
2499 *** New lineup functions
2501 **** `c-lineup-string-cont'
2502 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
2505 result = prefix + "A message "
2506 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
2508 **** `c-lineup-cascaded-calls'
2509 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
2511 **** `c-lineup-knr-region-comment'
2512 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
2513 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
2515 **** `c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg'
2516 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks.
2518 **** `c-lineup-argcont'
2519 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
2521 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
2522 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
2523 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
2524 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
2525 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
2526 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
2528 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
2529 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
2530 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
2531 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
2534 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
2535 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
2536 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
2537 happen when macros are involved.
2539 *** Improved the way `c-indent-exp' chooses the block to indent.
2540 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
2541 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
2542 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
2543 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
2544 line is left untouched.
2546 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
2547 The function `c-toggle-syntactic-indentation' can be used to toggle
2548 syntactic indentation.
2550 ** In sh-script, a continuation line is only indented if the backslash was
2551 preceded by a SPC or a TAB.
2554 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
2557 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2558 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2559 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2560 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2562 ** Fortran mode changes:
2565 *** Fortran mode does more font-locking by default. Use level 3
2566 highlighting for the old default.
2569 *** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
2570 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
2571 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
2574 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have new navigation commands
2575 `f90-end-of-block', `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block',
2576 `f90-previous-block', `fortran-end-of-block',
2577 `fortran-beginning-of-block'.
2580 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have support for `hs-minor-mode' (hideshow).
2581 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
2585 *** The new function `f90-backslash-not-special' can be used to change
2586 the syntax of backslashes in F90 buffers.
2589 ** Reftex mode changes
2592 *** Changes to RefTeX's table of contents
2594 The new command keys "<" and ">" in the TOC buffer promote/demote the
2595 section at point or all sections in the current region, with full
2596 support for multifile documents.
2598 The new command `reftex-toc-recenter' (`C-c -') shows the current
2599 section in the TOC buffer without selecting the TOC window.
2600 Recentering can happen automatically in idle time when the option
2601 `reftex-auto-recenter-toc' is turned on. The highlight in the TOC
2602 buffer stays when the focus moves to a different window. A dedicated
2603 frame can show the TOC with the current section always automatically
2604 highlighted. The frame is created and deleted from the toc buffer
2607 The toc window can be split off horizontally instead of vertically.
2608 See new option `reftex-toc-split-windows-horizontally'.
2610 Labels can be renamed globally from the table of contents using the
2613 The new command `reftex-goto-label' jumps directly to a label
2617 *** Changes related to citations and BibTeX database files
2619 Commands that insert a citation now prompt for optional arguments when
2620 called with a prefix argument. Related new options are
2621 `reftex-cite-prompt-optional-args' and `reftex-cite-cleanup-optional-args'.
2623 The new command `reftex-create-bibtex-file' creates a BibTeX database
2624 with all entries referenced in the current document. The keys "e" and
2625 "E" allow to produce a BibTeX database file from entries marked in a
2626 citation selection buffer.
2628 The command `reftex-citation' uses the word in the buffer before the
2629 cursor as a default search string.
2631 The support for chapterbib has been improved. Different chapters can
2632 now use BibTeX or an explicit `thebibliography' environment.
2634 The macros which specify the bibliography file (like \bibliography)
2635 can be configured with the new option `reftex-bibliography-commands'.
2637 Support for jurabib has been added.
2640 *** Global index matched may be verified with a user function
2642 During global indexing, a user function can verify an index match.
2643 See new option `reftex-index-verify-function'.
2646 *** Parsing documents with many labels can be sped up.
2648 Operating in a document with thousands of labels can be sped up
2649 considerably by allowing RefTeX to derive the type of a label directly
2650 from the label prefix like `eq:' or `fig:'. The option
2651 `reftex-trust-label-prefix' needs to be configured in order to enable
2652 this feature. While the speed-up is significant, this may reduce the
2653 quality of the context offered by RefTeX to describe a label.
2656 *** Miscellaneous changes
2658 The macros which input a file in LaTeX (like \input, \include) can be
2659 configured in the new option `reftex-include-file-commands'.
2661 RefTeX supports global incremental search.
2664 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
2665 to support use of font-lock.
2667 ** HTML/SGML changes:
2670 *** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
2674 *** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
2675 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
2676 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
2677 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
2678 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
2679 from the file name or buffer contents.
2682 *** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
2687 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
2690 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
2691 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
2692 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
2693 TeX commands to use at startup.
2696 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
2697 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
2700 *** New major mode Doctex mode, for *.dtx files.
2704 *** The new command `bibtex-url' browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
2705 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2, RET on clickable fields).
2707 *** The new command `bibtex-entry-update' (bound to C-c C-u) updates
2708 an existing BibTeX entry by inserting fields that may occur but are not
2711 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
2713 *** `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' can take values `plain',
2714 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
2715 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
2716 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
2717 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
2718 `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' is non-nil.
2720 *** If the new variable `bibtex-parse-keys-fast' is non-nil,
2721 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
2723 *** If the new variable `bibtex-autoadd-commas' is non-nil,
2724 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
2726 *** The new variable `bibtex-autofill-types' contains a list of entry
2727 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
2729 *** The new command `bibtex-complete' completes word fragment before
2730 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
2732 *** The new commands `bibtex-find-entry' and `bibtex-find-crossref'
2733 locate entries and crossref'd entries (bound to C-c C-s and C-c C-x).
2734 Crossref fields are clickable (bound to mouse-2, RET).
2736 *** In BibTeX mode the command `fill-paragraph' (M-q) fills
2737 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
2739 *** The new variables `bibtex-files' and `bibtex-file-path' define a set
2740 of BibTeX files that are searched for entry keys.
2742 *** The new command `bibtex-validate-globally' checks for duplicate keys
2743 in multiple BibTeX files.
2745 *** The new command `bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill' pushes summary
2746 of BibTeX entry to kill ring (bound to C-c C-t).
2748 *** The new variables bibtex-expand-strings and
2749 bibtex-autokey-expand-strings control the expansion of strings when
2750 extracting the content of a BibTeX field.
2752 *** The variables `bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert' and
2753 `bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert' have been renamed to
2754 `bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert-function' and
2755 `bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert-function'. The old names are
2756 still available as aliases.
2759 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
2760 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
2766 *** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
2767 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
2770 *** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
2771 and other common debugger commands.
2774 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2775 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2776 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2777 state of your program. It can separate the input/output of your program from
2778 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2779 Emacs 21/22 such as the toolbar, and bitmaps in the fringe to indicate
2782 To use this package just type M-x gdb. See the Emacs manual if you want the
2785 *** The variable tooltip-gud-tips-p has been removed. GUD tooltips can now be
2786 toggled independently of normal tooltips with the minor mode
2790 *** In graphical mode, with a C program, GUD Tooltips have been extended to
2791 display the #define directive associated with an identifier when program is
2795 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
2797 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class information.
2798 Fast startup since there is no need to scan all source files up front.
2799 There is also no need to create and maintain lists of source
2800 directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath' and
2801 `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
2803 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
2804 set/clear operations from Java source files under the classpath, stack
2805 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
2808 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
2811 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
2812 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
2813 Set `gud-jdb-use-classpath' to nil.
2815 *** Added Customization Variables
2817 **** `gud-jdb-command-name'. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
2819 **** `gud-jdb-use-classpath'. Allows selection of java source file searching
2820 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan `gud-jdb-directories' for
2821 java sources (previous method).
2823 **** `gud-jdb-directories'. List of directories to scan and search for Java
2824 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2827 *** Minor Improvements
2829 **** The STARTTLS wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
2830 instead of the OpenSSL based `starttls' tool. For backwards
2831 compatibility, it prefers `starttls', but you can toggle
2832 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
2835 **** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
2837 ** Auto-Revert changes:
2840 *** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
2842 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
2843 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
2844 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
2845 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
2846 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
2847 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior can
2850 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
2851 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
2852 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
2856 *** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
2857 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
2858 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
2859 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
2860 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
2861 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
2862 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
2863 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
2864 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
2867 *** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
2868 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
2869 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
2870 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
2871 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
2876 The recent file list is now automatically cleaned up when recentf mode is
2877 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
2880 The ten most recent files can be quickly opened by using the shortcut
2881 keys 1 to 9, and 0, when the recent list is displayed in a buffer via
2882 the `recentf-open-files', or `recentf-open-more-files' commands.
2884 The `recentf-keep' option replaces `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p'
2885 and provides a more general mechanism to customize which file names to
2886 keep in the recent list.
2888 With the more advanced option `recentf-filename-handlers', you can
2889 specify functions that successively transform recent file names. For
2890 example, if set to `file-truename' plus `abbreviate-file-name', the
2891 same file will not be in the recent list with different symbolic
2892 links, and the file name will be abbreviated.
2894 To follow naming convention, `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag'
2895 replaces the misnamed option `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The
2896 old name remains available as alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2902 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, `desktop-save-mode'.
2905 *** The variable `desktop-enable' is obsolete.
2907 Customize `desktop-save-mode' to enable desktop saving.
2910 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
2914 *** The desktop package can be customized to restore only some buffers
2915 immediately, remaining buffers are restored lazily (when Emacs is
2920 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
2921 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
2922 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
2924 - desktop-lazy-complete runs the desktop load to completion.
2925 - desktop-lazy-abort aborts lazy loading of the desktop.
2928 *** New customizable variables:
2929 - desktop-save. Determines whether the desktop should be saved when it is
2931 - desktop-file-name-format. Format in which desktop file names should be saved.
2932 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
2933 - desktop-locals-to-save. List of local variables to save.
2934 - desktop-globals-to-clear. List of global variables that `desktop-clear' will clear.
2935 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp. Regexp identifying buffers that `desktop-clear'
2937 - desktop-restore-eager. Number of buffers to restore immediately. Remaining buffers are
2938 restored lazily (when Emacs is idle).
2939 - desktop-lazy-verbose. Verbose reporting of lazily created buffers.
2940 - desktop-lazy-idle-delay. Idle delay before starting to create buffers.
2943 *** New command line option --no-desktop
2947 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
2948 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
2951 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
2953 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
2954 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
2955 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
2956 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
2957 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
2963 *** When comparing directories.
2964 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
2965 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
2966 from one directory to another.
2969 *** When comparing files or buffers.
2970 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
2971 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
2972 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
2976 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
2977 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
2978 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
2983 *** New regular expressions features
2985 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
2987 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
2988 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
2989 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
2990 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
2991 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
2992 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
2993 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
2994 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
2995 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
2996 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
2998 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in GCC.
3000 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
3001 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
3004 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
3006 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
3007 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
3008 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
3010 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
3012 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
3013 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
3015 *** New language parsing features
3017 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
3019 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
3021 **** The GCC __attribute__ keyword is now recognized and ignored.
3023 **** New language HTML.
3025 Tags are generated for `title' as well as `h1', `h2', and `h3'. Also,
3026 when `name=' is used inside an anchor and whenever `id=' is used.
3028 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
3030 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
3031 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
3033 **** New language Lua.
3035 All functions are tagged.
3037 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
3039 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
3040 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
3043 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
3045 **** New language PHP.
3047 Functions, classes and defines are tags. If the --members option is
3048 specified to etags, variables are tags also.
3050 **** New default keywords for TeX.
3052 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
3055 *** Honor #line directives.
3057 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
3058 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
3059 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
3060 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
3061 writes tags pointing to the source file.
3063 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
3065 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
3066 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
3067 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
3073 *** The key C-x C-q only changes the read-only state of the buffer
3074 (toggle-read-only). It no longer checks files in or out.
3076 We made this change because we held a poll and found that many users
3077 were unhappy with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this
3078 behavior, you can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your
3081 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
3083 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
3086 *** The new variable `vc-cvs-global-switches' specifies switches that
3087 are passed to any CVS command invoked by VC.
3089 These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which means they
3090 are inserted before the command name. For example, this allows you to
3091 specify a compression level using the `-z#' option for CVS.
3094 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
3097 *** VC-Annotate mode enhancements
3099 In VC-Annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
3100 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
3101 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
3103 P: annotates the previous revision
3104 N: annotates the next revision
3105 J: annotates the revision at line
3106 A: annotates the revision previous to line
3107 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
3108 L: shows the log of the revision at line
3109 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
3114 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
3115 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
3119 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
3120 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
3121 `checkout', `update' or `commit'. That means using cvs diff options
3125 ** The new variable `mail-default-directory' specifies
3126 `default-directory' for mail buffers. This directory is used for
3127 auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to "~/".
3130 ** The mode line can indicate new mail in a directory or file.
3132 See the documentation of the user option
3133 `display-time-mail-directory'.
3138 *** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
3140 *** The new commands rmail-end-of-message and rmail-summary end-of-message,
3141 by default bound to `/', go to the end of the current mail message in
3142 Rmail and Rmail summary buffers.
3145 *** Support for `movemail' from GNU mailutils was added to Rmail.
3147 This version of `movemail' allows to read mail from a wide range of
3148 mailbox formats, including remote POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes with or
3149 without TLS encryption. If GNU mailutils is installed on the system
3150 and its version of `movemail' can be found in exec-path, it will be
3151 used instead of the native one.
3156 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
3158 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
3162 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
3164 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
3169 Upgraded to MH-E version 8.0. There have been major changes since
3170 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
3172 ** Calendar changes:
3175 *** You can now use < and >, instead of C-x < and C-x >, to scroll
3176 the calendar left or right. (The old key bindings still work too.)
3179 *** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
3180 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
3183 *** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
3184 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
3185 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
3186 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
3187 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
3188 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
3189 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
3190 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
3191 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
3194 *** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
3195 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
3196 count backward from the end of the year.
3199 *** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
3200 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
3201 day of that ISO week.
3204 *** The new variable `calendar-minimum-window-height' affects the
3205 window generated by the function `generate-calendar-window'.
3208 *** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
3209 optional arguments, in order to only report on the specified holiday
3210 rather than all. This makes customization of variables such as
3211 `christian-holidays' simpler.
3214 *** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
3215 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
3216 and `diary-header-line-format'.
3219 *** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed:
3220 use the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
3221 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
3222 `appt-issue-message', `appt-visible', and `appt-msg-window'.
3225 *** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
3226 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
3227 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
3228 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
3232 ** Speedbar changes:
3234 *** Speedbar items can now be selected by clicking mouse-1, based on
3235 the `mouse-1-click-follows-link' mechanism.
3237 *** SPC and DEL are no longer bound to scroll up/down in the speedbar
3240 *** The new command `speedbar-toggle-line-expansion', bound to SPC,
3241 contracts or expands the line under the cursor.
3243 *** New command `speedbar-create-directory', bound to `M'.
3245 *** The new commands `speedbar-expand-line-descendants' and
3246 `speedbar-contract-line-descendants', bound to `[' and `]'
3247 respectively, expand and contract the line under cursor with all of
3250 *** The new user option `speedbar-query-confirmation-method' controls
3251 how querying is performed for file operations. A value of 'always
3252 means to always query before file operations; 'none-but-delete means
3253 to not query before any file operations, except before a file
3256 *** The new user option `speedbar-select-frame-method' specifies how
3257 to select a frame for displaying a file opened with the speedbar. A
3258 value of 'attached means to use the attached frame (the frame that
3259 speedbar was started from.) A number such as 1 or -1 means to pass
3260 that number to `other-frame'.
3262 *** The new user option `speedbar-use-tool-tips-flag', if non-nil,
3263 means to display tool-tips for speedbar items.
3265 *** The frame management code in speedbar.el has been split into a new
3266 `dframe' library. Emacs Lisp code that makes use of the speedbar
3267 should use `dframe-attached-frame' instead of
3268 `speedbar-attached-frame', `dframe-timer' instead of `speedbar-timer',
3269 `dframe-close-frame' instead of `speedbar-close-frame', and
3270 `dframe-activity-change-focus-flag' instead of
3271 `speedbar-activity-change-focus-flag'. The variables
3272 `speedbar-update-speed' and `speedbar-navigating-speed' are also
3273 obsolete; use `dframe-update-speed' instead.
3278 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlighting of different
3279 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
3280 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
3281 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
3282 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
3284 The following values are supported:
3286 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
3300 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
3303 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
3304 your `.emacs' will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
3305 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
3307 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
3309 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
3310 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
3311 all identifiers ending in `_t' under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
3312 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
3314 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
3315 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
3317 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i.
3319 Most SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
3320 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
3322 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
3324 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
3325 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
3326 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
3327 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
3330 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
3331 called with the `-E' command line argument to use the operating system
3332 credentials to authenticate the user.
3334 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
3335 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
3336 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
3338 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
3339 Keyword highlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
3341 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
3342 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
3345 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
3346 appropriate `sql-interactive-mode' wrapper for the current setting of
3350 *** sql.el supports the SQLite interpreter--call 'sql-sqlite'.
3355 *** New ffap commands and keybindings:
3357 C-x C-r (`ffap-read-only'),
3358 C-x C-v (`ffap-alternate-file'), C-x C-d (`ffap-list-directory'),
3359 C-x 4 r (`ffap-read-only-other-window'), C-x 4 d (`ffap-dired-other-window'),
3360 C-x 5 r (`ffap-read-only-other-frame'), C-x 5 d (`ffap-dired-other-frame').
3363 *** FFAP accepts wildcards in a file name by default.
3365 C-x C-f passes the file name to `find-file' with non-nil WILDCARDS
3366 argument, which visits multiple files, and C-x d passes it to `dired'.
3369 ** In skeleton.el, `-' marks the `skeleton-point' without interregion interaction.
3371 `@' has reverted to only setting `skeleton-positions' and no longer
3372 sets `skeleton-point'. Skeletons which used @ to mark
3373 `skeleton-point' independent of `_' should now use `-' instead. The
3374 updated `skeleton-insert' docstring explains these new features along
3375 with other details of skeleton construction.
3378 ** Hideshow mode changes
3380 *** New variable `hs-set-up-overlay' allows customization of the overlay
3381 used to effect hiding for hideshow minor mode. Integration with isearch
3382 handles the overlay property `display' specially, preserving it during
3383 temporary overlay showing in the course of an isearch operation.
3385 *** New variable `hs-allow-nesting' non-nil means that hiding a block does
3386 not discard the hidden state of any "internal" blocks; when the parent
3387 block is later shown, the internal blocks remain hidden. Default is nil.
3390 ** `hide-ifdef-mode' now uses overlays rather than selective-display
3391 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
3392 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
3395 ** `partial-completion-mode' now handles partial completion on directory names.
3398 ** The type-break package now allows `type-break-file-name' to be nil
3399 and if so, doesn't store any data across sessions. This is handy if
3400 you don't want the `.type-break' file in your home directory or are
3401 annoyed by the need for interaction when you kill Emacs.
3404 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
3406 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
3407 `ps-print', provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF
3408 fonts. See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
3411 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
3412 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
3413 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
3414 using strokes as an input method.
3416 ** Emacs server changes:
3419 *** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
3421 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
3422 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
3423 % emacsclient -s foo file1
3424 % emacsclient -s bar file2
3427 *** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
3428 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given Lisp
3429 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
3432 *** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
3435 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
3438 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
3440 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
3441 argument it toggles the mode. Turning off PC-Selection mode restores
3442 the global key bindings that were replaced by turning on the mode.
3445 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
3446 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
3449 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
3451 Emacs still works on terminals that require magic cookies in order to
3452 use standout mode, but they can no longer display mode-lines in
3456 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
3458 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
3459 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
3460 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
3462 ** battery.el changes:
3465 *** display-battery-mode replaces display-battery.
3468 *** battery.el now works on recent versions of OS X.
3471 ** calculator.el now has radix grouping mode.
