Merge post-RC1 changes to mainline

[nedit.git] / ReleaseNotes

          Release Notes for NEdit Version 5.2, October 2001

$Id: ReleaseNotes,v 1.10 2001/10/21 15:13:07 tringali Exp $

This file contains last minute notes to users about the release, which are not
included in the documentation or README files included with the distribution
kits.  It also contains change information, for users who are interested in
what bugs have been fixed, and what features have been added in the current 
version.

If you are upgrading NEdit from a version prior to 5.0, please see the notes in
the README file which came with the (source or executable) distribution kit,
about updating macros and font settings in your .nedit file.


New Features in 5.2

 - Added built-in patterns for CSS, XML, and regular expressions (Regex).
   Many other pattern updates.

 - Support for high- and true-color systems.  NEdit now will automatically
   select the best visual from your X server.  This reduces the chance of
   running out of colors.
 
 - New features in the Find and Replace dialogs:
 
   o Replacement across multiple windows in a session.
   o Case sensitivity may be set independently of regular expressions.
   o Add "Replace and Find" command, which saves keystrokes when doing
     a large-scale find & replace.

 - ClearCase version-extended pathnames.

 - Many new macro subroutines and variables.

 - Array support in macros.

 - Range highlighting of matching delimiters.

 - Undo and Redo highlights the text that has changed, when visible.
 
 - Support for wheel mouse scrolling on servers that support it (XFree86). 
 
 - Improved accelerator key handling.

 - Insert Control Code dialog accepts value in any valid C notation
 
 - Optional beeping when search operations wrap.

 - Additional default search styles.

 - Optional displaying of path names in the window list menu.


Bug Fixes in 5.2

 - Fix a crash when entering an invalid line number in "Goto Line".
 
 - Ignore the Caps-Lock key when invoking accelerators.
 
 - Fix problems when running NEdit on 64-bit platforms like Alpha
 
 - NEdit failed to open files if some directories above were not "readable"

 - Fix potential crashes if some system calls fail
 
 - When no colors are left, attempt to reuse the closest matching color.  This
   allows NEdit's syntax highlighting to better coexist with Netscape, which
   unfortuntely takes all available colors.

 - "Overtype" mode is now bound to the Insert key, to be consistent with
   Motif text fields.

 - Accelerators now available in confirmation dialogs, and may be invoked
   without the Alt key.

 - Don't even try to open a directory for editing
 
 - Fix a couple of memory corruption problems

  
New Features in 5.1

 - Significant extensions to the regular expression syntax.  See details
   below.

 - Incremental search, and optional search bar.

 - New ctags code with full support for Exuberant Ctags, better
   handling of tag collisions, multiple tag file support, on-demand
   loading of tag files, and automatic reload of modified tag files.

 - Optional display of line numbers along the left side of the text.

 - NEdit can now read and write MS DOS format files.

 - New built-in syntax highlighting patterns for Lex, PostScript, SQL,
   Many syntax highlighting pattern improvements.

 - Improved international character set input

 - New macro subroutines: list_dialog, getenv, set_language_mode.

 - Optional warnings about external modifications to files

 - Clearcase awareness

 - Session manager restart capability

 - Default language mode "*" for user-defined menu items, allows
   per-language variations on a common base

 - Allow additional modifiers like Sun diamond key in user defined
   accelerators

 - Option to sort open previous menu.

 - -geometry and -iconic command line arguments act per-window, and
   can be specified via nc

 - -geometry now specified in characters, rather than pixels

 - -lm (language mode) command line option

 - Save As dialog defaults to same file name

 - Better default fonts for Linux systems

 - .nedit file version mechanism to make future upgrades easier


Bug Fixes in 5.1

 - Crash on large amounts of data fed to shell command which does not
   take input

 - Delayed secondary windows when executable statements specified in
   users .neditmacro file

 - Many corrections to online help

 - Many highlight patterns corrections

 - Using window close box in file open/save dialogs leaves nedit server
   unresponsive

 - escape in macro dialogs can cause macro hang

 - Lesstif-specific fixes: attachment warnings in font selector,
   Work around replace dialog focus bug.

 - NEdit no longer maintains original protection settings on files.  It
   allows them to be changed externally.


Details of Regular Expression Changes in 5.1

  Bug Fixes

    o Fixed bug that caused character classes with a character range not to
      work properly if one of the range characters was an escaped character.

  Improvements In Existing Features

    o Increased maximum number of capturing parentheses from 40 to 50.

    o Removed optimization that uses `must match' strings (it didn't work and
      caused more problems than it solved.)

    o Improved error messages.

    o Improved Start-Of-Line and End-Of-Line detection by the `^', `$', and the
      new `\B' (see below) anchors.  The Start-Of-Word and End-Of-Word anchors
      `<' and `>' where not enhanced due to syntax color highlighting pattern
      compatibility issues.

    o Changed code to use "unsigned char" in most cases instead of "signed
      char". Also, use of ANSI character functions (e.g. isdigit(), isspace())
      were added wherever possible.  These changes should improve support for
      locales other than "C", for example character sets with accented
      characters.

    o Added character escapes for:
      -  \e   ASCII escape character (for environments that use the EBCDIC
              character set, set the EBCDIC_CHARSET compiler symbol to get the
              EBCDIC equivalent escape character.)

