comparison etc/NEWS @ 96230:07ecdd924140

Re-order items.

96229:f0fef621a168


* Installation Changes in Emacs 23.1

** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.

** Fonts are handled by new code capable of dealing with multiple font
backends.  This requires the freetype and fontconfig libraries, and
supports local fonts (fonts installed on the machine where Emacs is
running).  Additionally, the Xft library can be used for antialiasing
support, the otf library for complex text layout by OpenType fonts,
and the m17n library for text shaping.  Emacs now accepts font names
supplied in the fontconfig format (e.g. "monospace-12:bold") and GTK
format (e.g. "Monospace Bold 12").

** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
bindings for Emacs.

** The Mac Carbon port is no longer supported.
Instead, use... [FIXME what?]

** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
a GIF library.

** Support for systems without alloca has been removed.

** Support for Sun windows has been removed.

** Support for many obsolete platforms has been removed.
See the list at the end of etc/MACHINES for details.

** The `emacstool' utility has been removed.

** The configure options `--with-gcc', `--without-gcc' have been removed.
Configure will use gcc by default.  Set the CC environment variable if
you need control over which C compiler is used.

** The configure option `--with-gtk' has been removed.  Gtk is now the
default toolkit, but you can use --with-x-toolkit=gtk if necessary.

* Changes in Emacs 23.1

** `underline-minimum-offset' keeps the underline away from the baseline.

** Info displays breadcrumbs in the header of the page.
See Info-breadcrumbs-depth to control it.

** Emacs now supports serial port access on GNU/Linux, Unix, and
Windows.  `serial-term' starts an interactive terminal,
`make-serial-process' and `serial-process-configure' provide a Lisp
interface.  The serial port can be configured at runtime with the
mode-line mouse menu.

** Apropos
*** `apropos-library' describes the elements defined in a given library.
*** Set `apropos-compact-layout' is you want a more compact (but wider) layout.

** scroll-preserve-screen-position also preserves the column position.
** Completion.
*** `completion-styles' can be customized to choose your favorite completion.
*** The default completion styles include a form of partial-completion.
*** The new command `minibuffer-force-complete chooses one of the possible
completions, rather than stopping at the common prefix.
*** `completion-auto-help' can be set to `lazy' to list the completions only
if you repeat the completion.  This was already supported in
`partial-completion-mode'.

** Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in one session.
Start the server (M-x server-start).  Then `emacsclient -t' creates a
tty frame connected to the running emacs server.  You can also use any
number of different ttys.  `emacsclient -c' creates a new X11 frame on
the current $DISPLAY or a tty frame if $DISPLAY is not set.

You can test for the presence of this feature in your Lisp code by
testing for the `multi-tty' feature.

** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
(It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).

The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs'.  utf-8-emacs is backwards
compatible with the UTF-8 encoding of Unicode.  The `emacs-mule'
coding system can still read and write data in the old internal encoding.

Since the internal encoding is also used by default for byte-compiled
files -- i.e. the normal coding system for byte-compiled Lisp files is
now utf-8-Emacs -- Lisp containing non-ASCII characters which is
compiled by Emacs 23 can't be read by earlier versions of Emacs.  Files
compiled by Emacs 20, 21, or 22 are loaded correctly as emacs-mule
(whether or not they contain multibyte characters), which makes loading
them somewhat slower than Emacs 23-compiled files.  Thus it may be worth
recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be shared with older
Emacsen.

** There are assorted new coding systems/aliases -- see M-x list-coding-systems.

** There is a new charset implementation with many new charsets.
See M-x list-character-sets.  New charsets can be defined conveniently
as tables of unicodes.

The dimension of a charset is now 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the size of each
dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.

A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
characters for display.

** There are new Chinese-GBK, Chinese-GB18030, Khmer, Bengali,
Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu, Sinhala, and TaiViet language
environments.

** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
You can embed Emacs in another application on X11.  The new command line option
--parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs.  See
http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
for details about XEmbed.

** Controlling the frame opacity
The opacity of a frame can now be controlled by setting
the `alpha' frame parameter, on a compositing window manager
(e.g. Compiz, Beryl and Compiz Fusion) for the X Window System.

The alpha parameter should be an integer between 0 (transparent) and
100 (opaque) or a float number between 0.0 and 1.0.  Optionally, the
opacity can be set by a cons cell; the first item controls the
opacity of an active frame, and the second item controls that of
non-active frames.

 (set-frame-parameter nil 'alpha 80)
 (set-frame-parameter nil 'alpha 0.8)
 (set-frame-parameter nil 'alpha '(100 70)) ; (<active> [<inactive>])
 (set-frame-parameter nil 'alpha nil)

Note that the threshold opacity of a frame is defined by the variable
`frame-alpha-lower-limit' (default 20), so that the user may not lose
control of the frame.

** Emacs comes with a new set of default icons.
Various resolutions are available as etc/images/icons/hicolor/*/apps/emacs.png.
The Emacs 22 icon is available as `emacs22.png' in the same location.

** Built-in functions (subr) can now have an interactive specification
that is not a prompt string.  If the `intspec' parameter of a `DEFUN'
starts with a `(', the string is evaluated as a Lisp form.

** set-file-modes is now interactive and can take the mode value in
symbolic notation thanks to auxiliary functions.

** Changes affecting display-buffer
*** New value nil for split-height-threshold inhibits vertical splitting
unless there's no other window.
*** New option split-width-threshold controls horizontal splitting.
*** A window can be split horizontally even when it's not full-width.
*** New option split-window-preferred-function can be set to a function
to override the default splitting mechanism of display-buffer.