3473 To enable this, set `calculator-output-radix' non-nil. In this mode a
3474 separator character is used every few digits, making it easier to see
3475 byte boundaries etc. For more info, see the documentation of the
3476 variable `calculator-radix-grouping-mode'.
3479 ** fast-lock.el and lazy-lock.el are obsolete. Use jit-lock.el instead.
3482 ** iso-acc.el is now obsolete. Use one of the latin input methods instead.
3485 ** cplus-md.el has been deleted.
3487 * Changes in Emacs 22.1 on non-free operating systems
3490 ** The HOME directory defaults to Application Data under the user profile.
3492 If you used a previous version of Emacs without setting the HOME
3493 environment variable and a `.emacs' was saved, then Emacs will continue
3494 using C:/ as the default HOME. But if you are installing Emacs afresh,
3495 the default location will be the "Application Data" (or similar
3496 localized name) subdirectory of your user profile. A typical location
3497 of this directory is "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data",
3498 where USERNAME is your user name.
3500 This change means that users can now have their own `.emacs' files on
3501 shared computers, and the default HOME directory is less likely to be
3502 read-only on computers that are administered by someone else.
3505 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
3507 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
3508 existing values. For example:
3510 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
3512 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
3513 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
3516 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
3518 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
3519 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
3522 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
3524 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
3527 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
3529 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
3530 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
3531 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
3532 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
3533 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
3534 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
3537 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
3539 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
3540 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
3541 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
3542 sound support for those formats.
3545 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
3547 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
3550 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
3552 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
3553 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
3554 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
3557 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
3559 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
3560 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
3561 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
3562 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
3563 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
3564 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
3565 you wish to use them in other faces.
3568 ** On MS Windows NT/W2K/XP, Emacs uses Unicode for clipboard operations.
3570 Those systems use Unicode internally, so this allows Emacs to share
3571 multilingual text with other applications. On other versions of
3572 MS Windows, Emacs now uses the appropriate locale coding-system, so
3573 the clipboard should work correctly for your local language without
3577 ** Running in a console window in Windows now uses the console size.
3579 Previous versions of Emacs erred on the side of having a usable Emacs
3580 through telnet, even though that was inconvenient if you use Emacs in
3581 a local console window with a scrollback buffer. The default value of
3582 w32-use-full-screen-buffer is now nil, which favors local console
3583 windows. Recent versions of Windows telnet also work well with this
3584 setting. If you are using an older telnet server then Emacs detects
3585 that the console window dimensions that are reported are not sane, and
3586 defaults to 80x25. If you use such a telnet server regularly at a size
3587 other than 80x25, you can still manually set
3588 w32-use-full-screen-buffer to t.
3591 ** On Mac OS, `keyboard-coding-system' changes based on the keyboard script.
3594 ** The variable `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' and the constants
3595 `kTextEncodingMacRoman', `kTextEncodingISOLatin1', and
3596 `kTextEncodingISOLatin2' are obsolete.
3598 ** The variable `mac-command-key-is-meta' is obsolete. Use
3599 `mac-command-modifier' and `mac-option-modifier' instead.
3601 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3604 ** The variables post-command-idle-hook and post-command-idle-delay have
3605 been removed. Use run-with-idle-timer instead.
3608 ** `suppress-keymap' now works by remapping `self-insert-command' to
3609 the command `undefined'. (In earlier Emacs versions, it used
3610 `substitute-key-definition' to rebind self inserting characters to
3614 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3615 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3616 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3619 The function `comint-send-input' now accepts 3 optional arguments:
3621 (comint-send-input &optional no-newline artificial)
3623 Callers sending input not from the user should use bind the 3rd
3624 argument `artificial' to a non-nil value, to prevent Emacs from
3625 deleting the part of subprocess output that matches the input.
3628 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3631 ** The variable `memory-full' now remains t until
3632 there is no longer a shortage of memory.
3634 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3636 ** General Lisp changes:
3638 *** The function `expt' handles negative exponents differently.
3639 The value for `(expt A B)', if both A and B are integers and B is
3640 negative, is now a float. For example: (expt 2 -2) => 0.25.
3643 *** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
3646 *** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
3649 *** `add-to-list' takes an optional third argument, APPEND.
3651 If APPEND is non-nil, the new element gets added at the end of the
3652 list instead of at the beginning. This change actually occurred in
3653 Emacs 21.1, but was not documented then.
3656 *** New function `add-to-ordered-list' is like `add-to-list' but
3657 associates a numeric ordering of each element added to the list.
3660 *** New function `copy-tree' makes a copy of a tree.
3662 It recursively copies through both CARs and CDRs.
3665 *** New function `delete-dups' deletes `equal' duplicate elements from a list.
3667 It modifies the list destructively, like `delete'. Of several `equal'
3668 occurrences of an element in the list, the one that's kept is the
3672 *** New function `add-to-history' adds an element to a history list.
3674 Lisp packages should use this function to add elements to their
3677 If `history-delete-duplicates' is non-nil, it removes duplicates of
3678 the new element from the history list it updates.
3681 *** New function `rassq-delete-all'.
3683 (rassq-delete-all VALUE ALIST) deletes, from ALIST, each element whose
3684 CDR is `eq' to the specified value.
3687 *** The function `number-sequence' makes a list of equally-separated numbers.
3689 For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9). By
3690 default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different
3691 separation as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns
3695 *** New variables `most-positive-fixnum' and `most-negative-fixnum'.
3697 They hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3700 *** Minor change in the function `format'.
3702 Some flags that were accepted but not implemented (such as "*") are no
3706 *** Functions `get' and `plist-get' no longer give errors for bad plists.
3708 They return nil for a malformed property list or if the list is
3712 *** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3714 They are like `plist-get' and `plist-put', except that they compare
3715 the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3718 *** New variable `print-continuous-numbering'.
3720 When this is non-nil, successive calls to print functions use a single
3721 numbering scheme for circular structure references. This is only
3722 relevant when `print-circle' is non-nil.
3724 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
3725 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
3728 *** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
3730 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
3731 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
3732 if no expansion is done, which can be tested using `eq'.
3735 *** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3737 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3738 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3739 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3742 *** A function or macro's doc string can now specify the calling pattern.
3744 You put this info in the doc string's last line. It should be
3745 formatted so as to match the regexp "\n\n(fn .*)\\'". If you don't
3746 specify this explicitly, Emacs determines it from the actual argument
3747 names. Usually that default is right, but not always.
3750 *** New macro `with-local-quit' temporarily allows quitting.
3752 A quit inside the body of `with-local-quit' is caught by the
3753 `with-local-quit' form itself, but another quit will happen later once
3754 the code that has inhibited quitting exits.
3756 This is for use around potentially blocking or long-running code
3757 inside timer functions and `post-command-hook' functions.
3760 *** New macro `define-obsolete-function-alias'.
3762 This combines `defalias' and `make-obsolete'.
3765 *** New function `unsafep' determines whether a Lisp form is safe.
3767 It returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly do anything
3768 dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be unsafe
3769 (calls unknown function, alters global variable, etc.).
3772 *** New macro `eval-at-startup' specifies expressions to
3773 evaluate when Emacs starts up. If this is done after startup,
3774 it evaluates those expressions immediately.
3776 This is useful in packages that can be preloaded.
3778 *** `list-faces-display' takes an optional argument, REGEXP.
3780 If it is non-nil, the function lists only faces matching this regexp.
3783 *** New functions `string-or-null-p' and `booleanp'.
3785 `string-or-null-p' returns non-nil iff OBJECT is a string or nil.
3786 `booleanp' returns non-nil iff OBJECT is a t or nil.
3788 ** Lisp code indentation features:
3791 *** The `defmacro' form can contain indentation and edebug declarations.
3793 These declarations specify how to indent the macro calls in Lisp mode
3794 and how to debug them with Edebug. You write them like this:
3796 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3798 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3799 possible declaration specifiers are:
3802 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3805 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3806 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro,
3807 but this is cleaner.)
3810 *** cl-indent now allows customization of Indentation of backquoted forms.
3812 See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3815 *** cl-indent now handles indentation of simple and extended `loop' forms.
3817 The new user options `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation',
3818 `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can
3819 be used to customize the indentation of keywords and forms in loop
3823 ** Variable aliases:
3825 *** New function: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3827 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3828 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3829 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3830 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3832 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3833 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3835 *** New function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
3837 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3838 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3839 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3841 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3842 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3845 *** The macro `define-obsolete-variable-alias' combines `defvaralias' and
3846 `make-obsolete-variable'.
3848 ** defcustom changes:
3851 *** The package-version keyword has been added to provide
3852 `customize-changed-options' functionality to packages in the future.
3853 Developers who make use of this keyword must also update the new
3854 variable `customize-package-emacs-version-alist'.
3857 *** The new customization type `float' requires a floating point number.
3862 *** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character.
3864 Exception: In a character constant, if it is followed by a `-' in a
3865 character constant (e.g. ?\s-A), it is still interpreted as the super
3866 modifier. In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
3869 *** A hex escape in a string constant forces the string to be multibyte.
3872 *** An octal escape in a string constant forces the string to be unibyte.
3875 *** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
3876 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
3877 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
3878 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
3879 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
3882 *** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
3883 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
3886 *** New function `substring-no-properties' returns a substring without
3890 *** The new function `assoc-string' replaces `assoc-ignore-case' and
3891 `assoc-ignore-representation', which are still available, but have
3892 been declared obsolete.
3895 ** Displaying warnings to the user.
3897 See the functions `warn' and `display-warning', or the Lisp Manual.
3898 If you want to be sure the warning will not be overlooked, this
3899 facility is much better than using `message', since it displays
3900 warnings in a separate window.
3903 ** Progress reporters.
3905 These provide a simple and uniform way for commands to present
3906 progress messages for the user.
3908 See the new functions `make-progress-reporter',
3909 `progress-reporter-update', `progress-reporter-force-update',
3910 `progress-reporter-done', and `dotimes-with-progress-reporter'.
3912 ** Buffer positions:
3915 *** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
3916 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
3917 the usable window height and width is used.
3920 *** The `line-move', `scroll-up', and `scroll-down' functions will now
3921 modify the window vscroll to scroll through display rows that are
3922 taller that the height of the window, for example in the presence of
3923 large images. To disable this feature, bind the new variable
3924 `auto-window-vscroll' to nil.
3927 *** The argument to `forward-word', `backward-word' is optional.
3932 *** Argument to `forward-to-indentation' and `backward-to-indentation' is optional.
3937 *** New function `mouse-on-link-p' tests if a position is in a clickable link.
3939 This is the function used by the new `mouse-1-click-follows-link'
3943 *** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns the line number of a position.
3945 It an optional buffer position argument that defaults to point.
3948 *** `field-beginning' and `field-end' take new optional argument, LIMIT.
3950 This argument tells them not to search beyond LIMIT. Instead they
3951 give up and return LIMIT.
3954 *** Function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now returns the pixel coordinates
3955 and partial visibility state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
3959 *** New functions `posn-at-point' and `posn-at-x-y' return
3960 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
3961 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
3963 ** Text modification:
3966 *** The new function `insert-for-yank' normally works like `insert', but
3967 removes the text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list
3968 and handles the `yank-handler' text property.
3971 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-as-yank' is like
3972 `insert-for-yank' except that it gets the text from another buffer as
3973 in `insert-buffer-substring'.
3976 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-no-properties' is like
3977 `insert-buffer-substring', but removes all text properties from the
3981 *** The new function `filter-buffer-substring' extracts a buffer
3982 substring, passes it through a set of filter functions, and returns
3983 the filtered substring. Use it instead of `buffer-substring' or
3984 `delete-and-extract-region' when copying text into a user-accessible
3985 data structure, such as the kill-ring, X clipboard, or a register.
3987 The list of filter function is specified by the new variable
3988 `buffer-substring-filters'. For example, Longlines mode adds to
3989 `buffer-substring-filters' to remove soft newlines from the copied
3993 *** Function `translate-region' accepts also a char-table as TABLE
3997 *** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
3998 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
3999 be inserted is translated through it.
4004 The new function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
4005 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
4009 *** The function `insert-string' is now obsolete.
4014 *** In determining an adaptive fill prefix, Emacs now tries the function in
4015 `adaptive-fill-function' _before_ matching the buffer line against
4016 `adaptive-fill-regexp' rather than _after_ it.
4019 ** Atomic change groups.
4021 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
4022 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
4023 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
4025 (atomic-change-group
4027 (delete-region x y))
4029 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
4030 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
4031 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
4032 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
4034 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
4035 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
4037 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
4038 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
4039 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
4040 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
4042 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
4043 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
4046 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
4047 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
4048 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
4049 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
4051 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
4052 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
4053 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
4054 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
4055 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
4056 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
4059 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
4060 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
4061 returned values, like this:
4063 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
4064 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
4066 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
4067 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
4068 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
4070 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
4071 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
4072 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
4073 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
4076 ** Buffer-related changes:
4079 *** `list-buffers-noselect' now takes an additional argument, BUFFER-LIST.
4081 If it is non-nil, it specifies which buffers to list.
4084 *** `kill-buffer-hook' is now a permanent local.
4087 *** The new function `buffer-local-value' returns the buffer-local
4088 binding of VARIABLE (a symbol) in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not
4089 have a buffer-local binding in buffer BUFFER, it returns the default
4090 value of VARIABLE instead.
4092 *** The function `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' now lets you maintain
4093 various status records in parallel.
4095 It takes a variable (a symbol) as argument. If the variable is non-nil,
4096 then its value should be a vector installed previously by
4097 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p'. If the frame names, buffer names, buffer
4098 order, or their read-only or modified flags have changed, since the
4099 time the vector's contents were recorded by a previous call to
4100 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', then the function returns t. Otherwise
4103 On the first call to `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', the variable's
4104 value should be nil. `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' stores a suitable
4105 vector into the variable and returns t.
4107 If the variable is itself nil, then `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' uses,
4108 for compatibility, an internal variable which exists only for this
4112 *** The function `read-buffer' follows the convention for reading from
4113 the minibuffer with a default value: if DEF is non-nil, the minibuffer
4114 prompt provided in PROMPT is edited to show the default value provided
4115 in DEF before the terminal colon and space.
4117 ** Searching and matching changes:
4120 *** New function `looking-back' checks whether a regular expression matches
4121 the text before point. Specifying the LIMIT argument bounds how far
4122 back the match can start; this is a way to keep it from taking too long.
4125 *** The new variable `search-spaces-regexp' controls how to search
4126 for spaces in a regular expression. If it is non-nil, it should be a
4127 regular expression, and any series of spaces stands for that regular
4128 expression. If it is nil, spaces stand for themselves.
4130 Spaces inside of constructs such as `[..]' and inside loops such as
4131 `*', `+', and `?' are never replaced with `search-spaces-regexp'.
4134 *** New regular expression operators, `\_<' and `\_>'.
4136 These match the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
4137 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
4138 specified by the syntax table.
4141 *** rx.el has new corresponding `symbol-end' and `symbol-start' elements.
4144 *** `skip-chars-forward' and `skip-chars-backward' now handle
4145 character classes such as `[:alpha:]', along with individual
4146 characters and ranges.
4149 *** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
4150 properties from surrounding text.
4153 *** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
4154 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
4155 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
4158 *** Functions `match-data' and `set-match-data' now have an optional
4159 argument `reseat'. When non-nil, all markers in the match data list
4160 passed to these functions will be reseated to point to nowhere.
4163 *** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
4164 variable `sentence-end-without-space', which contains such characters
4165 that end a sentence without following spaces.
4167 The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of the
4168 variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil, then
4169 this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
4170 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
4171 `sentence-end-without-space'.
4176 *** `buffer-undo-list' can allows programmable elements.
4178 These elements have the form (apply FUNNAME . ARGS), where FUNNAME is
4179 a symbol other than t or nil. That stands for a high-level change
4180 that should be undone by evaluating (apply FUNNAME ARGS).
4182 These entries can also have the form (apply DELTA BEG END FUNNAME . ARGS)
4183 which indicates that the change which took place was limited to the
4184 range BEG...END and increased the buffer size by DELTA.
4187 *** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
4188 `undo-outer-limit', garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
4189 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
4192 ** New `yank-handler' text property can be used to control how
4193 previously killed text on the kill ring is reinserted.
4195 The value of the `yank-handler' property must be a list with one to four
4196 elements with the following format:
4197 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
4199 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
4200 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
4201 element on the kill-ring). If a `yank-handler' property is found,
4202 the normal behavior of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
4204 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
4205 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
4206 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
4207 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
4208 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
4210 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
4211 `yank-excluded-properties' is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
4212 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
4213 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
4214 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
4215 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
4216 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
4217 FUNCTION can set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
4219 *** The functions `kill-new', `kill-append', and `kill-region' now have an
4220 optional argument to specify the `yank-handler' text property to put on
4223 *** The function `yank-pop' will now use a non-nil value of the variable
4224 `yank-undo-function' (instead of `delete-region') to undo the previous
4225 `yank' or `yank-pop' command (or a call to `insert-for-yank'). The function
4226 `insert-for-yank' automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
4227 element of the string argument's `yank-handler' text property if present.
4229 *** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
4230 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
4231 string. The old behavior is available if you call
4232 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
4234 ** Syntax table changes:
4237 *** The macro `with-syntax-table' no longer copies the syntax table.
4240 *** The new function `syntax-after' returns the syntax code
4241 of the character after a specified buffer position, taking account
4242 of text properties as well as the character code.
4245 *** `syntax-class' extracts the class of a syntax code (as returned
4249 *** The new function `syntax-ppss' provides an efficient way to find the
4250 current syntactic context at point.
4252 ** File operation changes:
4255 *** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
4256 searching for an executable or an Emacs Lisp file.
4259 *** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
4260 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
4264 *** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
4265 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
4266 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
4267 The value in that case is an identifier for the remote file system.
4270 *** `buffer-auto-save-file-format' is the new name for what was
4271 formerly called `auto-save-file-format'. It is now a permanent local.
4274 *** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
4275 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
4276 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
4279 *** `copy-file' now takes an additional option arg MUSTBENEW.
4281 This argument works like the MUSTBENEW argument of write-file.
4284 *** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
4285 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
4288 *** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
4289 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
4290 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
4291 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
4294 *** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
4295 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
4296 tasks. For example, it can be used by the copyright package to make
4297 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
4300 *** If `buffer-save-without-query' is non-nil in some buffer,
4301 `save-some-buffers' will always save that buffer without asking (if
4305 *** New function `locate-file' searches for a file in a list of directories.
4306 `locate-file' accepts a name of a file to search (a string), and two
4307 lists: a list of directories to search in and a list of suffixes to
4308 try; typical usage might use `exec-path' and `load-path' for the list
4309 of directories, and `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' for the list
4310 of suffixes. The function also accepts a predicate argument to
4311 further filter candidate files.
4313 One advantage of using this function is that the list of suffixes in
4314 `exec-suffixes' is OS-dependant, so this function will find
4315 executables without polluting Lisp code with OS dependencies.
4318 *** The precedence of file name handlers has been changed.
4320 Instead of choosing the first handler that matches,
4321 `find-file-name-handler' now gives precedence to a file name handler
4322 that matches nearest the end of the file name. More precisely, the
4323 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen. In case
4324 of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
4327 *** A file name handler can declare which operations it handles.
4329 You do this by putting an `operation' property on the handler name
4330 symbol. The property value should be a list of the operations that
4331 the handler really handles. It won't be called for any other
4334 This is useful for autoloaded handlers, to prevent them from being
4335 autoloaded when not really necessary.
4338 *** The function `make-auto-save-file-name' is now handled by file
4339 name handlers. This will be exploited for remote files mainly.
4344 *** An interactive specification can now use the code letter 'U' to get
4345 the up-event that was discarded in case the last key sequence read for a
4346 previous `k' or `K' argument was a down-event; otherwise nil is used.