      -  \-   minus sign
      -  \{   left brace
      -  \}   right brace

    o Removed the `\"' escape since `"' is not a meta character.

    o In order to support numeric escapes, use of `\0' as a synonym for `&'
      in replacement strings was removed.  `\0' now signals the start of a
      numeric (octal) escape sequence (see below.)

    o Minor tweaks for improved performance.

  Enhancements

    o Octal and Hexadecimal Escapes

      Octal and hexadecimal escapes begin with \0 and \x (or \X) respectively.
      For example, \052 and \X2A both specify the `*' character.  Escapes for
      null (\00 or \x0) are not valid and will generate an error message.

    o Shortcut Escapes for Common Character Classes

      \d  digits            0-9
      \l  letters           a-z and A-Z
      \s  whitespace        \t, \r, \v, \f, and space
      \w  word characters   a-z, A-Z, 0-9, and underscore, `_'

      `\D', `\L', `\S', and `\W' are the same as the lowercase versions except
      that the resulting character class is negated.

    o Anchors

      The `\B' non-word boundary anchor has been added as the logical opposite
      of `<' and `>' collectively.  This anchor ensures that the left and
      right characters are either both delimiter characters or both
      non-delimiter characters.

    o Word Delimiter Escape Sequences

      \y   Word delimiter character
      \Y   Not a word delimiter character

      The `\y' token matches any single character that is one of the characters
      that NEdit recognizes as a word delimiter character, while the `\Y' token
      matches any character that is NOT a word delimiter character.  Note:
      these are not anchors and DO consume one character of input.
 

    o Quantifiers

      +  Minimal (lazy) Matching Quantifiers

         *?   Match zero or more
         +?   Match one at least one
         ??   Match zero or one

         These quantifiers match only what is absolutely necessary to achieve
         a match.

      +  Counting (or Brace) Quantifier

         {min,max}  Match from `min' to `max' times the previous regular
                    expression atom.

         If `min' is omitted, it is assumed to be zero.  If `max' is omitted,
         it is assumed to be infinity.  Whether specified or assumed, `min'
         must be less than or equal to `max'.  If both are omitted, then the
         construct is the same as `*'.   Note that `{,}' and `{}' are both
         valid brace constructs.  A single number appearing without a comma,
         e.g. `{3}' is short for the `{min,min}' construct, or to match
         exactly `min' number of times.

    o Non-Capturing Parentheses

      Non-Capturing Parentheses are of the form `(?:<regex>)' and facilitate
      grouping only and do not incur the overhead of normal capturing
      parentheses.

    o Positive Look-Ahead

      Positive look-ahead constructs are of the form `(?=<regex>)' and
      implement a zero width assertion of the enclosed regular expression. In
      other words, a match of the regular expression contained in the positive
      look-ahead construct is attempted.  If it succeeds, control is passed to
      the next regular expression atom, but the text that was consumed by the
      positive look-ahead is first unmatched (backtracked) to the place in the
      text where the positive look-ahead was first encountered.
 
    o Negative Look-Ahead

      Negative look-ahead takes the form `(?!<regex>)' and is exactly the same
      as positive look-ahead except that the enclosed regular expression must
      NOT match.

    o Case Sensitivity

      (?i<regex>)   Case insensitive; `AbcD' and `aBCd' are equivalent.
      (?I<regex>)   Case sensitive;   `AbcD' and `aBCd' are different.

      Regular expressions are case sensitive by default, i.e `(?I<regex>)' is
      assumed.  All regular expression meta characters respond appropriately to
      case insensitivity including character classes and back-references.

    o Matching Newlines

      (?n<regex>)   `.', `[^...]', `\s', `\S' will match newlines
      (?N<regex>)   `.', `[^...]', `\s', `\S' do not match newlines

      `(?N<regex>)' is the default behavior.

    o Comments

      Comments are of the form `(?#<comment text>)' and can be inserted
      anywhere and have no effect on the execution of the regular expression.

    o Notes on New Parenthetical Constructs

      Except for plain parentheses, none of the parenthetical constructs
      capture text.  If that is desired, the construct must be wrapped with
      capturing parentheses, e.g. `((?i<regex))'.

      All parenthetical constructs can be nested as deeply as desired, except
      for capturing parentheses which have a limit of 50 sets of parentheses,
      regardless of nesting level.


New Features in 5.0.2:

 - Word-selection (double click) can be used to select ranges of delimiters
 
 - New built-in macro variables: $line, $column, and $modified
 
 - Smart-indent mode available for Python language
   
 - Minor improvements in default pattern sets for NEdit Macros, X Resources,
   and Sh/Ksh/Bash
 
 
Bug Fixes in 5.0.2:

 - -import did not work as advertised in 5.0.1.  When used, it re-set a
   number of preferences back to default values.  Could also potentially
   cause a crash.