** Menu Bar changes

*** The Options menu contains a new entry to turn on Longlines mode.

*** In the Options menu, the "Set Default Font" item applies the
selected font to the `default' face on all frames, not just the
current frame.  This font setting will be saved if the "Save Options"
item is used.  Furthermore, if Emacs is compiled with both GTK and
Fontconfig support, the "Set Default Font" item uses the GTK font
selection dialog instead of an Emacs pop-up menu.

** Emacsclient has been extended to support opening a new terminal
frame.  Its behavior has been changed to open a new Emacs frame by
default.  Use the -c option to get the old behavior of opening files in
the currently selected Emacs frame.

** The refcards are now shipped as PDF files.

** Emacs now supports the SVG image format through librsvg2.

** If you set find-file-confirm-nonexistent-file to t, then C-x C-f
requires confirmation before opening a non-existent file.

** If the gpm mouse server is running and t-mouse-mode enabled, Emacs uses a
Unix socket in a GNU/Linux console to talk to server, rather than faking events
using the client program mev.  This C level approach provides mouse
highlighting, and help echoing in the minibuffer.

** Recentering changes

*** The new variable next-error-recenter specifies how next-error should
recenter the visited source file.  Its value can be a number (for example,
0 for top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.

*** New command recenter-top-bottom moves the current line to window
center, top and bottom on successive invokations.

*** C-l is bound to the new command recenter-top-bottom, rather than recenter.

** The mode-line displays a `@' if the default-directory for the current buffer
is on a remote machine, or a hyphen otherwise.

** The mode-line displays a mode menu when mouse-1 is clicked on a minor mode,
in the same way as it already did for major modes.

** The new command balance-windows-area balances windows both vertically
and horizontally.

** The new command close-display-connection can be used to close a connection
to a remote display, e.g. because the display is about to become unreachable.

** The command shell prompts for the default directory, when it is
called with a prefix, and the default directory is a remote file name.
This is because some file name handlers (like ange-ftp) are not able to
run processes remotely.

** The new command `display-time-world' starts an updating time display
using several time zones, in a buffer.

** Directory-local variables are now found in .dir-settings.el.  See
also `set-directory-project' and `define-project-bindings'.

** The new function `format-seconds' converts a number of seconds into a
readable string of days, hours, etc.

** The new variables `before-init-time' and `after-init-time' record the
value of `current-time' before and after Emacs loads the init files.

** The new function `emacs-uptime' returns the uptime of an Emacs instance.

** The new function `emacs-init-time' returns the duration of the
Emacs initialization.

** The minor modes unify-8859-on-encoding-mode, unify-8859-on-decoding-mode
are obsolete.

** The new commands `pp-macroexpand-expression' and `pp-macroexpand-last-sexp'
pretty-print macro expansions.


* Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1

** The option `inhibit-startup-screen' (with aliases to old names

identical.


* Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1

** Mark changes

+++
*** Transient Mark mode is now on by default.

+++
*** mark-even-if-inactive now defaults to t

+++
*** When Transient Mark mode is on, C-SPC C-SPC pushes a mark without activating it.

+++
*** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-q now fills the region if the
region is active.  Otherwise, it fills the current paragraph.

+++
*** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-$ now checks spelling of the
region if the region is active.  Otherwise, it checks spelling of the
word at point.

*** When Transient Mark mode is on, TAB now indents the region if the
region is active.

*** `use-empty-active-region' controls whether an empty active region
in Transient Mark mode should make commands operate on that empty
region.

** Temporarily active regions

They are only deactivated after point motion commands that are not
shift-translated, or after commands that would ordinarily deactivate
the mark in Transient Mark mode (e.g., any command that modifies the
buffer).

+++
** C-M-% now shows replacement as it would look in the buffer, with
`\N' and `\&' substituted according to the match.  Old behavior can be
restored by customizing `query-replace-show-replacement'.

** C-z now invokes `suspend-frame', C-x C-c now invokes
`save-buffers-kill-terminal'.

** New command kill-matching-buffers kills buffers whose name matches a regexp.

** You can disable kill ring commands from accessing the primary selection
by setting `x-select-enable-primary' to nil.

** If `select-active-regions' is t, setting the mark automatically
makes the new region into the primary selection (for interaction with
other window applications).  If you enable this, you might want to bind
`mouse-yank-primary' to Mouse-2.

** If `yank-pop-change-selection' is t, rotating the kill ring
also updates the selection or clipboard to the current yank,
just as M-w would do so with the text it copies to the kill ring.

** Minibuffer changes

*** Minibuffer input of shell commands now comes with completion.

*** Operations like C-x b and C-x C-f which use switch-to-buffer do not fail
any more when used in a minibuffer or a dedicated window.  Instead, they
fallback on using pop-to-buffer which will use some other window.

*** When M-n in the minibuffer reaches the end of the list of defaults,
it adds the completion list to the end, so next M-n continues putting
completion items to the minibuffer.  The same principle applies to
incremental search commands as well: C-s or C-M-s starts searching
the default values and after the end of defaults they continue
searching minibuffer completion items.

*** In C-x d, if you type M-n you get the visited file name of the
current buffer.

*** A list of default commands extracted from mailcap according to
file extensions are available in the list of default values
accessible by M-n in the minibuffer that reads a shell command
for M-!  (shell-command) and fills a list of commands for the current
file, and in Dired for ! (dired-do-shell-command) that fills a list of
commands for the intersection of file types of marked Dired files.

*** A list of regexp default values is available via M-n for `occur',
`keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many'.  This list includes the active
region in transient-mark-mode, the word under the cursor, the last isearch
regexp, the last isearch string and the last replacement regexp.

next history elements.  When the reverse search reaches the first history
element, it wraps to the last history element, and the forward search
wraps to the first history element.  When the search is terminated, the
history element containing the search string becomes the current.

** New faces

*** `mode-line-emphasis' is used to highlight certain mode-line information;
for example while waiting for a VC command to finish.