4349 *** The new interactive-specification `G' reads a file name
4350 much like `F', but if the input is a directory name (even defaulted),
4351 it returns just the directory name.
4354 *** Functions `y-or-n-p', `read-char', `read-key-sequence' and the like, that
4355 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
4356 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
4359 *** (while-no-input BODY...) runs BODY, but only so long as no input
4360 arrives. If the user types or clicks anything, BODY stops as if a
4361 quit had occurred. `while-no-input' returns the value of BODY, if BODY
4362 finishes. It returns nil if BODY was aborted by a quit, and t if
4363 BODY was aborted by arrival of input.
4365 ** Minibuffer changes:
4368 *** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional
4369 buffer argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted, it
4370 defaults to the current buffer.
4373 *** New function `minibuffer-selected-window' returns the window which
4374 was selected when entering the minibuffer.
4377 *** `read-from-minibuffer' now accepts an additional argument KEEP-ALL
4378 saying to put all inputs in the history list, even empty ones.
4381 *** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
4382 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satisfy. The
4383 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
4384 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
4385 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
4388 *** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by Lisp code
4389 to override the built-in `read-file-name' function.
4392 *** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
4393 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
4394 `read-file-name' function.
4397 *** The new function `read-directory-name' is for reading a directory name.
4399 It is like `read-file-name' except that the defaulting works better
4400 for directories, and completion inside it shows only directories.
4402 ** Completion changes:
4405 *** The new function `minibuffer-completion-contents' returns the contents
4406 of the minibuffer just before point. That is what completion commands
4410 *** The functions `all-completions' and `try-completion' now accept lists
4411 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
4412 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
4413 exported to Lisp. The keys in alists and hash tables can be either
4414 strings or symbols, which are automatically converted with to strings.
4417 *** The new macro `dynamic-completion-table' supports using functions
4418 as a dynamic completion table.
4420 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
4422 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
4423 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
4424 completions. This alist can be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
4425 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
4426 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
4427 entered. `dynamic-completion-table' then computes the completion.
4430 *** The new macro `lazy-completion-table' initializes a variable
4431 as a lazy completion table.
4433 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN)
4435 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
4436 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with no
4437 arguments. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR.
4438 If completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
4439 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
4440 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
4443 ** Enhancements to keymaps.
4445 *** New keymaps for typing file names
4447 Two new keymaps, `minibuffer-local-filename-completion-map' and
4448 `minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map', apply whenever
4449 Emacs reads a file name in the minibuffer. These key maps override
4450 the usual binding of SPC to `minibuffer-complete-word' (so that file
4451 names with embedded spaces could be typed without the need to quote
4454 *** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
4456 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
4457 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
4460 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
4462 *** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
4464 This is an alternative to using `defadvice' or `substitute-key-definition'
4465 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
4466 binding and lookup functionality.
4468 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
4469 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
4473 Suppose that minor mode `my-mode' has defined the commands
4474 `my-kill-line' and `my-kill-word', and it wants C-k (and any other key
4475 bound to `kill-line') to run the command `my-kill-line' instead of
4476 `kill-line', and likewise it wants to run `my-kill-word' instead of
4479 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
4480 command remapping allows you to directly map `kill-line' into
4481 `my-kill-line' and `kill-word' into `my-kill-word' using `define-key':
4483 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
4484 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
4486 When `my-mode' is enabled, its minor mode keymap is enabled too. So
4487 when the user types C-k, that runs the command `my-kill-line'.
4489 Only one level of remapping is supported. In the above example, this
4490 means that if `my-kill-line' is remapped to `other-kill', then C-k still
4491 runs `my-kill-line'.
4493 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
4495 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4496 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
4497 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
4498 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
4500 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
4501 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
4503 - `key-binding' now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
4504 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
4506 - `where-is-internal' now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
4507 `kill-line', when `my-mode' is enabled), and the actual key binding for
4508 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
4509 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
4510 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns "C-k" for `kill-line', and
4511 "<kill-line>" for `my-kill-line').
4513 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
4514 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
4515 command was not remapped.
4517 *** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
4518 over minor mode keymaps.
4520 *** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
4521 text properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
4522 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
4524 *** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
4526 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
4527 bindings of the parent keymap.
4529 *** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
4531 *** New function `current-active-maps' returns a list of currently
4534 *** New function `describe-buffer-bindings' inserts the list of all
4535 defined keys and their definitions.
4537 *** New function `keymap-prompt' returns the prompt string of a keymap.
4539 *** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
4542 *** New variable `emulation-mode-map-alists'.
4544 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
4545 keymap alist separate from `minor-mode-map-alist' by adding their
4546 keymap alist to this list.
4551 *** The new function `copy-abbrev-table' copies an abbrev table.
4553 It returns a new abbrev table that is a copy of a given abbrev table.
4556 *** `define-abbrev' now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG.
4558 If non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means
4559 that it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the
4560 abbrevs. Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always
4564 ** Enhancements to process support
4566 *** Function `list-processes' now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
4567 it lists only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set.
4569 *** New fns `set-process-query-on-exit-flag' and `process-query-on-exit-flag'.
4571 These replace the old function `process-kill-without-query'. That
4572 function is still supported, but new code should use the new
4575 *** Function `signal-process' now accepts a process object or process
4576 name in addition to a process id to identify the signaled process.
4578 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
4579 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
4581 Use the new functions `process-get' and `process-put' to access, add,
4582 and modify elements on this property list. Use the new functions
4583 `process-plist' and `set-process-plist' to access and replace the
4584 entire property list of a process.
4586 *** Function `accept-process-output' has a new optional fourth arg
4587 JUST-THIS-ONE. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
4588 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
4589 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
4590 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
4593 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
4595 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
4596 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
4597 very poor performance. This behavior can be remedied to some extent
4598 by setting the new variable `process-adaptive-read-buffering' to a
4599 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
4600 from such processes, allowing them to produce more output before
4601 emacs tries to read it.
4603 *** The new function `call-process-shell-command'.
4605 This executes a shell command synchronously in a separate process.
4607 *** The new function `process-file' is similar to `call-process', but
4608 obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
4609 `default-directory'.
4611 *** A process filter function gets the output as multibyte string
4612 if the process specifies t for its filter's multibyteness.
4614 That multibyteness is decided by the value of
4615 `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is created, and
4616 you can change it later with `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
4618 *** The new function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the
4619 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4621 *** The new function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns the
4622 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4624 *** If a process's coding system is `raw-text' or `no-conversion' and its
4625 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
4626 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
4627 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
4628 which was not compatible with the behavior of file reading.
4631 ** Enhanced networking support.
4633 *** The new `make-network-process' function makes network connections.
4634 It allows opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
4635 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
4637 - A server is started using :server t arg.
4638 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
4639 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
4640 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
4641 - IPv6 is supported (when available). You may explicitly select IPv6
4642 using :family 'ipv6 arg.
4643 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
4644 - The process' property list can be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
4645 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
4646 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
4648 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
4649 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
4650 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:family ipv6))
4652 *** The old `open-network-stream' now uses `make-network-process'.
4654 *** New functions `process-datagram-address', `set-process-datagram-address'.
4656 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
4657 and set the current address of the remote partner.
4659 *** New function `format-network-address'.
4661 This function reformats the Lisp representation of a network address
4662 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
4663 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
4664 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
4665 string for other formatting options.
4667 *** `process-contact' has an optional KEY argument.
4669 Depending on this argument, you can get the complete list of network
4670 process properties or a specific property. Using :local or :remote as
4671 the KEY, you get the address of the local or remote end-point.
4673 An Inet address is represented as a 5 element vector, where the first
4674 4 elements contain the IP address and the fifth is the port number.
4676 *** New functions `stop-process' and `continue-process'.
4678 These functions stop and restart communication through a network
4679 connection. For a server process, no connections are accepted in the
4680 stopped state. For a client process, no input is received in the
4683 *** New function `network-interface-list'.
4685 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
4686 current network addresses.
4688 *** New function `network-interface-info'.
4690 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
4691 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
4693 *** Deleting a network process with `delete-process' calls the sentinel.
4695 The status message passed to the sentinel for a deleted network
4696 process is "deleted". The message passed to the sentinel when the
4697 connection is closed by the remote peer has been changed to
4698 "connection broken by remote peer".
4700 ** Using window objects:
4703 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4705 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line or the
4709 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4711 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line
4715 *** You can now make a window as short as one line.
4717 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
4718 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
4719 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
4720 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
4721 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
4724 *** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
4725 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
4726 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
4730 *** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
4731 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
4734 *** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
4735 selected window without impacting the order of `buffer-list'.
4736 It saves and restores the current buffer, too.
4739 *** `select-window' takes an optional second argument NORECORD.
4741 This is like `switch-to-buffer'.
4744 *** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
4745 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
4746 by calling `select-window'. It also saves and restores the current
4750 *** `set-window-buffer' has an optional argument KEEP-MARGINS.
4752 If non-nil, that says to preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
4753 and scroll-bar settings.
4756 *** The new function `window-tree' returns a frame's window tree.
4759 *** The functions `get-lru-window' and `get-largest-window' take an optional
4760 argument `dedicated'. If non-nil, those functions do not ignore
4764 *** The new function `adjust-window-trailing-edge' moves the right
4765 or bottom edge of a window. It does not move other window edges.
4768 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
4770 *** New buffer-local variables `fringe-indicator-alist' and
4771 `fringe-cursor-alist' maps between logical (internal) fringe indicator
4772 and cursor symbols and the actual fringe bitmaps to be displayed.
4773 This decouples the logical meaning of the fringe indicators from the
4774 physical appearance, as well as allowing different fringe bitmaps to
4775 be used in different windows showing different buffers.
4777 *** New function `define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
4778 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
4780 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
4781 identifying the bitmap such as `left-truncation' or `continued-line'.
4783 *** New function `destroy-fringe-bitmap' deletes a fringe bitmap
4784 or restores a built-in one to its default value.
4786 *** New function `set-fringe-bitmap-face' specifies the face to be
4787 used for a specific fringe bitmap. The face is automatically merged
4788 with the `fringe' face, so normally, the face should only specify the
4789 foreground color of the bitmap.
4791 *** There are new display properties, `left-fringe' and `right-fringe',
4792 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
4793 bitmap of the display line.
4795 Format is `display (left-fringe BITMAP [FACE])', where BITMAP is a
4796 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
4797 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
4798 for displaying the bitmap instead of the default `fringe' face.
4799 When specified, FACE is automatically merged with the `fringe' face.
4801 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
4802 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
4804 ** Other window fringe features:
4807 *** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
4809 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
4810 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
4811 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
4812 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
4814 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
4815 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
4816 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
4817 between the left and right fringe. To force a specific fringe width,
4818 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
4819 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
4821 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
4822 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
4823 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
4824 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
4827 *** Per-window fringe and scrollbar settings
4829 **** Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and
4832 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
4833 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
4834 `set-window-fringes'.
4836 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
4837 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
4838 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
4839 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
4841 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
4842 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
4843 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
4844 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
4845 an update of the display margins.
4847 **** Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
4848 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
4850 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
4851 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
4852 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
4853 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
4854 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4855 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4856 of the display margins.
4858 ** Redisplay features:
4861 *** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
4864 *** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
4865 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
4866 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
4867 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
4868 forcing an explicit window update.
4871 *** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
4872 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
4873 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
4875 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
4876 does that, this value cannot be accurate.
4879 *** You can define multiple overlay arrows via the new
4880 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'.
4882 It contains a list of variables which contain overlay arrow position
4883 markers, including the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
4885 Each variable on this list can have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
4886 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
4887 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
4888 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
4889 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
4890 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
4893 *** New `line-height' and `line-spacing' properties for newline characters
4895 A newline can now have `line-height' and `line-spacing' text or overlay
4896 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
4898 If the `line-height' property value is t, the newline does not
4899 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
4900 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a `line-spacing' property on this
4901 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
4902 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
4904 If the `line-height' property value is a positive integer, the value
4905 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
4906 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
4908 If the `line-height' property value is a float, the minimum line
4909 height is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by
4912 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (FACE . RATIO), the
4913 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
4914 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
4916 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (nil . RATIO), the line
4917 height is calculated as RATIO * actual height of the line's contents.
4919 If the `line-height' value is a cons (HEIGHT . TOTAL), HEIGHT specifies
4920 the line height as described above, while TOTAL is any of the forms
4921 described above and specifies the total height of the line, causing a
4922 varying number of pixels to be inserted after the line to make it line
4923 exactly that many pixels high.
4925 If the `line-spacing' property value is an positive integer, the value
4926 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
4927 overrides the default frame `line-spacing' and any buffer local value of
4928 the `line-spacing' variable.
4930 If the `line-spacing' property is a float or cons, the line spacing
4931 is calculated as specified above for the `line-height' property.
4934 *** The buffer local `line-spacing' variable can now have a float value,
4935 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
4938 *** Enhancements to stretch display properties
4940 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
4941 PROPS is a property list, now allows pixel based width and height
4942 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
4944 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
4945 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
4948 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
4949 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
4950 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
4951 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
4953 POS ::= left | center | right
4954 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
4957 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
4958 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
4959 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
4960 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
4961 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
4962 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
4963 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
4966 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
4967 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
4968 corresponding area of the window.
4970 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
4971 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
4972 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
4973 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
4974 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
4975 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
4976 these symbols), further occurrences of these symbols are interpreted as
4977 the width of the area.
4979 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
4980 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
4982 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
4983 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
4984 header line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
4986 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
4987 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
4988 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
4989 height) of the specified image.
4991 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
4992 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
4995 *** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
4996 text property string that may be present at the current window
4997 position. The cursor can now be placed on any character of such
4998 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
5001 *** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
5002 supported on text terminals.
5005 *** Support for displaying image slices
5007 **** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) can be used with
5008 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
5010 **** Function `insert-image' has new optional fourth arg to
5011 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
5013 **** New function `insert-sliced-image' inserts a given image as a
5014 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
5017 *** Images can now have an associated image map via the :map property.
5019 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
5020 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
5021 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((X0 . Y0) . (X1 . Y1))) specifying the
5022 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
5023 A circle is a cons (circle . ((X0 . Y0) . R)) specifying the center
5024 and the radius of the circle; R can be a float or integer.
5025 A polygon is a cons (poly . [X0 Y0 X1 Y1 ...]) where each pair in the
5026 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
5028 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
5029 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
5030 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
5031 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
5032 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable `void-area-text-pointer'
5033 for possible pointer shapes.
5035 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
5036 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
5037 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
5040 *** The function `find-image' now searches in etc/images/ and etc/.
5041 The new variable `image-load-path' is a list of locations in which to
5042 search for image files. The default is to search in etc/images, then
5043 in etc/, and finally in the directories specified by `load-path'.
5044 Subdirectories of etc/ and etc/images are not recursively searched; if
5045 you put an image file in a subdirectory, you have to specify it
5046 explicitly; for example, if an image is put in etc/images/foo/bar.xpm:
5048 (defimage foo-image '((:type xpm :file "foo/bar.xpm")))
5050 Note that all images formerly located in the lisp directory have been
5051 moved to etc/images.
5054 *** New function `image-load-path-for-library' returns a suitable
5055 search path for images relative to library. This function is useful in
5056 external packages to save users from having to update
5060 *** The new variable `max-image-size' defines the maximum size of
5061 images that Emacs will load and display.
5063 ** Mouse pointer features:
5067 *** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
5068 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
5069 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
5070 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
5071 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
5074 *** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
5075 :pointer image property.
5078 *** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images can now be
5079 controlled/overridden via the `pointer' text property.
5081 ** Mouse event enhancements:
5084 *** Mouse events for clicks on window fringes now specify `left-fringe'
5085 or `right-fringe' as the area.
5088 *** All mouse events now include a buffer position regardless of where
5089 you clicked. For mouse clicks in window margins and fringes, this is
5090 a sensible buffer position corresponding to the surrounding text.
5093 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
5096 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
5099 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
5103 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types
5107 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns the actual glyph coordinates
5108 of the mouse event position.
5111 *** Mouse events can now indicate an image object clicked on.
5114 *** Mouse events include relative X and Y pixel coordinates relative to
5115 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
5118 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
5119 (image or character) clicked on.
5122 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', 'posn-object-width-height'.
5124 These return the image or string object of a mouse click, the X and Y
5125 pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner of that object, and
5126 the total width and height of that object.
5128 ** Text property and overlay changes:
5131 *** Arguments for `remove-overlays' are now optional, so that you can
5132 remove all overlays in the buffer with just (remove-overlays).
5135 *** New variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
5137 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
5138 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
5139 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
5140 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
5143 *** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
5144 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
5145 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
5146 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
5147 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
5150 *** The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties'.
5152 It is like `remove-text-properties' except that it takes a list of
5153 property names as argument rather than a property list.
5158 *** The new face attribute condition `min-colors' can be used to tailor
5159 the face color to the number of colors supported by a display, and
5160 define the foreground and background colors accordingly so that they
5161 look best on a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This
5162 is now the preferred method for defining default faces in a way that
5163 makes a good use of the capabilities of the display.
5166 *** New function `display-supports-face-attributes-p' can be used to test
5167 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
5169 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
5170 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
5171 defined with `defface'.
5174 *** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
5175 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
5176 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
5177 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
5178 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
5181 *** The first face specification element in a defface can specify
5182 `default' instead of frame classification. Then its attributes act as
5183 defaults that apply to all the subsequent cases (and can be overridden
5187 *** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
5188 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
5189 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
5190 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
5191 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
5194 *** The function `face-differs-from-default-p' now truly checks
5195 whether the given face displays differently from the default face or
5196 not (previously it did only a very cursory check).
5199 *** `face-attribute', `face-foreground', `face-background', `face-stipple'.
5201 These now accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how
5202 face inheritance is used when determining the value of a face
5206 *** New functions `face-attribute-relative-p' and `merge-face-attribute'
5207 help with handling relative face attributes.
5210 *** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face list is reversed.
5212 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
5213 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous
5214 releases of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made
5215 so that :inherit face lists operate identically to face lists in text
5219 *** On terminals, faces with the :inverse-video attribute are displayed
5220 with swapped foreground and background colors even when one of them is
5221 not specified. In previous releases of Emacs, if either foreground
5222 or background color was unspecified, colors were not swapped. This
5223 was inconsistent with the face behavior under X.
5226 *** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
5227 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
5229 ** Font-Lock changes:
5232 *** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
5234 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
5235 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
5236 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
5237 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
5240 *** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
5242 **** the FACENAME returned in `font-lock-keywords' can be a list of the
5243 form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set other
5244 properties than `face'.
5246 **** `font-lock-extra-managed-props' can be set to make sure those
5247 extra properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
5250 *** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
5252 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
5253 (see `jit-lock-defer-contextually'), then all of that text will
5254 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
5255 depends on text several lines further down (and when `font-lock-multiline'
5256 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
5264 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
5265 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a `jit-lock-defer-multiline'
5266 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
5267 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
5269 ** Major mode mechanism changes:
5272 *** `set-auto-mode' now gives the interpreter magic line (if present)
5273 precedence over the file name. Likewise an `<?xml' or `<!DOCTYPE'
5274 declaration will give the buffer XML or SGML mode, based on the new
5275 variable `magic-mode-alist'.
5278 *** Use the new function `run-mode-hooks' to run the major mode's mode hook.
5281 *** All major mode functions should now run the new normal hook
5282 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode
5283 hooks. `run-mode-hooks' does this automatically.
5286 *** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
5287 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
5291 *** Major modes can define `eldoc-documentation-function'
5292 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
5296 *** `define-derived-mode' by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
5297 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
5300 *** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
5301 are used by `define-derived-mode' to make sure the mode hook for the
5302 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
5304 ** Minor mode changes:
5307 *** `define-minor-mode' now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
5308 and simply passes them to `defcustom', if applicable.
