comparison etc/NEWS @ 51926:402fb9100d33

*** empty log message ***

51925:803b9aa5604e

with Custom.  cplus-md.el, which required it, has also been removed.

** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).


* Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4

** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
the mode line.

** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.

** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.

** The `local-map' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
text-properties, according to their stickiness.  This also means that it
works with empty overlays.  The same hold for the `keymap' property.

** `select-window' takes a second optional argument `norecord', like
`switch-to-buffer'.  `with-selected-window' is a new macro that uses
this to temporarily switch the selected window without impacting
the order of buffer-list.

** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
in the keymap.

** VC changes for backends:
*** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
*** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
uses the old `destfile' parameter.

** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
as a dynamic completion table.

  (dynamic-completion-table FUN)

completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.

** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
as a lazy completion table.

  (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)

ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
`lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.

** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.

** The new command `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
for all (existing and future) frames.

** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).

** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.

** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.

** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
(or smaller) font we should use.  For instance, if the value is
'((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10

on the screen.

You should not set it up so that both the position before and the position
after are unacceptable.

** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
argument, LIMIT.

+++
** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG.  If
non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
flag.

** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.

** The function insert-string is now obsolete.

** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
that matches near the end of the file name.  More specifically, the
handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.

** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
bindings of the parent keymap.

** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
(see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
be refontified.  This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline

Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.

** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
called to print the entries' values.  It defaults to `princ'.

** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
(the last group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.

** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
it receives a request from emacsclient.

** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
than 3 levels of nesting.

** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
in Indented-Text mode.

** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
it in that buffer.

** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
`query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
a match if part of it has a read-only property.

** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
properties from surrounding text.

** New function `buffer-local-value'.

- Function: buffer-local-value variable buffer

This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
in buffer BUFFER.  If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.

** New function `text-clone-create'.  Text clones are chunks of text
that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
clone to the other.

** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
*** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
other properties than `face'.
*** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.

** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
or `bg:COLOR' has been removed.  Lisp programs should use the
`defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors.

** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.

** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.

** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.

+++
** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
to test/provide subfeatures.  Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
and runs any code associated with the provided feature.

** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.

+++
** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
`.emacs' are treated as extensionless.

** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer.  Function `user-full-name'
accepts a float as UID parameter.

** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.

** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.

** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
character position of errors, where possible.  Additionally, the form
of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
the output of other GNU tools.

** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.

** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.

** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.

** Variable aliases have been implemented:

- Function: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]

This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
symbol BASE-VAR.  This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
changes the value of BASE-VAR.

DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
the same documentation as BASE-VAR.

- Function: indirect-variable VARIABLE

This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
of VARIABLE.  If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.

It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.

** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
collection.  The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.

** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.

** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
have been moved from the CL package to the core.

** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.

** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-keysequence and alike that
display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer now display the prompt
using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.

** New packages:

*** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the

51926:402fb9100d33

with Custom.  cplus-md.el, which required it, has also been removed.

** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).

** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
in Indented-Text mode.

** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
`query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
a match if part of it has a read-only property.


* Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4

+++
** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
the mode line.

+++
** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.

+++
** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.

+++
** `select-window' takes an optional second argument `norecord', like
`switch-to-buffer'.

+++
** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
selected window without impacting the order of buffer-list.

+++
** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
text-properties, according to their stickiness.  This also means that it
works with empty overlays.  The same hold for the `local-map' property.

+++
** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
in the keymap.

---
** VC changes for backends:
*** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
*** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
uses the old `destfile' parameter.

+++
** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
as a dynamic completion table.

  (dynamic-completion-table FUN)

completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.

+++
** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
as a lazy completion table.

  (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)

ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
`lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.

+++
** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.

** The new command `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
for all (existing and future) frames.

+++
** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).

+++
** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.

+++
** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.

** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
(or smaller) font we should use.  For instance, if the value is
'((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10

on the screen.

You should not set it up so that both the position before and the position
after are unacceptable.

+++
** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
argument, LIMIT.

+++
** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG.  If
non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
flag.

---
** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.

---
** The function insert-string is now obsolete.

---
** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
that matches near the end of the file name.  More specifically, the
handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.

---
** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
bindings of the parent keymap.

---
** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
(see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
be refontified.  This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline

Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.

---
** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
called to print the entries' values.  It defaults to `princ'.

** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
(the last group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.

+++
** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
it receives a request from emacsclient.

---
** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
than 3 levels of nesting.

---
** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
it in that buffer.

---
** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
properties from surrounding text.

+++
** New function `buffer-local-value'.

This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
in buffer BUFFER.  If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.

---
** New function `text-clone-create'.  Text clones are chunks of text
that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
clone to the other.

+++
** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
*** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
other properties than `face'.
*** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.

---
** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
or `bg:COLOR' has been removed.  Lisp programs should use the
`defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.

+++
** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.

+++
** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.

+++
** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.

+++
** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
to test/provide subfeatures.  Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
and runs any code associated with the provided feature.

---
** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.

+++
** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
`.emacs' are treated as extensionless.

+++
** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer.  Function `user-full-name'
accepts a float as UID parameter.

---
** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.

+++
** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.

+++
** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
character position of errors, where possible.  Additionally, the form
of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
the output of other GNU tools.

+++
** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.

---
** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.

+++
** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.

+++
** Variable aliases have been implemented:

*** defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]

This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
symbol BASE-VAR.  This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
changes the value of BASE-VAR.

DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
the same documentation as BASE-VAR.

*** indirect-variable VARIABLE

This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
of VARIABLE.  If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.

It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.

+++
** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
collection.  The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.

+++
** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.

+++
** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.

---
** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.

** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-key-sequence and the like, that
display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.

** New packages:

*** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the