** Face changes

*** The new function `face-all-attributes' returns an alist describing
all the basic attributes of a given face.

and text size of the default face in the current buffer.  The face is
changed via face remapping (see below).

*** FIXME face-remap


* New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1

** rst-mode for ReSTructured-Text files.

** FIXME add details of new packages imported from lisp/gnus.
[Maybe some information from doc/misc/gnus-coding.texi can be reused]

** The package doc-view.el has been added.  It supports viewing of PDF,
PostScript and DVI documents inside an Emacs buffer by converting the
document to a set of PNG images first.  One can also search for a
regular expression in the document.  The commentary of the file explains
its usage.

** The nXML package has been added.  It is a new mode for editing XML
documents.  nXML mode allows a schema to be associated with the XML
document being edited.  nXML mode uses Relax NG as its schema
language.  The schema is used to provide two key features:

*** Continuous validation.  nXML validates as you type, highlighting
any invalid parts of your document.

*** Completion.  nXML can assist you in entering an element name,
attribute name or data value by using information about what is
allowed by the schema in that context.

** A new game called `bubbles' has been added.  This is a version of
the "Same Game" with configurable difficulty level.

** minibuffer-indicate-depth-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.

** Remember Mode (remember.el) is now included with Emacs.  It is a
mode for quickly jotting down things to remember.  Included with
remember.el is a backend that can save notes to a Diary file.  Please
consult the Remember Manual for usage details.

** D-Bus language bindings for Elisp are provided by the package
dbus.el and by extensions to the C modules of Emacs.  D-Bus is an
inter-process communication mechanism for applications residing on the
same host, based on messages.  See the manual for further details.

** zeroconf.el offers service discovery and service publishing
interfaces according to the zeroconf specification.  It communicates
with Avahi, a zeroconf implementation, via D-Bus messages on systems
which have installed this software.

** EasyPG is now part of the Emacs distribution.  It is an all-in-one
GnuPG interface which includes GnuPG keyring browser, cryptographic
operations on regions and files, and automatic encryption of *.gpg
files.  See the EasyPG Assistant User's Manual for further details.

** json.el is now included with Emacs.  It is a library for parsing
and generating JSON (JavaScript Object Notation).  JSON is a
lightweight data-interchange format.

** Auto Composition Mode is a minor mode that composes characters
automatically when they are displayed.  It is globally on by default.
It uses `auto-composition-function' (default `auto-compose-chars').

** The package linum.el is now included with Emacs.  It it a new minor
mode to display line numbers for the current buffer.

** proced.el has been added.  It operates on processes like dired.
Proced makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of the current processes
(using ps(1)).  You can use the normal Emacs commands to move around in
this buffer, and special Proced commands to operate on the processes listed.

** bug-reference.el provides clickable links to bug reports.


* Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1

** Icomplete: `icomplete-prospects-height' supercedes `icomplete-prospects-length'.

** A new `whitespace' package has been installed, and the pre-existing one
renamed to `old-whitespace'.
[FIXME someone explain why this is good, if it is...]

** abbrev was rewritten in Elisp and extended with more flexibility.
*** New functions: abbrev-get, abbrev-put, abbrev-table-get, abbrev-table-put,
    abbrev-table-p, abbrev-insert, abbrev-table-menu.
*** Special hook `abbrev-expand-functions' obsoletes `pre-abbrev-expand-hook'.
*** `make-abbrev-table', `define-abbrev', `define-abbrev-table' all take
    extra arguments for arbitrary properties.

    `:count', `:system', `:enable-function', `:case-fixed'.
*** Abbrev-tables have now the following special properties:
    `:parents', `:case-fixed', `:enable-function', `:regexp',
    `abbrev-table-modiff'.

** Help mode
*** New macro `with-help-window' should set up help windows better
than `with-output-to-temp-buffer' with `print-help-return-message'.
*** New option `help-window-select' permits to customize whether help
window shall be automatically selected when invoking help.
*** New variable `help-window-point-marker' permits to specify new
position of point in help window (for example in `view-lossage').

** view-remove-frame-by-deleting is now by default t
since users found iconification of view-mode frames distracting.

** Isearch mode

*** New command `isearch-occur' bound to `M-s o' in isearch mode
runs `occur' with the current search string.

*** isearch can now search through multiple ChangeLog files.

`C-h b' displays all isearch key bindings, `C-h k' displays the full
documentation of the given isearch key sequence, `C-h m' displays
documentation of isearch mode.  All the rest Help commands exit isearch mode
and execute their global definitions.

** archive-mode has basic support to browse Rar archives.

** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.

** Compile and grep modes

*** The mode-line entry for the *compilation* and *grep* buffer is color coded.
It has different colors for to show that: (a) the command is still
running, (b) successful completion, (c) error.

*** compilation-auto-jump-to-first-error tells `compile' to jump to
the first error encountered during compilations.

** In the `copyright' package, you can specify your copyright holders' names.
Only copyright lines with holders matching copyright-names-regexp will be
considered for update.

** The `copyright' package looks for copyright at the end of the buffer
if `copyright-at-end-flag' is non-nil (change-log-mode sets this).

** eldoc highlights the function argument under point
with the face `eldoc-highlight-function-argument'.

** hide-ifdef-mode permits to shadow ifdef-blocks instead of hiding them.
See option `hide-ifdef-shadow' and function `hide-ifdef-toggle-shadowing'.

+++
** defcustom accepts new keyword arguments, `:safe' and `:risky', which
set a variable's `safe-local-variable' and `risky-local-variable' property.

** Etags changes
*** The --members option is now the default.

Use --no-members if you want the old default behaviour of not tagging
struct members in C, members variables in C++ and variables in PHP.