5311 *** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
5314 *** `define-global-minor-mode'.
5316 This is a new name for what was formerly called
5317 `easy-mmode-define-global-mode'. The old name remains as an alias.
5319 ** Command loop changes:
5322 *** The new function `called-interactively-p' does what many people
5323 have mistakenly believed `interactive-p' to do: it returns t if the
5324 calling function was called through `call-interactively'.
5326 Only use this when you cannot solve the problem by adding a new
5327 INTERACTIVE argument to the command.
5330 *** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional argument.
5332 If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks for a function that could be
5333 called with `call-interactively', and does not return t for keyboard
5337 *** When a command returns, the command loop moves point out from
5338 within invisible text, in the same way it moves out from within text
5339 covered by an image or composition property.
5341 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
5342 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
5343 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
5344 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
5345 `post-command-hook' and thus does not care about intermediate states.
5348 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to `only', that
5349 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
5350 During that following command, the value of `transient-mark-mode'
5351 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
5352 the next return to the command loop changes to nil.
5355 *** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
5356 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
5357 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
5360 *** `emacsserver' now runs `pre-command-hook' and `post-command-hook'
5361 when it receives a request from emacsclient.
5363 ** Lisp file loading changes:
5366 *** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
5367 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
5368 current file redefined it).
5371 *** `load-history' now records (defun . FUNNAME) when a function is
5372 defined. For a variable, it records just the variable name.
5375 *** The function `symbol-file' can now search specifically for function,
5376 variable or face definitions.
5379 *** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
5380 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
5381 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
5384 *** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
5385 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
5386 than 3 levels of nesting.
5389 ** Byte compiler changes:
5391 *** The byte compiler now displays the actual line and character
5392 position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form of its
5393 warning and error messages have been brought into line with GNU standards
5394 for these. As a result, you can use next-error and friends on the
5395 compilation output buffer.
5397 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
5398 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
5400 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
5401 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
5402 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
5403 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
5406 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
5407 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
5409 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
5410 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
5411 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
5412 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
5413 macro expansion), but such tests can be nested. Note that `when' and
5414 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
5416 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
5417 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
5418 Emacs and XEmacs and can sometimes make the result significantly more
5419 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
5420 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
5423 *** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in Lisp files is now obeyed.
5426 *** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
5427 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
5428 (require 'cl) when loaded.
5430 ** Frame operations:
5433 *** New functions `frame-current-scroll-bars' and `window-current-scroll-bars'.
5435 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
5436 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
5439 *** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
5440 for all (existing and future) frames.
5443 *** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
5444 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
5445 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
5446 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
5449 *** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
5450 the `scroll-bar-width' frame parameter value is nil.
5455 *** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
5457 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
5458 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
5459 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
5462 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
5464 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
5465 the time it takes to convert the format.
5467 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
5471 *** `set-buffer-file-coding-system' now takes an additional argument,
5472 NOMODIFY. If it is non-nil, it means don't mark the buffer modified.
5475 *** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
5476 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
5477 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
5478 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
5481 *** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
5482 of one coding system from another coding system.
5485 *** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
5486 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
5490 *** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
5491 it is read from a file without decoding.
5494 *** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
5495 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
5498 *** New function `quail-find-key' returns a list of keys to type in the
5499 current input method to input a character.
5501 ** Mode line changes:
5504 *** New function `format-mode-line'.
5506 This returns the mode line or header line of the selected (or a
5507 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
5510 *** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
5511 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
5514 *** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
5515 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
5519 *** Mouse-face on mode-line (and header-line) is now supported.
5521 ** Menu manipulation changes:
5524 *** To manipulate the File menu using easy-menu, you must specify the
5525 proper name "file". In previous Emacs versions, you had to specify
5526 "files", even though the menu item itself was changed to say "File"
5527 several versions ago.
5530 *** The dummy function keys made by easy-menu are now always lower case.
5531 If you specify the menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
5532 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
5534 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for the bindings that were
5535 made with easy-menu.
5538 *** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
5539 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
5540 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
5541 need to have a name.
5543 ** Operating system access:
5546 *** The new primitive `get-internal-run-time' returns the processor
5547 run time used by Emacs since start-up.
5550 *** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
5551 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
5552 accepts a float as UID parameter.
5555 *** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
5558 *** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
5559 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
5560 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
5563 *** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
5564 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
5569 *** A number of hooks have been renamed to better follow the conventions:
5571 `find-file-hooks' to `find-file-hook',
5572 `find-file-not-found-hooks' to `find-file-not-found-functions',
5573 `write-file-hooks' to `write-file-functions',
5574 `write-contents-hooks' to `write-contents-functions',
5575 `x-lost-selection-hooks' to `x-lost-selection-functions',
5576 `x-sent-selection-hooks' to `x-sent-selection-functions',
5577 `delete-frame-hook' to `delete-frame-functions'.
5579 In each case the old name remains as an alias for the moment.
5582 *** Variable `local-write-file-hooks' is marked obsolete.
5584 Use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook'.
5587 *** New function `x-send-client-message' sends a client message when
5593 *** New variable `gc-cons-percentage' automatically grows the GC cons threshold
5594 as the heap size increases.
5597 *** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
5598 on garbage collection.
5601 *** The normal hook `post-gc-hook' is run at the end of garbage collection.
5603 The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
5605 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 22.1
5608 ** The new library button.el implements simple and fast `clickable
5609 buttons' in emacs buffers. Buttons are much lighter-weight than the
5610 `widgets' implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that
5611 doesn't require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for
5612 such things as help and apropos buffers.
5615 ** The new library tree-widget.el provides a widget to display a set
5616 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
5617 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
5620 ** The new library bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
5621 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
5625 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
5626 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
5628 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
5629 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
5630 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
5633 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
5634 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
5637 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
5638 (function (lambda ()
5640 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5641 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
5642 (function (lambda ()
5643 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5646 ** The new library benchmark.el does timing measurements on Lisp code.
5648 This includes measuring garbage collection time.
5651 ** The new library testcover.el does test coverage checking.
5653 This is so you can tell whether you've tested all paths in your Lisp
5654 code. It works with edebug.
5656 The function `testcover-start' instruments all functions in a given
5657 file. Then test your code. The function `testcover-mark-all' adds
5658 overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to show where coverage
5659 is lacking. The command `testcover-next-mark' (bind it to a key!)
5660 will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
5662 Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely
5663 evaluated; a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same
5664 value. The red splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly
5665 complete their evaluation, such as `error'. The brown splotches are
5666 skipped for forms that are expected to always evaluate to the same
5667 value, such as (setq x 14).
5669 For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to
5670 help out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a
5671 red splotch. It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does
5672 return. The macro `1value' suppresses a brown splotch for its argument.
5673 This macro is a no-op except during test-coverage -- then it signals
5674 an error if the argument actually returns differing values.
5676 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
5678 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
5682 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
5684 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
5687 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
5690 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
5693 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
5694 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
5695 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
5696 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
5697 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
5698 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
5699 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
5700 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
5701 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
5702 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
5704 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
5705 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
5707 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
5708 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
5709 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
5710 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behavior is actually
5711 contrary to the compound text specification.
5714 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
5716 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
5718 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
5721 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
5723 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
5725 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
5726 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
5727 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
5728 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
5729 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
5731 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
5734 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
5735 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
5737 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
5738 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
5739 instead of using default-major-mode.
5741 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
5742 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
5743 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
5744 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
5745 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
5746 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
5747 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
5749 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
5753 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
5755 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
5756 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
5757 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
5759 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
5760 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
5763 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
5765 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
5766 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
5767 charsets in this release.
5769 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
5771 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
5773 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
5774 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
5777 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
5778 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
5779 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
5780 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
5781 necessary changes to unexec.
5783 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
5784 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
5786 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
5787 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
5789 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
5790 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
5792 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
5793 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
5794 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
5795 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
5796 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
5798 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
5799 new display features described below.
5802 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
5804 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
5806 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
5807 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
5808 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
5809 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
5812 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
5814 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
5815 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
5816 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
5817 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
5820 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
5821 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
5822 under Lisp changes, below.
5824 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
5826 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
5827 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
5828 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
5829 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
5830 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
5831 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
5834 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
5835 supported on character terminals.
5837 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
5838 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
5839 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
5840 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
5842 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
5846 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
5847 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
5848 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
5849 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
5852 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
5854 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
5855 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
5856 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
5857 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
5859 - User option: max-mini-window-height
5861 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
5862 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
5863 specifies a number of lines.
5867 - User option: resize-mini-windows
5869 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
5870 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
5871 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
5874 Default is `grow-only'.
5878 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
5879 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
5881 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
5883 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
5884 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
5887 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
5889 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
5890 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
5891 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
5893 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
5895 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
5896 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
5897 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
5898 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
5899 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
5902 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
5903 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
5904 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
5905 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
5906 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
5907 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
5909 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
5910 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
5911 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
5912 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
5913 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
5914 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
5916 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
5917 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
5918 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
5919 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
5920 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
5922 ** Tool bar support.
5924 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
5925 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
5926 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
5927 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
5928 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
5931 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
5932 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
5936 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
5937 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
5938 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
5940 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
5941 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
5942 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
5943 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
5945 ** Automatic Hscrolling
5947 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
5948 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
5951 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
5952 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
5953 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
5954 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
5955 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
5957 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
5958 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
5959 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
5960 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
5961 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
5962 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
5964 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
5965 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
5966 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
5967 customizing face `fringe'.
5969 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
5970 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
5971 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
5972 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
5973 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
5974 the window to be partially obscured.)
5976 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
5977 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
5978 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
5979 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
5981 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
5983 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
5984 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
5985 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
5986 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
5987 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
5990 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
5992 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
5994 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
5996 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
5997 `*') toggles the status.
5999 - Mouse-3 on the major mode name displays a major mode menu.
6001 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
6003 ** Hourglass pointer
6005 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
6006 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
6010 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
6011 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
6012 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
6015 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
6017 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
6018 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
6019 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
6022 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
6023 have to do anything to activate it.
6025 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
6027 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
6028 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
6030 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
6031 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
6032 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
6033 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
6034 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
6035 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
6036 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
6037 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
6039 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
6040 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
6041 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
6042 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
6043 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
6044 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
6046 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
6047 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
6049 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
6050 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
6053 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
6054 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
6055 beginning and end of the buffer.
6057 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
6058 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
6061 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
6062 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
6064 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
6065 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
6068 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
6069 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
6072 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
6074 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
6075 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
6076 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
6078 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
6079 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
6080 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
6082 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
6085 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
6087 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
6088 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
6089 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
6090 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
6091 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
6094 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
6095 all frames except the selected one.
6097 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
6098 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
6100 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
6101 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
6102 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
6103 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
6104 `Info-use-header-line'.
6106 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
6107 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
6108 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
6110 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
6112 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
6113 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
6116 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
6117 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
6118 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
6119 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
6121 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
6123 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
6124 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
6125 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
6126 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
6128 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
6129 point in a pop-up window.
6131 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
6132 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
6133 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
6135 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
6136 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
6138 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
6139 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
6140 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
6141 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
6143 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
6145 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
6146 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
6148 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
6149 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
6150 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
6152 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
6153 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
6156 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
6157 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
6158 file that is already visited under a different name.
6160 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
6161 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
6163 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
6164 and displays information about that.
6166 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
6167 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
6169 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
6170 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
6171 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
6172 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
6173 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
6174 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
6176 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
6177 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
6179 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
6180 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
6181 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
6182 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
6183 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
6184 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
6185 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
6187 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
6188 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
6190 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
6191 system for keyboard input.
6193 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
6194 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
6195 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
6196 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
6197 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
6198 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
6199 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
6200 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
6201 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
6203 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
6204 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
6206 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
6207 displays all characters in that character set.
6209 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
6210 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
6212 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
6213 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
6214 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
6216 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
6217 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
6218 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
6219 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
6220 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
6221 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
6224 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
6225 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
6228 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
6229 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
6230 Lisp Coding Convention".
6232 new command old-binding
6233 --- ------- -----------
6234 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
6235 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
6236 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
6238 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
6239 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
6240 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
6242 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
6243 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
6244 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
6245 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
6246 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
6247 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
6249 ** There are new Leim input methods.
6250 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
6251 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
6254 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
6255 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
6256 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
6257 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
6258 "`", you must type "=q".
6260 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
6261 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
6262 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
6263 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
6264 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
6267 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
6268 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
6269 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
6270 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
6272 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
6273 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
6274 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
6275 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
6277 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
6278 on the display using several methods
6280 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
6281 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
6282 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
6284 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
6285 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
6287 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
6289 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
6290 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
6292 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
6293 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
6294 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
6295 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
6297 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
6298 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
6299 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
6301 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
6302 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
6304 ** New X resources recognized
6306 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
6307 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
6308 is useful for debugging X problems.
6312 emacs.synchronous: true
6314 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
6315 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
6316 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
6317 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
6318 visual class names are
6327 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
6328 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
6331 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
6332 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
6333 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
6338 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
6340 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
6341 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
6342 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
6343 resource values are `true' or `on'.
6347 emacs.privateColormap: true
6349 ** Faces and frame parameters.
6351 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
6352 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
6353 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
6354 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
6355 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
6356 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
6357 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
6359 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
6360 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
6361 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
6362 `default' face and vice versa.
6366 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
6368 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
6370 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
6371 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
6372 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
6373 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
6375 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
6376 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
6377 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
6379 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
6382 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
6384 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
6385 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
6386 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
6387 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
6389 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
6391 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
6393 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
6395 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
6398 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
6401 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
6403 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
6404 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
6405 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
6407 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
6408 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
6410 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
6411 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
6412 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
6414 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
6416 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
6417 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
6418 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6419 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
6421 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
6422 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
6423 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6424 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
6426 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
6427 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
6428 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
6431 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
6433 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
6434 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
6435 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
6437 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
6438 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
6439 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
6440 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
6441 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
6442 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
6444 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
6446 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
6447 notably at the end of lines.
6449 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
6450 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
6452 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
6454 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
6455 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
6457 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
6458 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
6459 after each match to get the replacement text.
6461 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
6462 you edit the replacement string.
6464 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
6465 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
6466 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
6468 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
6470 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
6471 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
6473 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
6474 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
6475 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
6476 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
6479 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
6480 read mail from the menu etc.
6482 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
6483 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
6484 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
6485 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
6487 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
6488 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6490 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
6491 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
6492 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
6493 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
6494 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
6497 ** Customize changes
6499 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
6500 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
6501 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
6502 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
6503 earlier versions of Emacs.
6505 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
6506 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
6509 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6510 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
6511 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
6512 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
6515 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6516 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
6517 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
6518 already in your init file.
6520 ** New features in evaluation commands
6522 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
6523 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
6524 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
6525 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
6526 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
6528 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
6529 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
6530 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
6531 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
6534 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
6535 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
6537 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
6538 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
6540 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
6541 code when called with a prefix argument.
6545 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
6546 current user setups (although it's believed that these
6547 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
6548 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
6549 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
6550 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
6553 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
6554 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
6555 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
6558 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
6559 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
6560 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
6561 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
6563 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
6564 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
6566 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
6567 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
6569 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
6570 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
6571 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
6572 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
6574 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
6575 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
6576 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
6577 earlier statement. An example:
6579 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
6581 res += a[i]->offset;
6584 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
6585 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
6586 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
6587 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
6590 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
6593 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
6594 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
6595 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
6596 documentation or other natural language text.
6598 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
6599 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
6600 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
6601 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
6602 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
6603 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
6604 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
6606 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
6607 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
6608 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
6609 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
6611 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
6612 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
6613 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
6614 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
6617 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
6618 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
6619 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
6620 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
6621 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
6622 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
6623 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
6624 is reported afterwards.
6626 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
6627 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
6628 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
6630 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
6631 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
6632 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
6633 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
6634 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
6635 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
6638 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
6639 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
6640 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
6641 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
6642 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
6645 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
6646 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
6647 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
6648 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
6649 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
6650 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
6652 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
6653 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
6654 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
6655 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
6656 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
6657 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
6658 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
6659 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
6661 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
6662 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
6663 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
6664 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
6667 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
6668 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
6669 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
6670 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
6671 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
6672 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
6673 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
6674 function documentation for more info.
6676 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
6677 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
6678 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
6679 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
6680 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
6681 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
6682 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
6683 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
6685 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
6687 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
6688 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
6690 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
6691 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
6692 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
6693 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
6694 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
6697 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
6698 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
6699 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
6702 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
6703 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
6704 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
6705 chapter about this in the manual.
6707 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
6708 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
6709 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
6710 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
6711 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
6713 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
6714 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
6715 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
6717 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
6718 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
6720 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
6721 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
6722 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
6725 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
6726 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
6727 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
6728 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
6731 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
6732 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
6733 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
6734 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
6735 they were before the filling.
6737 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
6738 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
6739 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
6742 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
6743 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
6744 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
6745 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
6748 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
6749 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
6750 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
6751 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
6752 Thanks to Eric Eide.
6754 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
6755 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
6756 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
6758 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
6760 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
6761 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
6762 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
6763 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
6765 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
6766 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
6767 the column specified by comment-column.
6769 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
6770 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
6771 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
6772 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
6773 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
6774 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
6776 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
6777 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
6780 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
6782 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
6783 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
6784 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
6785 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
6788 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
6792 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
6793 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
6794 is, delete only empty directories.
6796 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
6797 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
6798 copy directories recursively.
6800 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
6801 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
6802 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
6804 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
6805 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
6808 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
6809 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
6810 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
6811 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
6812 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
6814 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
6817 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
6818 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
6819 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
6820 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
6824 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
6825 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
6826 internationalization and mail-fetching.
6828 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
6829 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
6831 If you used procmail like in
6833 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
6834 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
6835 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
6836 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
6838 this now has changed to
6841 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
6844 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
6845 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
6847 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
6848 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
6849 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
6850 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
6852 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
6853 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
6854 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
6856 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
6857 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
6858 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
6859 now just a compatibility layer.
6861 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
6864 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
6865 called to position point.
6867 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
6868 summary buffers and NOV files.
6870 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
6871 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
6873 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
6874 subtly different manner.
6876 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
6877 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
6878 ever-changing layouts.
6880 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
6882 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
6884 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
6886 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
6890 -------------------------
6894 C-c C-c q @quotation
6896 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
6899 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
6901 ** Changes in Outline mode.
6903 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
6904 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
6905 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
6907 ** Changes to Emacs Server
6909 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
6910 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
6911 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
6912 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
6913 buffers to kill, as before.
6915 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
6916 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
6919 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
6920 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
6922 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
6924 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
6925 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
6926 use. Default is 1000.
6928 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
6929 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
6931 ** Changes to hideshow.el
6933 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
6935 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
6936 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
6937 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
6938 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
6940 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
6941 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
6942 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
6945 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
6946 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
6947 the normal block-hiding function.
6949 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
6951 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
6952 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
6953 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
6954 for `hs-minor-mode'.
6956 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
6957 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
6959 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
6961 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
6962 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
6963 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
6965 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
6968 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
6971 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
6972 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
6973 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
6974 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
6975 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
6976 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
6978 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
6980 ** Changes to cmuscheme
6982 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
6983 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
6985 ** Changes in Font Lock
6987 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
6988 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
6990 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
6991 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
6993 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
6994 the face used for each string/comment.
6996 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
6997 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
6999 ** Changes to Shell mode
7001 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
7002 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
7003 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
7004 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
7006 ** Comint (subshell) changes
7008 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
7009 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
7011 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
7012 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
7013 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
7014 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
7015 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
7016 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
7018 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
7019 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
7020 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
7021 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
7022 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
7023 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
7024 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
7025 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
7027 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
7028 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
7030 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
7031 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
7032 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
7034 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
7035 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
7036 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
7038 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
7039 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
7040 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
7042 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
7043 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
7044 argument, it appends to the file.