 - Macro -> Repeat crashes on some systems.
 
 - Mouse state can get "stuck" on Alpha-based systems.
 
 - Combination of auto-wrap, auto-indent, and unbreakable lines extending the
   width of the window, caused nedit to unnecessarily insert blank lines.

 - Incorrect case-insensitive comparison in character sets > 128 bits.
 
 - in by-word drag-selection (double click then drag) when begun in the middle
   of a whitespace selection, anchor would revert to original cursor position
   rather than maintaining the entire whitespace block.
   
 - Language mode names containing spaces could not be used in language
   sensitive user-defined menu items.
   
 - New windows did not always see existing learn/replay sequence, recorded
   before the window was created.
   
 - Possible crash in search_string and search_window macros, when used with
   long search strings.
 
 - Possible crash in get_selection("any") macro.
 
 - Under Solaris, crashes on window opening, file dialog, and language mode
   selection, when user-defined sub-menus were used.
   
 - Filenames containing spaces could cause the .neditdb file to become
   unreadable.
   
 - Escape key could not be used to cancel file-selection dialogs when the
   file list had keyboard focus (which it almost always does).
   
       
New Features in 5.0.1:
   
 - Repeat-over-range, and repeat-to-end capability for repeating last
   command and learn/replay sequence.
   
 - Import capability for loading macro/shell menu commands, highlight
   patterns, and style sets created by other users.

 - New macro language routines: string_to_clipboard, clipboard_to_string,
   toupper, tolower, variables: $em_tab_dist.
   
 - Additional default highlight patterns for sh and X resources.
 
 - Sorted Open Previous menu.
   
 - Numerous improvements to default highlighting patterns and smart indent
   macros.


Bug Fixes in 5.0.1:

 - Various crashes on Motif 2.0 (Linux and FreeBSD) systems, usually
   associated with opening files and changing language modes.  Usually,
   but not necessarily, following changes to user-defined menu items.
 
 - Background menu activation during drag operation could leave drag
   unfinished, cause undo to malfunction, and eventually lead to a crash (which
   was easy to trigger accidentally when the middle button is emulated with
   mouse-chords on a two button mouse).

 - X11R6 clients talking to X11R5 servers could crash on font dialog.

 - Rapid repetition of long macros (such as binding to key and using keyboard
   repeat) could cause crash.
   
 - Several commands which put up dialogs were vulnerable to timing windows
   where repeating the command could cause a crash.
 
 - Calling macro close() routine could cause crash if used to close the window
   in which the macro was executing.
   
 - Using load_macro_file() as an "include" statement in macro files could
   cause hang.
 
 - Artifacts when using non-matching highlight fonts, and making certain types
   of changes which change the fonts used to display other (not the line being
   modified) lines in the file.
 
 - Auto-newline wrap in overtype mode could duplicate part of wrapped text.
 
 - Lower panes in split window mode allowed modification to read-only windows.
 
 - Several minor dialog and window focus related problems for explicit (click
   to focus) users.
 
 - Paste Column ignored existing selection.

 - After copying and re-naming language mode information, highlight patterns
   and smart indent macros remained attached to the re-named pattern instead of
   the original.

 - Trailing newlines should not have been prohibited in Open Selected.

 - Help for creating smart indent macros was missing.


New Features in 5.0

 - Completed macro extension language (Simple C/awk-like syntax, safe,
   fully interruptable)

 - Syntax highlighting.  Built-in patterns for C, C++, Java, Fortran, Pascal,
   Ada, Perl, Python, Tcl, Awk, Csh, HTML, LaTeX, VHDL, Verilog, and more.

 - Programmable Smart indent.  (Experimentally, at least.  There are only
   macros for C and C++, and they may not fit everyone's programming style.)

 - Language-sensitive preferences

 - Continuous wrap mode (long line wrapping), in addition to existing
   automatic-newline wrapping

 - User-defined menus can be hierarchical and language-sensitive.

 - Configurable right-button pop up menu

 - Pan-scrolling

 - Searchable on-line help

 - Word boundary matching (<>) in regular expressions

 - Repeat command

 - More dialogs have up-arrow recall

 - White-space selection via double-click


Bug Fixes and Enhancements to Existing Features in 5.0

 - No more limits on editing files containing ascii nul characters

 - Fill Paragraph command handles leading indents

 - Select to mark

 - Better directory defaulting in Open Selected and shell commands

 - Open Selected processes tilde (~) and wildcards

 - Goto Mark centers scroll position better

 - Multiple shell commands can be run simultaneously

 - Shell command execution doesn't block server command processing

 - Emulated-tab deletion treats auto-indent as emulated tabs

 - Auto-wrapping of pasted text is optional (off by default)

 - Notice that default preferences have changed and ask about saving
   on exit

 - Selections remain selected after shell command and filter execution

 - Wrap margin and emulated tab distance preferences are properly
   transferred to new panes in split window mode