** VC

*** VC now supports applying VC operations to a set of files at a time.
This enables VC to work much more effectively with changeset-oriented

by typing the D key or using the "Changeset Diff" menu entry.

*** VC Support for Meta-CVS has been removed for lack of maintainer able
to update it to the new VC.

** smerge-refine highlights word-level details of changes in conflict.
It's used automatically as you move through conflicts, see smerge-auto-refine.

** Diff mode

*** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see
diff-auto-refine.  It is bound to `C-c C-b'.

*** diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window iterates through the diff
buffer and tries to create ChangeLog entries for each change.
It is bound to `C-x 4 A'.

** log-edit now has a command bound to C-c C-d to show the diff for
the files involved.

** In Change Log mode, the new function `change-log-find-file', bound to
C-c C-f, finds the file associated with the current log entry.

** sgml-electric-tag-pair-mode lets you simultaneously edit matched tag pairs.

** The appearance of superscript and subscript in TeX is more customizable.
See the documentation of the variables: tex-fontify-script,
tex-font-script-display, tex-suscript-height-ratio, and
tex-suscript-height-minimum.

** BibTeX mode

*** New command `bibtex-initialize' (re)initializes BibTeX buffers.

*** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
`string', disabled by default.

*** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref'.

*** Command `bibtex-url' allows multiple URLs per entry.

+++
** Tramp

*** New connection methods.
The new methods "plinkx", "plink2", "psftp", "sftp" and "fish" have
been introduced.  There are also new so-called gateway methods
"tunnel" and "socks".

*** Multihop syntax has been removed.
The pseudo-method "multi" has been removed.  Instead of, multi hops
can be specified by the new variable `tramp-default-proxies-alist'.

*** More default settings.
Default values can be set via the variables `tramp-default-user',
`tramp-default-user-alist' and `tramp-default-host'.

*** Connection information is cached.
In order to reduce connection setup, information about used
connections are kept persistent in a file.  The name of this file is
defined in the variable `tramp-persistency-file-name'.

*** Control of remote processes.
Running processes on a remote host can be controlled by settings in
`tramp-remote-path' and `tramp-remote-process-environment'.

*** Success of remote copy is checked.
When the variable `file-precious-flag' is set, the success of a remote
file copy is checked via the file's checksum.

*** Passwords can be read from an authentification file.
Tramp uses the package `auth-source' to read passwords from a file, if
necessary.

** Calendar and diary

+++
*** There is a new date style, `iso', essentially year/month/day.
The variable `european-calendar-style' is obsolete - use `calendar-date-style'.
Similarly, the commands `american-calendar' and `european-calendar'
should be replaced by `calendar-set-date-style'.

+++
*** The calendar namespace has been rationalized.
All functions and variables now begin with a `calendar-', `diary-', or
`holiday-' prefix.  The various calendar systems have secondary
prefixes, eg `calendar-french-'.  The old names you are likely to use
directly still exist, for the time being, as aliases, but please start
using the new names.

*** The function `holiday-chinese' computes holidays on the Chinese calendar.
It has been used to add items to the list `holiday-oriental-holidays'.

*** `diary-remind' accepts a negative number -DAYS as a shorthand for
the list (1 2 ... DAYS).

** Miscellaneous programming mode changes

*** The file etc/emacs.py now supports both Python 2 and 3, meaning
that either version can be used as inferior Python by python.el.

*** Python mode now has `pdbtrack' functionality.  When using pdb to
debug a Python program, pdbtrack notices the pdb prompt and displays
the source file and line that the program is stopped at, much the same
way as gud-mode does for debugging C programs with gdb.

*** The variable `fortran-line-length' can change the fixed-form line-length.

*** In Fortran mode, M-; is now bound to the standard comment-dwim,
rather than fortran-indent-comment.

+++
*** (The increasingly misnamed) F90 mode supports Fortran 2003 syntax.

*** The function `gdb' only works with the graphical interface now.
Use `gud-gdb' if you want the (old) text command mode.

** Gnus package

*** The Gnus package has been updated

*** In Emacs 23, Gnus uses Emacs' new internal coding system `utf-8-emacs' for
saving articles drafts and ~/.newsrc.eld.  These file may not be read
correctly in Emacs 22 and below.  If you want to Gnus across different Emacs
versions, you may set `mm-auto-save-coding-system' to `emacs-mule'.

*** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.

See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "No Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.

** Miscellaneous

*** goto-address.el provides two new minor modes, goto-address-mode and
goto-address-prog-mode, which buttonize URLS and email addresses.

*** comint-mode uses `start-file-process' now (see Lisp Changes).
If `default-directory' is a remote file name, subprocesses are started
on the corresponding remote system.

*** C-x C-q in dired-mode now runs the command wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
and C-x C-q in wdired-mode exits it with asking a question about
saving changes.

*** The new command `eshell/info' runs info in an eshell buffer.

*** The pcmpl-unix package supports hostname completion for ssh and scp.

*** WoMan tries to add locale-specific manual page directories to the
search path.  This can be disabled by setting `woman-locale' to nil.

*** The new variable `ffap-rfc-directories' specifies a list of local
directories in which `ffap-rfc' will first search for RFCs.

*** net-utils has an `iwconfig' command, similar to the existing `ifconfig'.
It is used to configure wireless interfaces.


* Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems

** Case is now considered significant in completion on MS-Windows.

functions and variables (formerly used for Tamil script).


* Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1

** The variable window-point-insertion-type determines the insertion-type
of the marker used for window-point.

** minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map is now named
minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map.

*** In addition to the global function-key-map, Emacs has terminal-local
local-function-key-map variables, and uses them instead of the
global keymaps to set up translations and function key sequences
relevant to a specific terminal device.