7046 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
7047 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
7050 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
7053 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
7054 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
7055 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
7057 ** Changes to Rmail mode
7059 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
7060 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
7061 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
7062 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
7063 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
7066 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
7067 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
7068 regexp matching your mail addresses.
7070 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
7071 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
7072 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
7073 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
7074 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
7076 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
7079 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
7080 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
7083 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
7084 in which folder to put messages automatically.
7086 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
7087 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
7088 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
7090 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
7091 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
7093 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
7094 use the -f option when sending mail.
7096 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
7097 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
7098 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
7099 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
7100 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
7101 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
7103 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
7104 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
7105 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
7107 ** Changes to TeX mode
7109 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
7112 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
7114 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
7116 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
7118 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
7120 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
7121 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
7122 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
7123 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
7124 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
7125 can be edited from that buffer.
7127 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
7128 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
7129 `A' to use all marked entries).
7131 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
7132 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
7134 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
7135 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
7136 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
7139 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
7140 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
7141 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
7142 in column 1 are always made leaves.
7144 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
7145 has the following new features:
7147 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
7148 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
7149 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
7150 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
7152 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
7153 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
7154 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
7155 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
7156 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
7159 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
7164 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
7165 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
7166 spell-checks the current buffer.
7168 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
7171 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
7172 correction is made and re-checked.
7174 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
7176 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
7179 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
7182 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
7185 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
7187 ** Makefile mode changes
7189 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
7191 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
7192 Fontlock mode is active.
7196 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
7197 so that searches can be resumed.
7199 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
7200 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
7201 that started the search.
7203 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
7204 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
7206 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
7208 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
7209 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
7210 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
7211 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
7212 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
7213 `secondary-selection'.
7215 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
7216 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
7217 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
7218 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
7219 usual snappy response.
7221 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
7222 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
7223 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
7224 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
7228 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
7229 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
7230 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
7231 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
7232 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
7233 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
7234 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
7235 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
7236 file is registered in that backend.
7238 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
7239 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
7240 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
7241 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
7242 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
7243 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
7245 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
7246 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
7247 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
7248 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
7249 where it doesn't make sense.)
7251 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
7252 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
7253 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
7257 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
7258 checks are always done now.
7260 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
7263 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
7264 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
7265 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
7267 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
7268 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
7269 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
7270 the working file (``merge news'').
7272 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
7273 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
7276 *** Multiple Backends
7278 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
7279 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
7280 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
7281 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
7284 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
7285 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
7286 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
7287 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
7289 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
7290 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
7291 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
7292 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
7293 current revision number from the more remote backend.
7295 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
7296 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
7297 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
7298 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
7300 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
7301 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
7302 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
7303 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
7307 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
7308 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
7309 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
7310 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
7311 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
7312 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
7313 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
7315 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
7316 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
7317 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
7318 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
7319 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
7320 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
7321 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
7322 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
7323 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
7324 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
7325 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
7328 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
7329 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
7330 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
7331 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
7332 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
7333 entire directory tree.
7335 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
7336 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
7337 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
7338 "watched" by other developers.)
7340 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
7341 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
7342 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
7343 starting at the given directory.
7345 *** Lisp Changes in VC
7347 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
7348 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
7349 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
7350 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
7351 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
7352 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
7353 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
7354 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
7355 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
7357 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
7358 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
7359 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
7360 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
7362 ** New modes and packages
7364 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
7365 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
7366 the default is not applicable.
7368 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
7369 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
7370 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
7374 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
7375 drawn, like this: | \ /
7379 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
7380 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
7381 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
7382 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
7383 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
7386 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
7387 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
7389 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
7392 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
7393 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
7394 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
7395 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
7397 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
7398 also do without the mouse.
7400 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
7401 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
7402 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
7403 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
7404 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
7406 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
7408 lines straight-lines
7410 poly-lines straight poly-lines
7412 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
7413 spray-can setting size for spraying
7414 vaporize line vaporize lines
7415 erase characters erase rectangles
7417 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
7418 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
7419 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
7422 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
7423 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
7424 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
7425 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
7427 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
7430 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
7431 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
7432 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
7433 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
7434 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
7435 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
7436 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
7437 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
7438 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
7440 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
7441 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
7442 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
7443 on certain projects.
7445 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
7446 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
7448 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
7450 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
7451 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
7452 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
7453 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
7454 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
7455 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
7456 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
7457 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
7459 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
7462 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
7463 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
7465 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
7466 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
7468 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
7469 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
7470 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
7471 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
7472 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
7474 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
7475 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
7476 separate Texinfo file.
7478 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
7479 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
7480 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
7481 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
7482 enter check-in log messages.
7484 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
7485 without invoking external programs.
7487 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
7488 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
7489 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
7490 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
7491 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
7493 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
7494 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
7496 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
7497 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
7499 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
7500 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
7501 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
7502 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
7503 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
7506 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
7507 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
7508 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
7509 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
7511 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
7512 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
7513 actually modifying content of a buffer.
7515 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
7518 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
7520 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
7522 ; comment (until end of line)
7526 $A default non-terminal
7527 $"C" default terminal
7528 $?C? default special
7529 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
7530 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
7531 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
7532 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
7533 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
7534 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
7535 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
7536 C+ one or more occurrences of C
7537 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
7538 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
7539 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
7540 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
7541 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
7542 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7543 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7545 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
7547 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
7548 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
7549 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
7550 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
7551 equal signs of assignments.
7553 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
7554 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
7556 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
7557 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
7558 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
7560 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
7562 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
7563 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
7564 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
7565 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
7566 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
7567 which answers different needs.
7569 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
7570 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
7571 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
7572 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
7573 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
7576 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
7577 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
7579 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
7581 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
7582 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
7583 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
7585 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
7587 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
7588 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
7589 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
7590 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
7591 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
7592 and background colors.
7594 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
7597 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
7600 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
7602 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
7604 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
7605 whitespace in a file.
7607 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
7608 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
7609 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
7610 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
7611 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
7612 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
7613 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
7615 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
7617 Here is an example of columns:
7620 dog pineapple car EXTRA
7621 porcupine strawberry airplane
7623 Doing the following settings:
7625 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
7626 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
7627 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
7628 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
7631 Selecting the lines above and typing:
7633 M-x delimit-columns-region
7637 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
7638 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
7639 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
7641 delim-col has the following options:
7643 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
7646 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
7647 between each column.
7649 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
7652 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
7655 delim-col has the following commands:
7657 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
7658 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
7660 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
7661 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
7662 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
7663 recent file list can be displayed:
7665 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
7666 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
7667 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
7669 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
7670 dynamically change the menu appearance.
7672 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
7675 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
7676 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
7677 specific to Message mode.
7679 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
7680 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
7681 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
7683 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
7684 interface to access directory servers using different directory
7685 protocols. It has a separate manual.
7687 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
7688 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
7690 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
7692 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
7693 minibuffer with completion.
7695 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
7696 with the diary features.
7698 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
7699 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
7701 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
7704 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
7705 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
7706 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
7707 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
7709 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
7710 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
7713 ** Changes in sort.el
7715 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
7716 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
7717 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
7720 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
7722 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
7723 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
7724 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
7726 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
7727 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
7729 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
7730 output ^M at the end of lines.
7732 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
7733 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
7735 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
7736 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
7739 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
7742 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
7743 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
7746 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
7747 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
7748 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
7749 nil -- just delete one character.
7751 Default value is `untabify'.
7753 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
7755 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
7756 symbol, not double-quoted.
7758 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
7759 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
7760 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
7761 moved to lisp/obsolete.
7763 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
7764 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
7765 `auto-compression-mode' command.
7767 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
7768 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
7769 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
7771 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
7772 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
7774 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
7775 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
7777 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
7778 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
7780 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
7781 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
7782 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
7783 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
7784 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
7785 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
7787 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
7788 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
7790 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
7792 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
7793 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
7795 ** Shell script mode changes.
7797 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
7798 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
7799 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
7803 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
7805 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
7806 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
7807 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
7808 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
7809 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
7811 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
7812 declarations when given the --declarations option.
7814 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
7815 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
7817 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
7818 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
7819 `template' keywords.
7821 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
7822 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
7824 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
7827 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
7829 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
7831 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
7834 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
7836 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
7837 variables are tagged.
7839 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
7841 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
7844 ** Changes in etags.el
7846 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
7847 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
7848 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
7850 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
7851 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
7853 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
7854 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
7855 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
7856 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
7858 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
7860 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
7861 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
7863 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
7865 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
7866 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
7867 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
7869 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
7870 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
7872 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
7873 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
7875 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
7876 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
7877 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
7878 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
7879 point will go to the beginning of the file.
7881 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
7882 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
7883 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
7885 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
7886 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
7887 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
7889 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
7890 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
7891 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
7893 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
7895 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
7897 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
7898 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
7899 expression from that list, are not checked.
7901 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
7902 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
7903 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
7904 the buffer, just like for the local files.
7906 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
7908 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
7909 displays local abbrevs, only.
7911 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
7912 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
7914 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
7915 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
7916 is measured in pixels.
7918 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
7919 to be visited as images.
7921 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
7922 were added to compile.el.
7924 ** Withdrawn packages
7926 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
7927 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
7929 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
7931 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
7934 * Incompatible Lisp changes
7936 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
7937 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
7938 See the sections below for details.
7940 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
7941 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
7942 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
7943 to remove the properties of the copy.
7945 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
7946 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
7947 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
7948 these properties are active.
7950 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
7951 ranges may affect some code.
7953 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
7954 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
7955 make a difference to some code.
7957 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
7958 operates on the minibuffer.
7960 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
7961 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
7962 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
7963 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
7964 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
7965 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
7966 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
7967 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
7968 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
7969 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
7970 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
7971 the buffer as multibyte characters.
7973 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
7974 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
7975 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
7977 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
7978 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
7979 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
7981 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
7982 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
7983 such as `mapconcat'.
7985 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
7988 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
7989 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
7990 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
7991 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
7992 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
7993 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
7994 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
7995 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
7997 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
7998 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
7999 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
8000 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
8001 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
8002 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
8003 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
8004 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
8005 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
8006 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
8009 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
8010 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
8012 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
8014 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
8015 allows the animated display of strings.
8017 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
8018 interactive form of a function.
8020 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
8021 between custom options. Example:
8023 (defcustom default-input-method nil
8024 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
8025 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
8026 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
8028 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
8029 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
8031 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
8032 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
8033 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
8035 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
8036 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
8037 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
8038 (signal or normal termination).
8040 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
8041 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
8043 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
8044 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
8046 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
8047 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
8049 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
8051 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
8052 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
8055 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
8057 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
8058 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
8059 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
8060 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
8061 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
8064 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
8065 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
8068 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
8069 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
8071 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
8072 with the more general `:mask' property.
8074 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
8076 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
8079 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
8080 is running in batch mode. For example,
8082 (message "%s" (read t))
8084 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
8087 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
8088 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
8090 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
8091 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
8094 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
8097 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
8099 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
8100 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
8102 - Function: remq ELT LIST
8104 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
8105 comparison is done with `eq'.
8107 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
8109 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
8110 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
8111 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
8113 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
8114 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
8115 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
8117 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
8118 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
8120 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
8121 function was declared obsolete.
8123 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
8124 retained as an alias).
8126 ** Easy-menu's :filter now takes the unconverted form of the menu and
8127 the result is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
8129 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
8131 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
8133 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
8134 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
8135 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
8136 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
8137 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
8138 means never include the minibuffer window.
8140 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
8142 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
8144 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
8146 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
8147 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
8148 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
8149 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
8152 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
8153 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
8154 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
8155 minibuffer even if it is active.
8157 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
8158 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
8159 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
8160 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
8161 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
8162 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
8164 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
8165 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
8166 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
8167 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
8168 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
8169 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
8170 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
8172 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
8173 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
8174 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
8176 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
8177 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
8178 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
8179 Default value is nil.
8181 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
8184 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
8185 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
8186 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
8188 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
8189 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
8190 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
8192 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
8193 list of a primitive.
8195 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
8197 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
8198 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
8199 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
8200 than replacing the local map.
8202 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
8203 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
8204 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
8207 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
8209 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
8210 as promised long ago.
8212 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
8214 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
8215 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
8216 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
8219 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
8221 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
8222 regular expressions.
8224 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
8226 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
8230 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
8232 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
8236 matches string STRING literally.
8239 matches character CHAR literally.
8242 matches any character except a newline.
8245 matches any character
8248 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
8249 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
8255 matches any character not in SET
8258 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
8259 in the text being matched
8262 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
8265 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
8266 string being matched against.
8269 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
8270 string being matched against.
8273 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
8274 buffer being matched against.
8277 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
8278 buffer being matched against.
8281 matches the empty string, but only at point.
8284 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8288 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
8291 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8294 `(not word-boundary)'
8295 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
8299 matches 0 through 9.
8302 matches ASCII control characters.
8305 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8308 matches space and tab only.
8311 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8315 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8319 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8320 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8323 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8324 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8327 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8330 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8333 matches anything lower-case.
8336 matches anything upper-case.
8339 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8340 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8343 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8346 matches anything that has word syntax.
8349 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
8350 of the following symbols.
8352 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
8353 `punctuation' (\\s.)
8356 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
8357 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
8358 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
8359 `string-quote' (\\s\")
8360 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
8362 `character-quote' (\\s/)
8363 `comment-start' (\\s<)
8364 `comment-end' (\\s>)
8366 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
8367 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
8369 `(category CATEGORY)'
8370 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
8371 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
8373 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
8375 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
8376 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
8380 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
8382 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
8383 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
8384 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
8385 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
8386 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
8387 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
8388 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
8389 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
8390 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
8391 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
8392 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
8401 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
8405 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
8412 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
8413 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
8415 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8416 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
8418 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8419 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
8420 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
8422 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8423 another name for `submatch'.
8425 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8426 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
8427 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
8430 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
8431 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
8432 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
8433 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
8434 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
8436 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
8437 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
8439 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
8440 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8443 like `zero-or-more'.
8446 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8449 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8451 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
8452 matches one or more occurrences of A.
8458 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8461 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8463 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
8464 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
8470 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8473 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8476 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8479 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8482 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
8486 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
8488 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
8490 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
8491 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
8492 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
8493 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
8495 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
8496 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
8497 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
8498 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
8500 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
8501 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
8502 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
8504 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
8505 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
8506 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
8507 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
8508 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
8509 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
8510 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
8513 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
8515 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
8516 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
8517 character set as previously.
8519 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
8520 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
8521 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
8523 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
8524 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
8525 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
8526 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
8528 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
8529 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
8531 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
8532 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
8535 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
8536 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
8538 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
8539 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
8540 buffers and strings.
8542 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
8543 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
8544 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
8545 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
8546 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
8547 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
8548 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
8551 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
8552 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
8553 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
8555 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
8556 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
8557 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
8558 may differ between buffer and string text.
8560 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
8561 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
8563 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
8564 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
8565 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
8566 `composition' from STRING.
8568 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
8569 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
8571 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
8574 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
8575 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
8577 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
8578 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
8579 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
8580 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
8582 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
8583 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
8584 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
8585 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
8586 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
8587 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
8589 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
8590 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
8591 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
8593 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
8594 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
8595 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
8597 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
8598 have been introduced.
8600 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
8601 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
8602 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
8603 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
8604 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
8605 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
8606 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
8607 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
8608 their multibyte equivalent.
8610 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
8611 that offset in the file before writing.
8613 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
8614 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
8616 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
8617 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
8618 from which the command was issued.
8620 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
8621 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
8622 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
8623 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
8626 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
8627 to `window-buffer-height'.
8629 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
8631 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
8632 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
8633 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
8635 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
8638 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
8639 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
8641 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
8642 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
8643 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
8645 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
8646 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
8647 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
8648 is currently displayed in some window.
8650 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
8651 argument function's results.
8653 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
8654 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
8655 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
8656 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
8659 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
8660 header in the list of headers passed to it.
8662 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
8663 ignores differences in case and text representation.
8665 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
8666 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
8669 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
8670 nil don't display a cursor
8671 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
8672 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
8673 others display a box cursor.
8675 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
8676 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
8677 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
8678 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
8680 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
8681 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
8682 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
8683 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
8687 (string-to-syntax "()")
8690 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
8693 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
8694 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
8701 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
8706 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
8711 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
8718 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
8719 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
8722 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
8723 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
8724 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
8725 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
8727 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
8729 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
8730 for a regexp in a string.
8732 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
8733 `mouse-position-function'.
8735 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
8736 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
8738 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
8739 Keywords are now always considered constants.
8741 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
8744 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
8745 returned by function `recent-keys'.
8747 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
8748 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
8749 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
8750 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
8753 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
8754 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
8756 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
8757 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
8758 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
8759 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
8762 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
8763 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
8764 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
8765 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
8767 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
8768 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
8769 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
8771 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
8772 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
8775 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
8777 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
8778 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
8779 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
8782 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
8783 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
8784 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
8785 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
8786 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
8788 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
8789 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
8791 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
8792 instead of being optional.
8794 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
8795 modify read-only text.
8797 ** New functions and variables for locales.
8799 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
8800 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
8801 time functions like strftime. The new variables
8802 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
8803 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
8805 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
8806 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
8807 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
8808 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
8809 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
8810 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
8811 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
8813 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
8814 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
8815 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
8818 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
8819 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
8821 ** New function `propertize'
8823 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
8824 strings with text properties.
8826 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
8828 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
8829 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
8830 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
8831 specified value of that property. Example:
8833 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
8835 ** push and pop macros.
8837 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
8838 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
8839 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
8841 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
8842 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
8843 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
8845 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
8847 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
8848 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
8850 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
8851 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
8852 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
8853 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8855 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
8856 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
8857 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
8858 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8860 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
8861 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
8862 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
8865 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
8866 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
8867 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8868 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
8869 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8871 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8873 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
8874 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8875 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8876 [:alpha:] matches letters.
8877 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8878 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8879 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8880 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8881 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
8882 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
8883 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8884 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8885 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8886 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
8887 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
8889 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
8891 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
8893 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
8895 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
8896 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
8900 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
8901 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
8902 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
8906 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
8907 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
8909 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
8911 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
8912 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
8913 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
8914 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
8915 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
8917 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
8919 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
8920 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
8921 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
8925 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
8926 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
8927 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
8928 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
8929 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
8931 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
8933 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
8935 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
8937 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
8939 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
8941 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
8944 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
8946 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
8948 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8950 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
8952 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
8954 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
8956 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8958 Returns the size of TABLE.
8960 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
8962 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
8964 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
8966 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
8968 - Function: clrhash TABLE
8972 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
8974 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
8977 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
8979 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
8980 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
8982 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
8984 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
8986 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
8988 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
8989 arguments KEY and VALUE.
8991 - Function: sxhash OBJ
8993 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
8995 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
8997 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
8998 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
8999 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
9000 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
9001 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
9003 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
9005 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
9006 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
9007 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
9009 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
9010 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
9012 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
9013 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
9015 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
9016 (sxhash (upcase a)))
9018 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
9019 'case-fold-string-hash))
9021 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
9023 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
9025 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
9026 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
9027 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
9029 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
9031 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
9032 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
9034 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
9035 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
9036 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
9037 is too short to reach that column.
9039 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
9040 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
9041 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
9042 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
9044 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
9045 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
9046 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
9048 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
9049 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
9051 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
9052 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
9054 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
9055 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
9056 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
9057 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
9058 temporary-file-directory instead.