** You can now also pass the value of the `invisible' property to invisible-p
to check whether it would cause the text to be invisible.  Convenient when
checking invisibility of text which has no buffer position
(e.g. in before/after-strings).

96230:07ecdd924140


* Installation Changes in Emacs 23.1

** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.
The configure option `--with-gtk' has been removed.  Gtk is now the
default toolkit, but you can use --with-x-toolkit=gtk if necessary.

** New font code.
Fonts are handled by new code capable of dealing with multiple font
backends.  This requires the freetype and fontconfig libraries

*** Emacs now accepts font names supplied in the fontconfig format
(e.g. "monospace-12:bold") and GTK format (e.g. "Monospace Bold 12").

*** Added support for local fonts (fonts installed on the machine
where Emacs is running).

*** Added support for the Xft library for antialiasing.

*** Added support for the otf library for complex text layout by
OpenType fonts.

*** Added support for the m17n library for text shaping.

** Changes to image support

*** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
a GIF library.

*** Emacs now supports the SVG image format through librsvg2.

** The Mac Carbon port is no longer supported.
Instead, use... [FIXME what?]

** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
bindings for Emacs.

** Support for many obsolete platforms has been removed.
See the list at the end of etc/MACHINES for details.

*** Support for systems without alloca has been removed.

*** Support for Sun windows has been removed.

** The `emacstool' utility has been removed.

** The configure options `--with-gcc', `--without-gcc' have been removed.
Configure will use gcc by default.  Set the CC environment variable if
you need control over which C compiler is used.

** The refcards are now shipped as PDF files.

** Emacs 23 comes with a new set of default icons.
Various resolutions are available as etc/images/icons/hicolor/*/apps/emacs.png.
The Emacs 22 icon is available as `emacs22.png' in the same location.

* Changes in Emacs 23.1

** Improved X Window System support

*** Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in one session.
With an Emacs server active (M-x server-start), `emacsclient -t'
creates a tty frame connected to the running emacs server.  You can
use any number of different ttys.  `emacsclient -c' creates a new X11
frame on the current $DISPLAY (or a tty frame if $DISPLAY is not set).

You can test for the presence of this feature in your Lisp code by
testing for the `multi-tty' feature.

**** Emacsclient can now open new terminal frames.
Now, the default behavior is to open a new Emacs frame by default.
Use the -c option to get the old behavior of opening files in the
currently selected Emacs frame.

*** The new command close-display-connection closes a connection to a
remote display.

*** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
You can embed Emacs in another application on X11.  The new command line
option --parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs.  See
http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
for details about XEmbed.

*** Emacs can now set the frame opacity.
The opacity of a frame can be controlled by setting the `alpha' frame
parameter.  This only takes effect on a compositing window manager for
the X Window System, such as Compiz, Beryl and Compiz Fusion.

The alpha parameter should be an integer between 0 (transparent) and
100 (opaque), or a float number between 0.0 and 1.0.  It can also be a
cons cell (ACTIVE . INACTIVE), where ACTIVE is the opacity of an
active frame and INACTIVE is the opactity of non-active frames.

The variable `frame-alpha-lower-limit' defines a lower bound for the
opacity; the default is 20.

** Internationalization changes

*** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
(It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).

The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs'.  This encoding is backwards
compatible with Unicode's UTF-8 encoding.  The internal encoding
previously used by Emacs, `emacs-mule', is still available.

During byte-compilation, Emacs 23 uses `utf-8-emacs' to write files.
As a result, byte-compiled files containing non-ASCII characters can't
be read by earlier versions of Emacs.  Files compiled by Emacs 20, 21,
or 22 are loaded correctly as emacs-mule (whether or not they contain
multibyte characters).  This takes somewhat more time, so it may be
worth recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be shared
with older Emacsen.

*** There are new coding systems/aliases; see M-x list-coding-systems.

*** There is a new charset implementation with many new charsets.
See M-x list-character-sets.  New charsets can be defined conveniently
as tables of unicodes.

**** The dimension of a charset is now 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the size of
each dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.

**** A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
characters for display.

*** There are new language environments for Chinese-GBK,
Chinese-GB18030, Khmer, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu,
Sinhala, and TaiViet.

*** The minor modes unify-8859-on-encoding-mode and
unify-8859-on-decoding-mode are obsolete.

** Emacs now supports serial port access on GNU/Linux, Unix, and
Windows.  `serial-term' starts an interactive terminal,
`make-serial-process' and `serial-process-configure' provide a Lisp
interface.  The serial port can be configured at runtime with the
mode-line mouse menu.

** Menu Bar changes

*** In the Options menu, the "Set Default Font" item applies the
selected font to the `default' face on all frames, not just the
current frame.  Furthermore, if Emacs is compiled with both GTK and
Fontconfig support, the "Set Default Font" item uses the GTK font
selection dialog instead of an Emacs pop-up menu.

*** The font setting chosen by "Set Default Font" is saved if the
"Save Options" item is used.

*** The Options menu contains a new entry to turn on Longlines mode.

** Mode-line changes

*** The mode-line displays a `@', instead of `-', if the
default-directory for the current buffer is on a remote machine.

*** The mode-line displays a mode menu when mouse-1 is clicked on a
minor mode, in the same way as it already did for major modes.

*** The `mode-line-emphasis' face is used to highlight certain
mode-line information (e.g. waiting for a VC command to finish).

** Directory-local variables can now be defined.
By default, Emacs looks in .dir-settings.el for directory-local
variables.  For more information, see `set-directory-project' and
`define-project-bindings'.


* Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1

** The option `inhibit-startup-screen' (with aliases to old names

identical.


* Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1

** C-x C-c now invokes `save-buffers-kill-terminal', and C-z now
invokes `suspend-frame'.  This change is for compatibility with the
new multi-tty support (see `Improved X Window System support' above).

** Mark changes
+++
*** Transient Mark mode is now on by default.
+++
*** mark-even-if-inactive now defaults to t
+++
*** When Transient Mark mode is on, C-SPC C-SPC pushes a mark without activating it.
+++
*** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-q now fills the region if the
region is active.  Otherwise, it fills the current paragraph.
+++
*** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-$ now checks spelling of the
region if the region is active.  Otherwise, it checks spelling of the
word at point.
*** When Transient Mark mode is on, TAB now indents the region if the
region is active.
*** `use-empty-active-region' controls whether an empty active region
in Transient Mark mode should make commands operate on that empty
region.

** Temporarily active regions

They are only deactivated after point motion commands that are not
shift-translated, or after commands that would ordinarily deactivate
the mark in Transient Mark mode (e.g., any command that modifies the
buffer).

** Minibuffer changes

*** Operations like C-x b and C-x C-f, which use switch-to-buffer, do
not fail any more when used in a minibuffer or a dedicated window.
Instead, they fallback on using pop-to-buffer, which will use some
other window.

*** When M-n in the minibuffer reaches the end of the list of defaults,
it adds the completion list to the end, so next M-n continues putting
completion items to the minibuffer.  The same principle applies to
incremental search commands as well: C-s or C-M-s starts searching
the default values and after the end of defaults they continue
searching minibuffer completion items.

*** Minibuffer input of shell commands now comes with completion.

*** In the `C-x d' (Dired) prompt, typing M-n gives the visited file
name of the current buffer.

*** In the M-! (shell-command) prompt, M-n provides some default commands.
These are guessed using the file extension of the current file, based
on the file-handlers specified in the operating system's `mailcap'
file.  The ! command in Dired (dired-do-shell-command) works
similarly, using the file displayed on the current line.

*** A list of regexp default values is available via M-n for `occur',
`keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many'.  This list includes the active
region in transient-mark-mode, the word under the cursor, the last isearch
regexp, the last isearch string and the last replacement regexp.

next history elements.  When the reverse search reaches the first history
element, it wraps to the last history element, and the forward search
wraps to the first history element.  When the search is terminated, the
history element containing the search string becomes the current.

** Face changes

*** The new function `face-all-attributes' returns an alist describing
all the basic attributes of a given face.

and text size of the default face in the current buffer.  The face is
changed via face remapping (see below).

*** FIXME face-remap

** Primary selection changes

*** If `select-active-regions' is t, setting the mark automatically
makes the new region into the primary selection (for interaction with
other window applications).  If you enable this, you might want to
bind `mouse-yank-primary' to Mouse-2.

*** You can disable kill ring commands from accessing the primary selection
by setting `x-select-enable-primary' to nil.

** Completion changes

*** `completion-styles' can be customized to choose your favorite
completion style.

*** The default completion styles include a form of partial-completion.

*** The new command `minibuffer-force-complete' chooses one of the
possible completions, rather than stopping at the common prefix.

*** `completion-auto-help' can be set to `lazy' to list the completions only
if you repeat the completion.  This was already supported in
`partial-completion-mode'.

** Miscellaneous changes:

*** C-l is bound to the new command recenter-top-bottom, rather than recenter.
This moves the current line to window center, top and bottom on
successive invokations.

*** scroll-preserve-screen-position also preserves the column position.

*** The new command balance-windows-area balances windows both
vertically and horizontally.

*** If `yank-pop-change-selection' is t, rotating the kill ring also
updates the selection or clipboard to the current yank, just as M-w
would do so with the text it copies to the kill ring.

+++
*** C-M-% now shows replacement as it would look in the buffer, with
`\N' and `\&' substituted according to the match.  Old behavior can be
restored by customizing `query-replace-show-replacement'.

*** The command shell prompts for the default directory, when it is
called with a prefix and the default directory is a remote file name.
This is because some file name handlers (like ange-ftp) are not able to
run processes remotely.

*** The new command kill-matching-buffers kills buffers whose name
matches a regexp.

*** The new commands `pp-macroexpand-expression' and `pp-macroexpand-last-sexp'
pretty-print macro expansions.


* New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1

** FIXME add details of new packages imported from lisp/gnus.
[Maybe some information from doc/misc/gnus-coding.texi can be reused]

** Auto Composition Mode is a minor mode that composes characters
automatically when they are displayed.  It is globally on by default.
It uses `auto-composition-function' (default `auto-compose-chars').

** Bubbles, a new game, is similar to SameGame.

** bug-reference.el provides clickable links to bug reports.

** copyright.el adds utilities for specifying copyright holders' names.

*** Only copyright lines with holders matching copyright-names-regexp
will be considered for update.

*** The Copyright package looks for copyright at the end of the buffer
if `copyright-at-end-flag' is non-nil (change-log-mode sets this).

** dbus.el provides D-Bus language bindings.
D-Bus is an inter-process communication mechanism for applications
residing on the same host, based on messages.  See the manual for
details.

** Doc View Mode supports viewing of PDF, PostScript and DVI documents
inside an Emacs buffer.  It works by converting the document to a set
of PNG images first.  One can also search for a regular expression in
the document.  The commentary in doc-view.el explains its usage.

** EasyPG is an all-in-one GnuPG interface.
It includes GnuPG keyring browser, cryptographic operations on regions
and files, and automatic encryption of *.gpg files.  For details, see
the EasyPG Assistant User's Manual.

** json.el is a library for parsing and generating JSON
(JavaScript Object Notation), a lightweight data-interchange format.