9060 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
9061 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
9062 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
9063 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
9065 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
9066 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
9068 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
9070 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
9071 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
9072 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
9074 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
9076 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
9077 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
9078 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
9079 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
9080 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
9081 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
9083 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
9084 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
9085 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
9086 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
9088 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
9090 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
9091 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
9092 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
9095 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
9096 string where arguments appear in the result string.
9100 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
9102 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
9103 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
9106 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
9108 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
9110 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
9111 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
9114 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
9116 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
9117 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
9122 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
9123 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
9125 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
9126 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
9127 to enable sound support.
9129 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
9130 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
9131 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
9132 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
9133 sound to play, before playing the sound.
9135 The following sound properties are supported:
9139 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
9140 searched relative to `data-directory'.
9144 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
9145 may be present, but not both.
9149 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
9150 0..1. This property is optional.
9154 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
9155 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
9157 Other properties are ignored.
9159 An alternative interface is called as
9160 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
9162 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
9164 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
9167 ** Changes to garbage collection
9169 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
9170 of live and free strings.
9172 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
9173 strings that have been consed so far.
9176 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
9179 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
9182 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
9183 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
9184 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
9186 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
9188 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
9190 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
9193 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
9195 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
9197 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
9198 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
9199 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
9200 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
9201 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
9203 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
9206 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
9208 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
9209 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
9210 or omitted means use the selected frame.
9212 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
9213 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
9215 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
9218 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
9222 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
9224 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
9225 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
9227 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
9228 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
9229 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
9230 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
9231 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
9232 just display it black instead.
9234 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
9237 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
9241 ** New face implementation.
9243 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
9244 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
9248 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
9250 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
9252 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
9253 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
9255 3. Font height in 1/10pt
9257 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
9259 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
9261 6. Foreground color.
9263 7. Background color.
9265 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
9267 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
9269 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
9271 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
9273 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
9276 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
9277 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
9279 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
9280 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
9281 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
9282 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
9283 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
9284 attributes mentioned above.
9286 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
9287 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
9290 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
9291 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
9296 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
9297 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
9298 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
9299 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
9300 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
9301 results in a fully-specified face.
9303 *** Face realization.
9305 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
9306 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
9307 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
9308 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
9309 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
9310 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
9312 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
9313 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
9314 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
9315 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
9317 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
9318 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
9319 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
9320 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
9321 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
9323 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
9324 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
9325 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
9326 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
9327 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
9330 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
9331 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
9332 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
9333 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
9335 **** Clearing face caches.
9337 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
9338 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
9343 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
9344 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
9345 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
9347 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
9348 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
9349 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
9350 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
9351 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
9353 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
9354 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
9355 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
9357 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
9359 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
9360 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
9361 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
9362 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
9363 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
9364 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
9365 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
9367 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9368 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
9371 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9372 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
9375 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
9378 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
9383 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
9384 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
9387 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
9388 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
9389 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
9390 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
9391 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
9394 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
9396 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
9398 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
9400 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
9402 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
9403 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
9404 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
9406 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
9407 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
9408 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
9409 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
9410 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
9411 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
9412 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
9413 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
9414 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
9415 of the face font sort order.
9417 - Function: x-font-family-list
9419 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
9420 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
9421 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
9422 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
9424 - Variable: font-list-limit
9426 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
9427 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
9428 matching font. The default is currently 100.
9430 *** Setting face attributes.
9432 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
9433 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
9434 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
9437 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
9438 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
9440 The following attributes are recognized:
9444 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
9445 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
9446 and `?' are allowed.
9450 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
9451 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
9452 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
9453 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
9457 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
9458 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
9459 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
9460 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
9464 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
9465 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
9466 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
9470 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
9471 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
9474 `:foreground', `:background'
9476 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
9480 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
9481 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
9482 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
9487 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
9488 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
9489 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
9494 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
9495 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
9496 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
9497 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
9501 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
9502 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
9503 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
9504 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
9505 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
9506 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
9507 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
9508 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
9509 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
9510 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
9511 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
9512 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
9513 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
9514 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
9515 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
9516 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
9521 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
9522 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
9526 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
9527 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
9528 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
9529 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
9530 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
9531 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
9533 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
9534 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
9538 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
9539 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
9540 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
9543 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
9544 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
9545 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
9547 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
9552 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
9553 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
9554 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
9556 *** Face attributes and X resources
9558 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
9561 Face attribute X resource class
9562 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
9563 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
9564 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
9565 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
9566 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
9567 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
9568 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
9569 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
9570 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
9571 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
9572 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
9573 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
9574 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
9575 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
9576 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
9577 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
9578 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9579 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
9580 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
9581 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9583 *** Text property `face'.
9585 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
9586 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
9587 specification can be
9589 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
9591 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
9592 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
9593 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
9594 for face attribute names.
9596 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
9597 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
9598 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
9600 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
9602 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
9603 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
9604 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
9605 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
9606 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
9607 used to clear the mapping table.
9609 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
9611 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
9612 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
9613 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
9614 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
9615 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
9616 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
9617 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
9618 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
9619 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
9620 modify their color-related behavior.
9622 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
9625 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
9627 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
9628 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
9629 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
9630 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
9631 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
9632 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
9633 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
9634 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
9635 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
9637 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
9638 display can display image files.
9640 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
9642 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
9643 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
9644 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
9645 `Inviolable' option.
9647 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
9648 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
9649 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
9651 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
9653 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
9654 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
9655 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
9657 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
9658 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
9659 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
9660 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
9661 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
9662 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
9663 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
9666 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
9667 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
9668 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
9670 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
9672 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
9674 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
9676 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9677 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
9678 constrained position if that is different.
9680 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
9681 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
9682 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
9683 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
9684 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9685 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
9686 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
9687 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
9688 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
9690 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
9691 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
9692 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
9693 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
9694 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
9696 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
9697 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
9699 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
9701 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
9703 Delete the field surrounding POS.
9704 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9705 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9707 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9709 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
9710 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9711 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9712 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
9713 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
9715 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9717 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
9718 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9719 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9720 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
9721 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
9723 - Function: field-string &optional POS
9725 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
9726 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9727 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9729 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
9731 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
9732 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9733 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9737 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
9738 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
9739 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
9740 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
9742 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
9743 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
9744 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
9745 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
9748 IMAGE is an image specification.
9750 *** Image specifications
9752 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
9753 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
9754 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
9755 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
9756 described below are ignored.
9758 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
9762 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
9763 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
9764 to use for its ascent.
9766 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
9767 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
9769 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
9770 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
9771 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
9772 overlays that apply to the image.
9776 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
9777 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
9778 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
9782 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
9787 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
9789 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
9790 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
9792 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
9793 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
9794 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
9795 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
9796 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
9797 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
9798 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
9799 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
9802 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
9804 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
9806 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
9807 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
9808 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
9809 of the factors' absolute values.
9811 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
9817 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
9823 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
9828 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
9829 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
9830 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
9831 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
9832 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
9833 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
9834 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
9837 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
9838 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
9843 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
9844 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
9845 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
9846 may be present in the image specification.
9850 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
9851 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
9852 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
9853 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
9855 *** Supported image types
9857 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
9859 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
9860 properties supported are:
9864 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9865 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9869 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9870 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9872 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
9873 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
9874 instead of a `:file' property.
9878 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
9882 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
9888 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
9889 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
9891 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
9893 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
9896 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
9897 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
9900 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
9902 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
9903 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
9904 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
9905 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
9907 Additional image properties supported are:
9909 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
9911 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
9912 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
9915 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
9916 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
9918 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
9919 to display compressed images.
9921 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
9923 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
9924 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
9929 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9930 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9934 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9935 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9937 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
9939 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
9940 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9943 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
9945 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
9946 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9949 **** GIF, image type `gif'
9951 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
9952 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
9954 Additional image properties supported are:
9958 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
9959 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
9962 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
9963 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
9964 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
9967 (defun show-anim (file max)
9968 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
9969 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
9971 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
9974 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
9977 (goto-char (point-min))
9978 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
9979 (insert-image img "x"))
9980 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
9982 **** PNG, image type `png'
9984 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
9985 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9988 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
9990 Additional image properties supported are:
9994 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
9995 integer. This is a required property.
9999 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
10000 must be a integer. This is an required property.
10002 `:bounding-box BOX'
10004 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
10005 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
10006 files. This is an required property.
10008 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
10011 *** Lisp interface.
10013 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
10014 which are supported in the current configuration.
10016 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
10017 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
10018 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
10019 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
10020 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
10022 *** Simplified image API, image.el
10024 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
10025 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
10026 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
10027 define an image based on available image types. The functions
10028 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
10031 ** Display margins.
10033 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
10036 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
10037 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
10038 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
10039 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
10040 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
10041 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
10042 of the display margins.
10044 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
10045 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
10046 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
10047 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
10052 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
10053 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
10054 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
10055 that have a `help-echo' property.
10057 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
10058 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
10059 the window in which the help was found.
10061 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
10062 `help-echo' text property was found.
10064 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
10065 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
10067 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
10068 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
10071 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
10072 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
10074 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
10075 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
10076 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
10077 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
10078 used as help string.
10080 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
10081 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
10082 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
10084 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
10086 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
10087 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
10089 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
10090 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
10091 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
10092 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
10095 (global-set-key [A-down]
10098 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
10099 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
10100 (global-set-key [A-up]
10103 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
10104 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
10106 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
10108 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
10109 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
10110 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
10111 is called with one argument, POS.
10113 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
10114 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
10115 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
10116 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
10117 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
10119 ** Tool bar support.
10121 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
10122 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
10123 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
10124 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
10125 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
10126 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
10128 *** Tool bar item definitions
10130 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
10131 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
10132 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
10134 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
10135 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
10136 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
10137 property (see below).
10139 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
10140 binding are currently ignored.
10142 The following properties are recognized:
10146 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
10151 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
10155 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
10156 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
10157 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
10159 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
10161 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
10162 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
10166 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
10167 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
10168 meaning of each of the four elements:
10170 Index Use when item is
10171 ----------------------------------------
10172 0 enabled and selected
10173 1 enabled and deselected
10174 2 disabled and selected
10175 3 disabled and deselected
10177 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
10178 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
10180 `:help HELP-STRING'.
10182 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
10183 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
10185 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
10186 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
10187 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
10190 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
10191 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
10192 buffer-locally to override the global map.
10194 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
10196 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
10197 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
10198 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
10200 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
10201 raised when the mouse moves over them.
10203 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
10204 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
10205 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
10206 vertical margins . Default is 1.
10208 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
10209 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
10211 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
10213 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
10214 a tool bar item. If
10216 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
10217 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
10218 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
10220 is the original tool bar item definition, then
10222 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
10224 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
10227 ** Mode line changes.
10229 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
10231 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
10232 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
10233 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
10235 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
10236 a `local-map' text property.
10238 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
10239 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
10241 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
10242 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
10243 `local-map' property.
10245 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
10246 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
10249 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
10250 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
10252 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
10253 variable mode-line-format to nil.
10255 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
10257 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
10258 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
10259 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
10260 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
10263 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
10266 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
10267 position in the header-line.
10269 ** Text property `display'
10271 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
10272 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
10273 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
10274 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
10275 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
10277 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
10279 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
10280 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
10282 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
10283 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
10284 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
10285 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
10286 simpler form STRING as property value.
10288 *** Variable width and height spaces
10290 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
10291 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
10292 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
10293 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
10294 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
10295 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
10296 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
10298 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
10299 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
10300 properties described below.
10302 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
10303 characters having the `display' property.
10307 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
10308 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
10310 - :relative-width FACTOR
10312 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
10313 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
10314 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
10315 width of that character by FACTOR.
10319 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
10320 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
10322 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
10326 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
10327 normal line height.
10329 - :relative-height FACTOR
10331 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
10332 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
10336 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
10337 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
10338 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
10341 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
10345 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
10346 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
10347 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
10348 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
10349 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
10350 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
10351 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
10352 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
10353 as display specification.
10355 *** Other display properties
10357 - (space-width FACTOR)
10359 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
10360 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
10365 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
10367 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
10368 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
10369 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
10370 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
10371 a font is available counts as a step.
10373 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
10374 as tall as the frame's default font.
10376 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
10377 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
10379 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
10380 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
10384 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
10385 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
10386 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
10387 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
10388 `height' subproperty.
10390 *** Conditional display properties
10392 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
10393 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
10394 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
10395 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
10396 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
10397 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
10398 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
10399 different when object is a string.
10401 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
10404 ** New menu separator types.
10406 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
10407 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
10408 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
10409 to specify other menu separator types.
10411 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
10413 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
10416 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
10418 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
10420 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
10422 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
10424 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
10426 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10428 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
10430 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10432 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
10434 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
10435 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
10437 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
10439 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
10441 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
10443 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
10445 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
10447 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
10449 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
10451 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10453 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
10455 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
10457 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
10459 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10461 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
10463 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
10465 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
10466 the corresponding single-line separators.
10468 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
10470 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
10471 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
10472 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
10473 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
10474 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
10475 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
10476 default foreground is black.
10478 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
10479 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
10480 `ScrollBarBackground').
10482 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
10483 settings for scroll bar colors.
10485 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
10486 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
10488 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
10489 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
10490 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
10491 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
10492 the original window start.
10494 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
10495 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
10496 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
10498 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
10500 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
10501 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
10502 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
10503 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
10505 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
10506 fixed-width and fixed-height.
10508 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
10510 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
10511 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
10512 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
10513 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
10514 temporarily to nil, for example
10516 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
10517 (enlarge-window 10))
10519 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
10520 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
10522 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
10523 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
10524 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
10525 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
10526 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
10527 support a vertical-bar cursor).
10531 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
10533 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
10536 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
10538 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
10540 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
10541 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
10542 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
10543 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
10544 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
10546 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
10550 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
10552 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
10556 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
10558 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
10559 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
10561 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
10563 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
10565 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
10566 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
10567 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
10569 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
10570 is the one that is used.
10572 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
10573 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
10574 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
10575 separate from the command's regular output.
10576 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
10577 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
10578 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
10581 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
10582 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
10583 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
10584 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
10586 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
10587 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
10588 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
10589 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
10591 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
10592 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
10593 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
10594 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
10596 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
10597 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
10598 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
10599 they never ignore case.
10601 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
10602 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
10603 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
10604 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
10605 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
10606 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
10607 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
10609 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
10610 the same format that was used in the file before.
10612 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
10613 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
10615 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
10616 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
10617 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
10619 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
10620 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
10621 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
10622 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
10623 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
10624 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
10625 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
10627 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
10628 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
10629 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
10630 format. You can now customize these variables.
10632 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
10633 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
10634 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
10635 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
10637 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
10638 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
10639 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
10641 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
10642 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
10643 doesn't have any effect.
10645 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
10646 not one per buffer.
10648 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
10649 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
10650 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
10652 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
10653 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
10654 `auto-show-mode' command.
10656 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
10657 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
10658 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
10659 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
10660 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
10662 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
10663 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
10665 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
10666 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
10667 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
10669 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
10670 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
10671 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
10672 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
10674 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
10676 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
10677 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
10678 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
10679 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
10680 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
10682 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
10683 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
10685 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
10686 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
10687 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
10688 `?' on other systems.
10690 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
10691 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
10694 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
10695 current codepage when it starts.
10699 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
10700 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
10701 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
10702 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
10703 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
10704 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
10708 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
10709 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
10711 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
10712 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
10713 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
10714 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
10715 buffer-file-coding-system.
10717 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
10718 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
10721 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
10722 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
10723 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
10724 list of possible coding systems.
10728 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
10729 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
10730 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
10731 docstring for details.
10733 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
10734 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
10735 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
10736 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
10737 lineup functions use this feature currently.
10739 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
10740 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
10742 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
10743 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
10745 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
10746 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
10747 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
10748 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
10751 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
10752 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
10754 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
10755 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
10756 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
10757 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
10759 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
10760 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
10761 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
10762 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
10763 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
10765 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
10767 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
10769 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
10770 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
10772 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
10774 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
10775 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
10776 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
10777 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
10778 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
10782 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
10783 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
10784 Gnus manual for the full story.
10786 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
10787 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
10788 group, which is created automatically.
10790 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
10793 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
10795 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
10796 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
10798 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
10801 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
10803 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
10804 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
10806 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
10808 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
10809 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
10811 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
10812 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
10814 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
10815 control over simplification.
10817 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
10819 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
10822 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
10824 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
10826 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
10827 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
10828 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
10830 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
10831 `a' forces normal posting method.
10833 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
10836 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
10837 to a non-nil value.
10839 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
10840 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
10842 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
10845 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
10847 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
10849 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
10850 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
10852 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
10853 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
10855 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
10857 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
10860 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
10861 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
10863 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
10864 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
10866 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
10868 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
10870 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
10872 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
10874 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
10875 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
10876 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
10878 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
10879 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
10880 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
10881 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
10882 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
10884 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
10885 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
10886 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
10887 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
10889 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
10890 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
10891 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
10894 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
10896 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
10897 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
10899 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
10900 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
10901 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
10902 removed from the label.
10904 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
10905 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
10907 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
10908 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
10910 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
10911 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
10914 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
10916 ** New/deleted modes and packages
10918 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
10919 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
10921 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
10922 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
10923 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
10925 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
10926 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
10927 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
10929 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
10931 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
10932 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
10933 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
10934 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
10935 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
10937 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
10938 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
10939 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
10941 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
10942 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
10943 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
10944 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
10945 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
10946 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
10947 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
10948 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
10949 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
10951 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
10952 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
10953 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
10954 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
10955 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
10958 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
10959 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
10960 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
10961 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
10962 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
10963 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
10965 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
10966 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
10967 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
10968 was not documented clearly before.
10970 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
10971 This includes Tetris and Snake.
10973 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
10975 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
10976 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
10977 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
10978 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
10980 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
10981 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
10982 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
10984 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
10986 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
10987 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
10989 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
10990 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
10993 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
10994 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
10995 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
10996 file names and attributes are returned.
10998 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
10999 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
11000 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
11001 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
11002 returns the result.
11004 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
11005 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
11007 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
11009 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
11010 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
11011 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
11014 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
11015 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
11018 The new function process-running-child-p
11019 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
11020 terminal to its own child process.
11022 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
11023 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
11024 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
11025 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
11027 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
11028 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
11030 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
11031 :included is an alias for :visible.
11033 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
11034 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
11035 to move or copy menu entries.
11037 ** Multibyte editing changes
11039 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
11040 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
11041 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
11042 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
11043 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
11044 (setq char (sref str idx)
11045 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
11046 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
11048 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
11049 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
11050 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
11052 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
11053 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
11054 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
11056 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
11058 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
11059 across the boundary.
11061 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
11062 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
11063 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
11064 contains 8-bit characters.
11065 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
11066 contains invalid characters.
11068 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
11069 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
11070 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
11071 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
11074 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
11075 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
11076 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
11077 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
11079 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
11080 compose Thai characters in a string.
11082 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
11083 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
11084 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
11085 menus should always use the third argument.
11087 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
11088 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
11089 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
11090 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
11092 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
11093 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
11094 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
11095 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
11097 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
11098 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
11099 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
11100 echo area contents.
11102 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
11104 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
11105 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
11106 requested feature cannot be loaded.
11108 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
11109 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
11110 means to clear out that attribute.
11112 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
11113 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
11115 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
11116 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
11117 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
11118 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
11120 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
11121 the gap of the current buffer.
11123 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
11124 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
11127 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
11128 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
11129 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
11130 it back in after any modifications have been made.