** linum.el is a new minor mode to display line numbers for the
current buffer.

** minibuffer-indicate-depth-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.

** nXML Mode
This is a new mode for editing XML documents.  It allows a schema to
be associated with the XML document being edited, using Relax NG as
the schema language.  The schema is used to provide two key features:

*** Continuous validation.  nXML validates as you type, highlighting
any invalid parts of your document.

*** Completion.  nXML can assist you in entering an element name,
attribute name or data value by using information about what is
allowed by the schema in that context.

** proced.el provides a Dired-like interface for operating on processes.
Proced makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of the current
processes (using ps(1)).  You can use the normal Emacs commands to
move around in this buffer, and special Proced commands to operate on
the processes listed.

** Remember Mode is a mode for jotting down things to remember.
Notes can be saved to a Diary file.  For details, see the Remember
Manual.

** RST mode is a major mode for editing ReSTructured-Text files.

** A new `whitespace' package has been installed, and the pre-existing one
renamed to `old-whitespace'.
[FIXME someone explain why this is good, if it is...]

** zeroconf.el offers service discovery and service publishing
interfaces according to the zeroconf specification.  It communicates
with Avahi, a zeroconf implementation, via D-Bus messages on systems
which have installed this software.


* Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1

** Abbrev has been rewritten in Elisp and extended with more flexibility.
*** New functions: abbrev-get, abbrev-put, abbrev-table-get, abbrev-table-put,
    abbrev-table-p, abbrev-insert, abbrev-table-menu.
*** Special hook `abbrev-expand-functions' obsoletes `pre-abbrev-expand-hook'.
*** `make-abbrev-table', `define-abbrev', `define-abbrev-table' all take
    extra arguments for arbitrary properties.

    `:count', `:system', `:enable-function', `:case-fixed'.
*** Abbrev-tables have now the following special properties:
    `:parents', `:case-fixed', `:enable-function', `:regexp',
    `abbrev-table-modiff'.

** Apropos
*** `apropos-library' describes the elements defined in a given library.
*** Set `apropos-compact-layout' is you want a more compact (but wider) layout.

** Archive Mode has basic support to browse Rar archives.

** BibTeX mode

*** New command `bibtex-initialize' (re)initializes BibTeX buffers.

*** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
`string', disabled by default.

*** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref'.

*** Command `bibtex-url' allows multiple URLs per entry.

** Calendar and diary

+++
*** There is a new date style, `iso', essentially year/month/day.
The variable `european-calendar-style' is obsolete - use `calendar-date-style'.
Similarly, the commands `american-calendar' and `european-calendar'
should be replaced by `calendar-set-date-style'.

+++
*** The calendar namespace has been rationalized.
All functions and variables now begin with a `calendar-', `diary-', or
`holiday-' prefix.  The various calendar systems have secondary
prefixes, eg `calendar-french-'.  The old names you are likely to use
directly still exist, for the time being, as aliases, but please start
using the new names.

*** The function `holiday-chinese' computes holidays on the Chinese calendar.
It has been used to add items to the list `holiday-oriental-holidays'.

*** `diary-remind' accepts a negative number -DAYS as a shorthand for
the list (1 2 ... DAYS).

** Compile and grep modes

*** The mode-line entry for the *compilation* and *grep* buffer is color coded.
It has different colors for to show that: (a) the command is still
running, (b) successful completion, (c) error.

*** compilation-auto-jump-to-first-error tells `compile' to jump to
the first error encountered during compilations.

** Custom
+++
*** defcustom accepts new keyword arguments, `:safe' and `:risky', which
set a variable's `safe-local-variable' and `risky-local-variable' property.

** Diff mode

*** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see
diff-auto-refine.  It is bound to `C-c C-b'.

*** diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window iterates through the diff
buffer and tries to create ChangeLog entries for each change.
It is bound to `C-x 4 A'.

** Fortran
*** The variable `fortran-line-length' can change the fixed-form line-length.

*** In Fortran mode, M-; is now bound to the standard comment-dwim,
rather than fortran-indent-comment.

+++
*** (The increasingly misnamed) F90 mode supports Fortran 2003 syntax.

** Gnus

*** The Gnus package has been updated
There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements; see the file
GNUS-NEWS or the node "No Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.

*** In Emacs 23, Gnus uses Emacs' new internal coding system `utf-8-emacs' for
saving articles drafts and ~/.newsrc.eld.  These file may not be read
correctly in Emacs 22 and below.  If you want to Gnus across different Emacs
versions, you may set `mm-auto-save-coding-system' to `emacs-mule'.

** Help mode
*** New macro `with-help-window' should set up help windows better
than `with-output-to-temp-buffer' with `print-help-return-message'.
*** New option `help-window-select' permits to customize whether help
window shall be automatically selected when invoking help.
*** New variable `help-window-point-marker' permits to specify new
position of point in help window (for example in `view-lossage').

** Isearch

*** New command `isearch-occur' bound to `M-s o' in isearch mode
runs `occur' with the current search string.

*** isearch can now search through multiple ChangeLog files.

`C-h b' displays all isearch key bindings, `C-h k' displays the full
documentation of the given isearch key sequence, `C-h m' displays
documentation of isearch mode.  All the rest Help commands exit isearch mode
and execute their global definitions.

*** When started in the minibuffer, Isearch searches in the minibuffer
history.  See `Minibuffer changes', above.

** Python
*** The file etc/emacs.py now supports both Python 2 and 3, meaning
that either version can be used as inferior Python by python.el.

*** Python mode now has `pdbtrack' functionality.  When using pdb to
debug a Python program, pdbtrack notices the pdb prompt and displays
the source file and line that the program is stopped at, much the same
way as gud-mode does for debugging C programs with gdb.

** T-mouse Mode

*** If the gpm mouse server is running and t-mouse-mode is enabled,
Emacs uses a Unix socket in a GNU/Linux console to talk to server,
rather than faking events using the client program mev.  This C level
approach provides mouse highlighting and help echoing in the
minibuffer.

+++
** Tramp

*** New connection methods.
The new methods "plinkx", "plink2", "psftp", "sftp" and "fish" have
been introduced.  There are also new so-called gateway methods
"tunnel" and "socks".

*** Multihop syntax has been removed.
The pseudo-method "multi" has been removed.  Instead of, multi hops
can be specified by the new variable `tramp-default-proxies-alist'.

*** More default settings.
Default values can be set via the variables `tramp-default-user',
`tramp-default-user-alist' and `tramp-default-host'.

*** Connection information is cached.
In order to reduce connection setup, information about used
connections are kept persistent in a file.  The name of this file is
defined in the variable `tramp-persistency-file-name'.

*** Control of remote processes.
Running processes on a remote host can be controlled by settings in
`tramp-remote-path' and `tramp-remote-process-environment'.

*** Success of remote copy is checked.
When the variable `file-precious-flag' is set, the success of a remote
file copy is checked via the file's checksum.

*** Passwords can be read from an authentification file.
Tramp uses the package `auth-source' to read passwords from a file, if
necessary.

** VC

*** VC now supports applying VC operations to a set of files at a time.
This enables VC to work much more effectively with changeset-oriented

by typing the D key or using the "Changeset Diff" menu entry.

*** VC Support for Meta-CVS has been removed for lack of maintainer able
to update it to the new VC.

** Miscellaneous

*** In Change Log mode, the new command C-c C-f (change-log-find-file)
finds the file associated with the current log entry.

*** comint-mode uses `start-file-process' now (see Lisp Changes).
If `default-directory' is a remote file name, subprocesses are started
on the corresponding remote system.

*** In Dired, C-x C-q now runs the command wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
and C-x C-q in wdired-mode exits it with asking a question about
saving changes.

*** Eldoc highlights the function argument under point
with the face `eldoc-highlight-function-argument'.

*** In Etags, the --members option is now the default.
Use --no-members if you want the old default behaviour of not tagging
struct members in C, members variables in C++ and variables in PHP.

*** The `gdb' command only works with the graphical interface now.
Use `gud-gdb' if you want the (old) text command mode.

*** goto-address.el provides two new minor modes, goto-address-mode and
goto-address-prog-mode, which buttonize URLS and email addresses.

*** The new command `eshell/info' runs info in an eshell buffer.

*** The new variable `ffap-rfc-directories' specifies a list of local
directories in which `ffap-rfc' will first search for RFCs.

*** hide-ifdef-mode allows shadowing ifdef-blocks instead of hiding them.
See option `hide-ifdef-shadow' and function `hide-ifdef-toggle-shadowing'.

*** `icomplete-prospects-height' now supercedes `icomplete-prospects-length'.

*** Info displays breadcrumbs in the header of the page.
See Info-breadcrumbs-depth to control it.

*** In Log Edit mode,  C-c C-d now shows the diff for the files involved.

*** net-utils has an `iwconfig' command, similar to the existing `ifconfig'.
It is used to configure wireless interfaces.

*** The pcmpl-unix package supports hostname completion for ssh and scp.

*** sgml-electric-tag-pair-mode lets you simultaneously edit matched tag pairs.

*** smerge-refine highlights word-level details of changes in conflict.
It's used automatically as you move through conflicts, see smerge-auto-refine.

*** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.

*** A new command `display-time-world' has been added to the Time
package.  It creates a buffer with an updating time display using
several time zones.

*** The appearance of superscript and subscript in TeX is more customizable.
See the documentation of the variables: tex-fontify-script,
tex-font-script-display, tex-suscript-height-ratio, and
tex-suscript-height-minimum.

*** view-remove-frame-by-deleting is now by default t
since users found iconification of view-mode frames distracting.

*** WoMan tries to add locale-specific manual page directories to the
search path.  This can be disabled by setting `woman-locale' to nil.


* Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems

** Case is now considered significant in completion on MS-Windows.

functions and variables (formerly used for Tamil script).


* Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1

** The new variable next-error-recenter specifies how next-error should
recenter the visited source file.  Its value can be a number (for example,
0 for top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.

** Emacs session information

*** The new variables `before-init-time' and `after-init-time' record the
value of `current-time' before and after Emacs loads the init files.

*** The new function `emacs-uptime' returns the uptime of an Emacs instance.

*** The new function `emacs-init-time' returns the duration of the
Emacs initialization.

** The new function `format-seconds' converts a number of seconds into a
readable string of days, hours, etc.

** set-file-modes is now interactive and can take the mode value in
symbolic notation thanks to auxiliary functions.

** If you set find-file-confirm-nonexistent-file to t, then C-x C-f
requires confirmation before opening a non-existent file.

** Built-in functions (subr) can now have an interactive specification
that is not a prompt string.  If the `intspec' parameter of a `DEFUN'
starts with a `(', the string is evaluated as a Lisp form.

** Changes affecting display-buffer
*** New value nil for split-height-threshold inhibits vertical splitting
unless there's no other window.
*** New option split-width-threshold controls horizontal splitting.
*** A window can be split horizontally even when it's not full-width.
*** New option split-window-preferred-function can be set to a function
to override the default splitting mechanism of display-buffer.

** The variable window-point-insertion-type determines the insertion-type
of the marker used for window-point.

** minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map is now named
minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map.

*** In addition to the global function-key-map, Emacs has terminal-local
local-function-key-map variables, and uses them instead of the
global keymaps to set up translations and function key sequences
relevant to a specific terminal device.

*** `underline-minimum-offset' keeps the underline away from the baseline.

** You can now also pass the value of the `invisible' property to invisible-p
to check whether it would cause the text to be invisible.  Convenient when
checking invisibility of text which has no buffer position
(e.g. in before/after-strings).