11132 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
11134 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
11135 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
11136 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
11137 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
11138 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
11140 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
11141 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
11142 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
11143 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
11144 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
11146 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
11147 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
11148 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
11150 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
11151 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
11152 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
11153 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
11154 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
11157 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
11158 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
11159 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
11160 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
11162 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
11164 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
11165 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
11166 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
11167 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
11169 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
11170 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
11171 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
11172 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
11173 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
11174 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
11175 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
11178 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
11181 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
11182 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
11183 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
11184 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
11185 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
11187 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
11188 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
11189 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
11190 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
11192 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
11193 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
11194 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
11195 something that most users not do.
11197 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
11198 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
11199 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
11202 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
11203 pasting operations.
11205 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
11206 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
11207 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
11208 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
11211 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
11212 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
11213 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
11214 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
11215 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
11218 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
11219 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
11220 to be confused by TeX commands.
11222 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
11223 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
11224 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
11225 of various alternative replacements and actions.
11227 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
11228 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
11229 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
11230 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
11231 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
11233 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
11234 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
11236 ** Changes in input method usage.
11238 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
11239 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
11242 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
11244 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
11245 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
11247 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
11248 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
11250 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
11252 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
11254 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
11255 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
11257 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
11258 given in the following case:
11259 o When you are using a complex input method.
11260 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
11262 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
11263 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
11264 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
11265 setting it to t is helpful.
11267 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
11269 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
11271 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
11272 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
11273 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
11274 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
11277 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
11278 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
11279 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
11282 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
11284 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
11286 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
11287 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
11289 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
11290 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
11291 its owner and group.
11293 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
11294 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
11296 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
11297 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
11299 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
11300 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
11301 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
11302 by the left edge of the rectangle.
11304 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
11305 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
11306 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
11307 for writing keyboard macros.
11309 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
11310 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
11311 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
11312 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
11313 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
11316 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
11318 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
11319 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
11322 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
11323 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
11324 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
11325 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
11327 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
11328 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
11329 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
11331 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
11332 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
11333 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
11334 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
11336 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
11337 failure if the command produces no output.
11339 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
11340 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
11343 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
11344 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
11345 function and variable names.
11347 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
11348 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
11349 file-coding-system-alist.
11351 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
11352 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
11353 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
11354 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
11355 according to the current fontset.
11357 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
11359 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
11360 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
11361 nonascii-insert-offset.
11363 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
11364 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
11365 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
11366 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
11368 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
11369 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
11371 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
11372 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
11374 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
11375 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
11378 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
11379 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
11381 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
11382 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
11383 all variables that have documentation.
11385 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
11386 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
11387 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
11388 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
11389 it should show; the default is 20.
11391 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
11392 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
11395 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
11396 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
11397 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
11398 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
11399 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
11400 Newly added options are included as well.
11402 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
11403 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
11404 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
11406 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
11409 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
11410 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
11412 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
11413 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
11416 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
11417 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
11420 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
11421 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
11422 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
11423 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
11426 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
11428 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
11429 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
11430 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
11432 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
11433 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
11434 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
11439 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
11440 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
11442 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
11443 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
11445 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
11446 read and post multi-lingual articles.
11448 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
11449 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
11450 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
11451 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
11452 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
11453 made invisible again.
11455 ** Mail reading and sending changes
11457 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
11458 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
11459 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
11462 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
11463 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
11464 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
11465 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
11466 rmail-default-body-file.
11468 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
11469 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
11470 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
11472 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
11473 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
11474 is evaluated to insert the signature.
11476 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
11477 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
11478 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
11479 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
11480 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
11481 especially interested in trying feedmail.
11483 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
11484 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
11485 provided by feedmail are:
11487 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
11488 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
11489 there is also a queue for draft messages
11491 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
11492 be prompted for confirmation
11494 **** does smart filling of address headers
11496 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
11497 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
11498 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
11500 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
11501 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
11502 /usr/lib/sendmail, and Emacs Lisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
11503 function for something else (10-20 lines of Lisp code).
11507 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
11508 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
11510 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
11511 run Dired on the directory name at point.
11513 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
11514 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
11515 for a specified regexp.
11519 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
11522 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
11523 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
11526 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
11527 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
11528 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
11529 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
11531 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
11532 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
11533 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
11534 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
11535 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
11537 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
11538 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
11539 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
11540 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
11541 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
11543 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
11544 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
11545 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
11546 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
11548 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
11549 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
11550 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
11552 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
11553 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
11554 session to resolve them.
11556 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
11557 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
11558 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
11561 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
11562 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
11563 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
11564 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
11565 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
11566 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
11569 ** Changes in Font Lock
11571 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
11572 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
11573 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
11574 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
11575 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
11577 ** Frame name display changes
11579 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
11580 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
11581 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
11582 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
11584 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
11585 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
11588 ** Comint (subshell) changes
11590 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
11591 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
11592 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
11594 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
11596 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
11597 that is, the line after the last line you got.
11598 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
11600 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
11601 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
11602 the following line.
11604 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
11605 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
11606 previously sent input.
11608 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
11609 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
11610 as the search string.
11612 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
11613 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
11617 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
11618 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
11619 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
11622 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
11623 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
11624 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
11625 style is still the default however.
11627 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
11629 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
11630 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
11631 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
11633 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
11634 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
11636 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
11637 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
11639 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
11640 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
11642 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
11643 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
11645 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
11646 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
11647 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
11648 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
11650 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
11652 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
11653 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
11654 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
11656 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
11657 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
11658 expanding dynamically.
11660 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
11661 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
11663 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
11664 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
11665 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
11666 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
11668 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
11670 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11672 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
11673 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
11674 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
11675 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
11676 against the first word in the title.
11678 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
11679 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
11680 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
11681 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
11682 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
11683 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
11685 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
11686 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
11687 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
11688 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
11690 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
11692 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
11693 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
11694 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
11695 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
11696 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
11697 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
11699 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
11700 Editing group once the package is loaded.
11702 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
11703 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
11704 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
11706 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
11707 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
11711 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
11712 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
11713 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
11715 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
11716 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
11717 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
11718 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
11721 o URLs are automatically skipped
11722 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
11724 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
11726 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
11728 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
11729 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
11730 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
11731 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
11733 *** New recursive parser.
11735 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
11736 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
11737 recursive parser scans the individual files.
11739 *** Parsing only part of a document.
11741 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
11742 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
11743 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
11745 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
11747 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
11749 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
11751 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
11753 *** Using multiple selection buffers
11755 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
11756 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
11758 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
11760 *** References to external documents.
11762 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
11763 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
11764 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
11765 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
11766 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
11767 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
11768 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
11770 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
11772 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
11773 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
11775 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
11776 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
11778 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
11780 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
11781 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
11783 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
11785 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
11786 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
11787 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
11788 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
11789 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
11790 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
11793 *** Support for the varioref package
11795 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
11799 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
11800 and citations are created. These hooks are
11801 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
11802 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
11804 *** Citations outside LaTeX
11806 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
11807 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
11809 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
11811 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
11812 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
11815 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
11817 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
11818 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
11819 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
11820 directories that contain the same file name.
11822 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
11823 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
11824 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
11825 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
11826 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
11827 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
11828 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
11831 ** New modes and packages
11833 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
11834 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
11835 it, but some do not.
11837 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
11840 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
11841 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
11842 around in a buffer.
11844 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
11846 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
11847 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
11848 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
11849 established system of notation similar to Chess.
11851 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
11852 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
11853 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
11855 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
11856 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
11857 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc.); others are implementations of
11858 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
11859 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
11862 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
11863 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
11865 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
11866 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
11867 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
11868 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
11870 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
11872 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
11873 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
11874 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
11875 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
11876 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc.)
11877 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
11878 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
11879 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
11880 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
11881 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
11882 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
11884 Platform-specific modes:
11886 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
11887 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
11888 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
11889 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
11890 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
11891 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
11892 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
11893 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
11894 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
11896 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11898 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
11899 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
11900 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
11901 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
11903 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
11904 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
11905 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
11907 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
11908 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
11909 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
11910 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
11912 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
11913 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
11914 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
11917 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
11918 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
11919 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
11920 current input method for reading this one event.
11922 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
11923 now control whether to output certain characters as
11924 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
11925 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
11926 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
11927 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
11929 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11931 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
11932 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
11934 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
11935 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
11936 always increases point by 1.
11938 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
11939 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
11941 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
11943 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
11944 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
11945 default value changed. For example,
11947 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
11952 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
11955 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
11956 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
11957 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
11958 `:version' in the top level group.
11960 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
11962 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
11963 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
11965 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
11966 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
11967 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
11970 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
11971 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
11974 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
11975 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
11976 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
11978 ** Frame-local variables.
11980 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
11981 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
11982 local bindings for that variable.
11984 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
11985 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
11986 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
11989 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
11990 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
11991 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
11992 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
11994 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
11995 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
11996 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
11997 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
11999 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
12000 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
12001 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
12002 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
12003 See the documentation in sregex.el.
12005 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
12006 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
12007 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
12008 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
12010 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
12011 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
12013 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
12014 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
12015 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
12017 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
12018 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
12019 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
12020 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
12022 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
12023 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
12026 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
12027 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
12028 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
12029 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
12030 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
12032 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
12033 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
12034 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
12035 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
12037 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
12038 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
12039 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
12040 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
12041 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
12043 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
12044 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
12045 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
12046 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
12048 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
12049 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
12050 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
12052 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
12053 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
12054 was directed to display this buffer.
12056 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
12057 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
12058 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
12059 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
12060 set-window-configuration.
12062 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
12063 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
12064 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
12065 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
12067 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
12068 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
12069 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
12071 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
12072 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
12073 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
12075 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
12076 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
12078 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
12079 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
12081 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
12082 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
12083 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
12085 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
12086 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
12087 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
12088 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
12092 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
12093 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
12096 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
12097 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
12098 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
12099 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
12100 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
12102 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
12104 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
12105 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
12106 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
12107 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
12110 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
12111 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
12112 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
12113 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
12114 The supported properties include
12116 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
12118 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
12119 item should appear in the menu.
12121 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
12122 which will be REAL-BINDING.
12123 It should return a binding to use instead.
12125 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
12126 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
12127 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
12128 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
12129 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
12132 This means that the command normally has no
12133 keyboard equivalent.
12134 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
12135 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
12136 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
12137 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
12138 value says whether this button is currently selected.
12140 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
12141 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
12143 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
12147 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
12148 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
12149 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
12150 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
12152 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
12154 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
12155 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
12156 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
12157 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
12158 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
12159 forward, away from the user.
12161 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
12163 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
12164 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
12165 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
12166 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
12167 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
12169 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
12171 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
12172 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
12173 that were dragged and dropped.
12175 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
12177 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
12179 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
12180 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
12181 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
12183 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
12184 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
12185 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
12187 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
12188 in Emacs 19 and before.
12190 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
12191 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
12193 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
12194 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
12195 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
12196 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
12198 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
12199 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
12200 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
12201 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
12202 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
12204 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
12205 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
12206 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
12207 consistent with the new representation.
12209 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
12210 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
12211 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
12212 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
12214 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
12215 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
12216 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
12218 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
12219 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
12220 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
12222 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
12223 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
12224 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
12226 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
12227 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
12229 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
12230 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
12232 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
12233 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
12234 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
12235 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
12237 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
12238 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
12240 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
12241 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
12242 buffer or string being searched.
12244 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
12245 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
12246 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
12247 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
12248 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
12249 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
12250 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
12252 *** Structure of coding system changed.
12254 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
12255 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
12256 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
12257 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
12258 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
12259 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
12260 define-coding-system-alias.
12262 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
12263 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
12264 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
12265 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
12266 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
12267 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
12268 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
12271 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
12272 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
12273 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
12274 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
12276 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
12277 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
12278 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
12279 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
12281 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
12282 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
12283 This function requires a user interaction.
12285 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
12286 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
12287 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
12288 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
12289 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
12290 select-safe-coding-system.
12292 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
12293 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
12294 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
12297 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
12298 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
12299 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
12301 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
12302 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
12303 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
12304 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
12306 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
12307 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
12308 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
12311 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
12312 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
12314 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
12315 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
12316 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
12317 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
12318 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
12319 range of characters.
12321 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
12322 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
12324 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
12325 in the current buffer at position POS.
12327 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
12328 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
12329 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
12330 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
12331 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
12332 binding input-method-function to nil.
12334 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
12335 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
12336 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
12337 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
12338 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
12340 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
12341 subsequent events of a key sequence.
12343 *** You can customize any language environment by using
12344 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
12346 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
12347 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
12348 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
12349 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
12350 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
12352 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
12354 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
12355 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
12356 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
12359 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
12360 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
12362 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
12363 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
12364 in your .emacs file.)
12366 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
12367 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
12369 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
12370 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
12372 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
12373 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
12376 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
12377 delete the character before point, as usual.
12379 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
12380 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
12381 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
12383 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
12384 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
12385 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
12386 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
12387 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
12390 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
12391 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
12392 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
12393 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
12394 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
12396 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
12397 and is an alias for it.
12399 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
12400 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
12402 ** Scrolling changes
12404 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
12405 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
12407 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
12408 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
12411 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
12412 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
12413 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
12414 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
12416 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
12417 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
12418 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
12419 recenters the window.
12421 ** International character set support (MULE)
12423 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
12424 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
12425 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
12426 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
12427 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
12428 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
12430 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
12431 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
12432 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
12433 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
12434 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
12436 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
12437 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
12438 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
12439 language, to make it possible to type them.
12441 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
12442 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
12444 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
12445 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
12447 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
12449 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
12451 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
12452 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
12453 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
12454 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
12455 characters for their work until they want to change.
12459 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
12460 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
12461 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
12462 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
12463 support several input methods.
12465 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
12466 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
12469 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
12470 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
12471 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
12472 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
12473 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
12476 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
12477 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
12478 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
12479 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
12480 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
12482 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
12483 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
12484 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
12485 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
12487 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
12488 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
12489 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
12490 the first guess is wrong.
12492 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
12493 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
12495 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
12496 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
12497 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
12498 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
12500 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
12501 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
12502 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
12503 translate automatically to and from either one.
12505 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
12507 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
12508 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
12509 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
12512 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
12513 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
12514 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
12515 multibyte characters in that buffer.
12517 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
12518 character conversion as well.
12520 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
12522 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
12523 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
12524 requires using many fonts.
12526 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
12527 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
12529 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
12530 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
12531 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
12532 you would use a font.
12534 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
12535 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
12536 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
12538 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
12539 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
12542 *** Defining fontsets.
12544 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
12545 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
12546 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
12548 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
12549 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
12550 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
12551 standard fontset are created automatically.
12553 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
12554 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
12555 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
12556 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
12557 name is `fontset-startup'.
12559 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
12560 The resource value should have this form:
12561 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
12562 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
12563 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
12564 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
12565 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
12566 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
12567 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
12568 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
12569 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
12571 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
12572 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
12573 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
12575 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
12576 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
12577 following resource,
12578 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
12579 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
12580 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
12581 Here is the substitution rule:
12582 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
12583 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
12584 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
12585 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
12586 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
12588 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
12589 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
12590 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
12592 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
12593 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
12594 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
12595 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
12598 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
12599 defaults for a particular choice of language.
12601 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
12602 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
12603 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
12604 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
12605 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
12606 system for new files that you create.
12608 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
12609 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
12610 whole Emacs session.
12612 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
12613 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
12614 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
12616 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
12617 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
12618 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
12619 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
12620 coding systems that Emacs supports.
12622 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
12623 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
12624 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
12625 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
12626 is used for *the immediately following command*.
12628 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
12629 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
12631 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
12632 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
12634 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
12635 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
12637 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
12638 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
12639 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
12640 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
12643 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
12644 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
12645 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
12646 translated into that character code.
12648 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
12649 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
12651 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
12653 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
12654 the coding system for keyboard input.
12656 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
12657 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
12658 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
12660 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
12662 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
12663 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
12664 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
12665 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
12666 designed to work with terminals.
12668 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
12669 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
12670 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
12671 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
12672 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
12673 in the corresponding buffer.
12675 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
12677 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
12678 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
12679 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
12681 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
12682 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
12683 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
12686 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
12687 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
12689 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
12690 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
12691 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
12692 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
12694 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
12695 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
12696 related information.
12698 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
12699 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
12702 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
12703 information about the support for a particular language.
12704 You specify the language as an argument.
12706 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
12707 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
12710 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
12711 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
12712 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
12713 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
12715 A alternativnyj (Russian)
12717 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
12718 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
12719 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
12720 E euc-japan (Japanese)
12721 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12722 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
12723 K euc-korea (Korean)
12726 S shift_jis (Japanese)
12729 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
12730 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12731 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
12732 v viqr (Vietnamese)
12735 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
12736 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
12737 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
12738 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
12740 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
12741 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
12743 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
12744 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
12745 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
12746 Rmail files themselves.
12748 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
12749 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
12751 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
12754 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
12755 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
12756 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
12757 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
12758 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
12760 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
12761 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
12762 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
12765 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
12766 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
12767 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
12768 without any conversion.
12770 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
12771 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
12772 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
12773 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
12775 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
12776 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
12778 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
12779 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
12781 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
12782 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
12784 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
12785 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
12786 in the buffer before point.
12788 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
12789 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
12792 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
12793 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
12795 ** File locking works with NFS now.
12797 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
12798 in the same directory as FILENAME.
12800 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
12801 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
12802 can become a bottleneck.
12804 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
12805 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
12806 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
12807 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
12808 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
12809 so useful that the change is worth while.
12811 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
12812 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
12813 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
12814 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
12816 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
12817 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
12820 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
12821 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
12822 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
12824 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
12825 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
12826 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
12828 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
12829 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
12830 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
12832 ** Changes in View mode.
12834 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
12835 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
12837 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
12838 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
12840 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
12843 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
12844 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
12846 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
12847 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
12848 not just the selected window.
12850 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
12851 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
12852 turns View mode on or off.
12854 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
12855 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
12856 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
12858 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
12859 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
12861 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
12862 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
12863 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
12864 which version to compare with.
12866 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
12867 blocks if a match is inside the block.
12869 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
12870 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
12871 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
12872 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
12874 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
12875 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
12876 blocks, all of them or none.
12878 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
12879 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
12880 confirmation first.
12882 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
12883 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
12884 However, the mode will not be changed if
12885 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
12886 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
12887 not suitable for ordinary files, or
12888 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
12890 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
12892 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
12893 these commands do not change the major mode.
12895 ** M-x occur changes.
12897 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
12898 it performs a case-sensitive search.
12900 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
12901 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
12902 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
12904 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
12905 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
12906 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
12907 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
12908 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
12910 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
12911 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
12912 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
12913 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
12915 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12916 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
12917 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
12919 ** Outline mode changes.
12921 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
12923 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
12925 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
12926 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
12927 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
12928 was already active.
12930 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
12931 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
12932 get confused by it.
12934 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
12935 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
12937 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
12939 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
12940 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
12941 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
12942 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
12944 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
12945 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
12946 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
12948 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
12949 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
12952 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
12953 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
12954 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
12955 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
12957 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
12958 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
12959 can be. The default value is 30.
12961 ** Changes in Mail mode.
12963 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
12964 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
12965 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
12966 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
12967 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
12970 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
12971 compose-mail-other-frame.
12973 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
12974 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
12975 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
12976 buffer that shows the original message.
12978 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
12979 with separator lines around the contents.
12981 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
12982 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
12983 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
12984 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
12986 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
12988 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
12989 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
12990 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
12991 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
12993 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
12994 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
12997 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
12998 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
13001 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
13002 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
13003 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
13004 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
13006 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
13007 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
13008 be taken to be magic.
13010 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
13011 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
13012 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
13014 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
13015 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
13017 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
13018 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
13020 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
13022 new key dired.el binding old key
13023 ------- ---------------- -------
13024 * c dired-change-marks c
13026 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
13027 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
13028 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
13030 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
13031 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
13032 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
13033 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
13034 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
13035 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
13039 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
13040 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
13041 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
13042 each time you run it.
13044 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
13045 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
13047 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
13048 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
13049 means to move in the opposite direction.
13051 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
13052 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
13054 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
13055 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
13056 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
13057 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
13062 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
13064 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
13067 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
13068 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
13070 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
13073 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
13075 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
13077 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
13079 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
13080 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
13081 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
13083 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
13085 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
13087 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
13088 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
13090 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
13091 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
13092 used to pick articles.
13094 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
13095 another have been added.
13097 `M-x gnus-change-server'
13099 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
13100 generating lines in buffers.
13102 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
13105 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
13107 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
13109 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
13111 *** Scores can be decayed.
13113 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
13115 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
13116 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
13118 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
13121 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
13123 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
13124 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
13126 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
13128 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
13129 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
13131 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
13132 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
13134 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
13137 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
13138 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
13140 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
13142 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
13144 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
13146 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
13148 Use the `Y c' command.
13150 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
13152 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
13154 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
13156 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
13157 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
13159 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
13161 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
13163 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
13164 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
13166 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
13168 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
13169 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
13170 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
13171 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
13174 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
13175 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
13176 particular news group. This can be done by:
13178 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
13180 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
13181 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
13182 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
13183 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
13184 for reading and posting).
13186 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
13187 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
13188 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
13189 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
13192 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
13193 default. Here are some of these default settings:
13195 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
13196 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
13197 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
13198 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
13199 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
13201 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
13202 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
13204 ** CC mode changes.
13206 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
13207 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
13208 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
13209 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
13210 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
13213 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
13214 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
13215 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
13216 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
13217 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
13218 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
13220 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
13221 of the current buffer.
13223 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
13224 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
13225 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
13227 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
13228 style that the Python developers like.
13230 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
13231 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
13232 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
13234 ** VC Changes [new]
13236 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
13237 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
13238 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
13240 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
13241 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
13244 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
13245 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
13247 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
13248 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
13249 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
13250 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
13252 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
13253 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
13255 ** Calendar changes.
13257 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
13258 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
13259 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
13260 following/previous years.
13262 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
13263 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
13264 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
13265 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
13266 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
13267 supposed attribute of God.
13269 ** ps-print changes
13271 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
13274 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
13276 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
13277 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
13278 printer system has this behavior, set variable
13279 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
13281 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
13282 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
13283 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
13285 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
13286 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
13288 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
13289 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
13290 printing for your printer.
13292 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
13293 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13295 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
13296 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13298 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
13299 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
13300 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
13301 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
13302 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
13303 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
13304 The default value is nil.
13306 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
13307 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
13309 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
13310 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
13311 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
13312 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
13313 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
13314 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
13315 color). The default is 0 ("black").
13317 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
13318 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
13320 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
13321 The default is 0 ("black").
13323 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
13324 The default is 0 ("black").
13326 border-width Specify the border width.
13327 The default is 0.4.
13329 Any other property is ignored.
13331 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
13332 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
13335 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
13336 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
13337 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
13338 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
13339 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
13340 controlling headers.
13342 *** Color management (subgroup)
13344 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
13347 *** Face Management (subgroup)
13349 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
13350 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
13351 background should be used. Valid values are:
13353 t always use face background color.
13354 nil never use face background color.
13355 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
13357 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
13359 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
13362 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
13363 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
13365 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
13368 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
13369 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
13370 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
13372 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
13376 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
13380 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
13384 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
13388 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
13390 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
13392 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
13395 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
13396 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
13397 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
13399 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
13400 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13401 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13402 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13403 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13407 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13408 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13409 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13412 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13413 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13414 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
13415 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
13416 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
13417 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13418 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13419 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13420 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
13421 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
13422 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
13425 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13427 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
13430 *** Printer management (subgroup)
13432 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
13433 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
13434 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
13435 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
13438 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
13439 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
13440 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
13442 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
13443 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
13446 *** Page settings (subgroup)
13448 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
13449 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
13450 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
13451 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
13452 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
13453 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
13456 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
13457 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
13458 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
13460 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
13461 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
13462 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
13463 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
13464 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
13465 its TO, are ignored.
13467 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
13468 pages. Valid values are:
13470 nil print all pages.
13472 `even-page' print only even pages.
13474 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
13476 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
13477 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13478 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
13479 print only the even sheet of paper.
13481 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
13482 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13483 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
13484 only the odd sheet of paper.
13486 Any other value is treated as nil.
13488 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
13489 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
13490 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
13492 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
13494 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
13495 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
13497 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
13498 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13499 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
13500 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13501 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13502 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13503 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13505 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
13506 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13507 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
13508 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
13509 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
13510 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
13511 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
13513 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
13515 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
13516 messages should be sent.
13518 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
13519 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
13520 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
13522 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
13524 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
13525 points for line numbers.
13527 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
13528 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
13530 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
13531 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
13532 to 2, the printing will look like:
13544 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
13545 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
13548 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
13549 zebra stripe is to be printed.
13551 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
13553 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
13554 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
13555 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
13556 3, the output will look like:
13570 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
13571 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
13573 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
13574 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13577 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
13578 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13581 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
13583 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
13584 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
13586 ** hideshow changes.
13588 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
13591 *** Support for java-mode added.
13593 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
13594 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
13596 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
13597 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
13598 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
13600 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
13601 robust and a lot faster.
13603 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
13605 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
13606 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
13607 documentation for more details.
13609 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
13611 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
13612 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
13613 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
13614 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
13615 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
13617 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
13618 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
13619 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
13620 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
13626 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
13627 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify
13628 the faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new
13629 custom group font-lock-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in your
13630 ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
13631 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
13633 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
13635 *** Maximum decoration
13637 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
13638 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
13639 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
13640 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
13641 to get the old behavior.
13645 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
13647 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
13648 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
13650 *** Configurable support
13652 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
13653 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
13654 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
13655 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
13656 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
13657 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
13658 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
13660 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
13661 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
13662 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
13664 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
13666 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
13667 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
13670 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
13672 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
13678 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
13679 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
13680 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
13681 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
13683 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
13685 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
13686 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
13687 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
13689 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
13691 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
13692 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
13693 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
13694 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
13695 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
13696 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
13697 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
13699 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
13700 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
13701 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
13702 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
13703 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
13704 the command M-o M-o (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
13706 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
13708 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
13709 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
13710 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
13711 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
13713 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
13716 ** Ada mode changes.
13718 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
13719 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
13720 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
13721 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
13724 *** There are two new commands:
13725 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
13726 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
13728 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
13729 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
13730 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
13732 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
13733 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
13734 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
13736 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
13737 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
13738 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
13739 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
13741 ** Scheme mode changes.
13743 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
13744 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
13745 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
13746 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
13749 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
13750 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
13751 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
13752 variables as buffer-local variables.
13754 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
13755 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
13757 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
13759 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
13760 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
13761 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
13762 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
13764 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
13765 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
13768 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
13769 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
13770 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
13771 option takes precedence.
13773 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
13774 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
13775 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
13777 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
13778 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
13781 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
13782 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
13784 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
13785 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
13788 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
13789 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
13790 these register values no longer become completely useless.
13791 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
13792 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
13793 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
13795 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
13796 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
13797 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
13798 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
13800 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
13801 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
13802 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
13803 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
13804 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
13806 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
13807 since it applies only to the current frame.
13809 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
13810 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
13811 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
13813 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
13814 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
13815 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
13816 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
13817 instead of just the file you are editing.
13821 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
13822 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
13823 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
13824 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
13825 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
13828 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
13829 knows which kind of label is needed.
13831 C-c ) reftex-reference
13832 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
13833 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
13835 C-c [ reftex-citation
13836 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
13837 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
13839 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
13840 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
13843 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
13844 can quickly jump to every section.
13846 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
13847 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
13848 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
13849 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
13850 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
13852 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
13854 *** Info documentation is now available.
13856 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
13857 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
13859 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
13860 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
13862 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
13863 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
13865 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
13866 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
13867 appropriate functions.
13869 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
13870 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
13872 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
13875 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
13876 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
13878 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
13879 shall be delimited.
13881 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
13882 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
13883 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
13885 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
13886 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
13887 prefixed with `ALT'.
13889 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
13890 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
13891 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
13894 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
13895 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
13896 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
13898 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
13899 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
13901 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
13902 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
13903 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
13905 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
13907 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
13909 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
13910 from alien sources.
13912 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
13913 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
13916 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
13919 *** Added support for imenu.
13921 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
13922 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
13923 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
13924 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
13926 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
13927 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
13929 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
13931 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
13933 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
13934 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
13935 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
13938 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
13939 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
13941 ** browse-url changes
13943 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
13944 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
13945 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
13946 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
13947 customization variables.
13949 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
13951 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
13952 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
13953 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
13955 ** Changes in Ediff
13957 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
13958 pops up the Info file for this command.
13960 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
13961 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
13962 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
13965 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
13966 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
13967 files in the same directory.
13969 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
13970 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
13971 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
13973 ** Changes in Viper
13975 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
13976 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
13978 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
13979 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
13980 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
13981 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
13982 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
13983 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
13984 color when Viper is in insert state.
13985 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
13986 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
13987 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
13991 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
13992 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
13993 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
13994 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
13995 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
13997 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
13999 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
14000 constructs are tagged. Files are recognized by the extension .java.
14002 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
14003 recognized by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
14004 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
14006 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
14007 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
14008 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
14009 methods and protocols.
14011 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognized by the extension
14012 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
14013 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
14016 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
14017 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
14018 at least M times and as many as N times.
14020 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
14021 in files has changed slightly.
14023 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
14024 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
14025 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
14026 with old time-stamp-format values.
14028 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
14029 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
14030 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
14033 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
14034 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
14035 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
14036 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
14037 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
14038 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
14040 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
14041 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
14042 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
14044 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
14045 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
14046 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
14047 recommended now will continue to work then.
14049 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
14052 ** There are some additional major modes:
14054 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
14055 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
14056 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
14058 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
14059 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
14062 ** New Lisp packages include:
14064 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
14066 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
14067 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
14069 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
14071 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
14074 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
14075 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
14078 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
14079 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
14080 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
14081 strings or comments.
14083 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
14084 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
14085 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
14086 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
14089 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
14090 can visit them by short forms of their names.
14092 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
14093 Emacs Lisp function at point.
14095 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
14097 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
14098 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
14100 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
14102 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
14104 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
14106 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
14107 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
14109 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
14110 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
14111 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
14112 original place after inserting the copy.
14114 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
14117 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
14118 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
14119 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
14121 Enable mouse-drag with:
14122 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
14124 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
14126 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
14127 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
14129 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
14130 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
14134 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
14135 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
14136 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
14137 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
14138 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
14139 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
14140 instance) and vice versa.
14142 To use this package load it using
14143 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
14144 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
14145 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
14146 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
14147 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
14148 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
14150 *** Interface to ph.
14152 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
14154 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
14155 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
14158 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
14160 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
14161 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
14162 while the real cursor does not move.
14164 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
14165 for visiting your favorite web sites.
14167 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
14168 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
14172 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
14173 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
14174 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
14175 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
14177 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
14179 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
14181 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
14183 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
14184 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
14185 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
14186 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
14187 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
14189 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
14190 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
14191 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
14192 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
14193 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
14194 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
14196 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
14198 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
14199 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
14200 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
14201 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
14203 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
14204 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
14206 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
14207 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
14210 ** Basic Lisp changes
14212 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
14213 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
14215 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
14216 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
14219 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
14221 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
14223 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
14224 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
14226 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
14227 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
14230 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
14232 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
14234 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
14236 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
14237 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
14238 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
14241 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
14242 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
14243 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
14245 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
14246 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
14247 adding one of these suffixes.
14249 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
14250 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
14251 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
14253 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
14254 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
14256 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
14258 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
14259 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
14261 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
14262 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
14264 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
14266 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
14267 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
14269 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
14270 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
14271 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
14272 works using `save-current-buffer'.
14274 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
14275 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
14278 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
14279 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
14280 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
14283 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
14284 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
14287 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
14289 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
14290 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
14291 Then it returns that string.
14293 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
14295 (with-output-to-string
14296 (princ "The buffer is ")
14297 (princ (buffer-name)))
14299 returns "The buffer is foo".
14301 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
14304 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
14305 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
14306 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
14308 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
14309 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
14311 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
14312 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
14313 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
14314 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
14315 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
14316 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
14318 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
14319 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
14320 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
14323 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
14324 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
14325 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
14326 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
14327 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
14329 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
14330 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
14331 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
14332 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
14334 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
14335 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
14337 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
14339 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
14340 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
14341 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
14342 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
14345 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
14346 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
14349 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
14351 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
14352 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
14353 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
14354 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
14355 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
14357 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
14359 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
14360 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
14361 more than the number of characters.
14363 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
14364 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
14365 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
14366 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
14367 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
14368 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
14370 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
14371 and returns a string containing those characters.
14373 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
14374 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
14375 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
14376 character, sref signals an error.
14378 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
14379 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
14380 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14382 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
14383 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
14384 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14386 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
14387 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
14388 to a vector of the characters in it.
14390 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
14391 of a string. You call it as follows:
14393 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
14395 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
14396 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
14397 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
14398 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
14399 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
14401 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
14402 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14404 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
14405 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14407 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
14408 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
14409 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
14410 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
14412 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
14414 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
14416 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
14417 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
14418 are not included in the resulting value.
14420 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
14421 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
14422 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
14423 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
14425 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
14426 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
14427 character extends across that column), then the padding character
14428 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
14429 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
14430 column START-COLUMN.
14432 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
14433 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
14434 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
14435 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
14436 changed text, before the change.
14438 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
14439 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
14440 one character set for each script, not for each language.
14442 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
14444 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
14446 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
14447 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
14449 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
14450 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
14451 which identify the character within that character set.
14453 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
14454 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
14455 opposite of split-char.
14457 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
14458 of all the characters between BEG and END.
14460 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
14461 of all the characters in a string.
14463 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
14464 and specifying coding systems.
14466 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
14467 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
14468 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
14469 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
14470 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
14471 as what to do about code conversion.)
14473 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
14474 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
14476 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14477 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14478 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
14480 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14481 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
14482 to match against a file name.
14484 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14485 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14486 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14487 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14488 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14489 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14491 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14492 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14494 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
14495 the coding system to use for network sockets.
14497 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14498 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
14499 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
14502 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14503 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14504 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14505 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14506 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14507 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14509 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14510 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14512 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14513 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14514 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
14515 start the subprocess.
14517 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
14518 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
14519 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
14520 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
14521 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
14523 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
14524 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
14527 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
14528 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
14529 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
14530 connection permanently or until overridden.
14532 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
14533 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
14534 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
14535 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
14536 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
14537 system for one operation at a time.
14539 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
14540 files, subprocesses or network connections.
14542 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
14543 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
14544 The value is a cons cell,
14545 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
14546 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
14547 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
14548 input to the subprocess.
14550 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
14551 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
14553 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
14554 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
14555 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
14557 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
14558 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
14559 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
14560 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
14563 Thus, instead of writing
14565 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
14566 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
14568 you would now write this:
14570 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
14571 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
14575 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
14576 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
14577 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
14578 for a description of them.
14580 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
14581 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
14583 (defgroup ispell nil
14584 "Spell checking using Ispell."
14587 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
14588 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
14589 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
14590 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
14591 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
14593 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
14594 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
14595 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
14596 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
14597 first-level subgroups.
14599 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
14601 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
14602 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
14606 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
14607 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
14608 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
14609 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
14610 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
14611 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
14613 ** Text property changes
14615 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
14618 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
14619 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
14620 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
14621 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
14622 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
14624 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
14625 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
14626 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
14627 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
14629 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
14630 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
14631 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
14633 ** Changes in invisibility features
14635 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
14636 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
14637 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
14638 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
14639 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
14640 make the overlay visible.
14642 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
14643 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
14644 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
14645 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
14646 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
14647 t when it should hide it.
14649 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
14651 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
14652 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
14653 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
14654 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
14655 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
14656 Here is an example of how to do this:
14658 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
14659 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14660 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
14661 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14664 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
14667 ;; When done with the overlays:
14668 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14669 ;; Or respectively:
14670 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14672 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
14674 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
14675 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
14676 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
14677 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
14679 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
14680 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
14681 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
14683 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
14684 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
14686 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
14687 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
14689 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
14690 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
14691 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
14693 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
14694 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
14695 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
14696 determine the syntax type of the character.
14698 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
14699 of the current buffer.
14701 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
14702 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
14703 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
14705 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
14706 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
14707 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
14708 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
14709 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
14711 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
14714 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
14715 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
14716 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
14718 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
14719 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
14720 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
14721 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
14722 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
14724 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
14725 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
14726 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
14728 ** Changes in face features
14730 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
14731 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
14733 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
14734 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
14736 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
14737 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
14739 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
14740 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
14742 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
14743 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
14744 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
14745 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
14748 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
14749 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
14751 ** Changes in file-handling functions
14753 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
14754 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
14755 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
14756 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
14758 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
14761 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
14762 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
14764 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
14765 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
14767 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
14768 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
14770 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
14771 character code conversion as well as other things.
14773 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
14774 (formerly it did not).
14776 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
14777 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
14779 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
14780 instead of constant strings.
14782 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
14783 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
14784 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
14786 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
14787 in the same way as before.
14789 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
14790 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
14791 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
14793 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
14794 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
14795 else, and returns nil.
14797 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
14798 directory cannot be listed.
14800 ** Changes in minibuffer input
14802 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
14803 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
14804 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
14805 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
14808 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
14809 It is available through the history command M-n.
14811 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
14812 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
14813 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
14814 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
14815 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
14817 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
14818 argument in this way.
14820 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
14821 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
14822 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
14824 ** Echo area features
14826 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
14827 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
14828 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
14829 after the echo area is cleared.
14831 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
14832 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
14834 ** Keyboard input features
14836 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
14837 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
14839 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
14840 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
14841 by keyboard macros.
14843 ** Frame-related changes
14845 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
14846 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
14847 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
14849 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
14850 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
14851 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
14853 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
14854 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
14855 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
14856 in the selected frame.
14858 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
14859 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
14860 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
14862 ** X Windows features
14864 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
14865 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
14866 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
14868 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
14869 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
14871 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
14872 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
14873 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
14875 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
14876 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
14878 ** Subprocess features
14880 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
14881 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
14884 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
14885 and returns the output from the command as a string.
14887 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
14888 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
14890 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
14891 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
14893 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
14894 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
14895 goes after the other menu items.
14897 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
14898 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
14899 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
14902 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
14903 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
14905 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
14906 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
14909 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
14910 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
14911 but its hook is still run.
14913 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
14914 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
14916 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
14917 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
14918 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
14920 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
14921 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
14922 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
14925 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
14926 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
14928 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
14929 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
14930 functions like display-time.
14932 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
14933 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
14935 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
14936 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
14937 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
14939 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
14940 if there is an error in compilation.
14942 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
14943 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
14944 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
14945 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
14947 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
14948 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
14949 the *scratch* buffer.
14951 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
14952 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
14953 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
14954 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
14956 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
14957 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
14958 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
14960 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
14961 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
14962 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
14963 and compose-mail-other-frame.
14965 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
14966 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
14967 full name of the specified user will be returned.
14969 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
14970 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
14971 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
14972 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
14973 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
14976 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
14977 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
14978 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
14979 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
14981 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
14982 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
14983 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
14984 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
14986 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
14988 ** imenu.el changes.
14990 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
14991 item from menu created by imenu.
14993 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
14994 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
14995 select one of those items.
14997 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
14999 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
15000 Copyright information:
15002 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
15003 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
15005 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
15006 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
15007 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
15008 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
15010 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
15011 of this document, or of portions of it,
15012 under the above conditions, provided also that they
15013 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
15017 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
15020 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793