comparison etc/NEWS @ 25853:e96ffe544684

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author Dave Love <fx@gnu.org>
date Sun, 03 Oct 1999 12:39:42 +0000
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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 23 Jan 1999
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
4
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS.
7
8
9 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
10
11 ** Faces and frame parameters.
12
13 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
14 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
15 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
16 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
17 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
18 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
19 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
20
21 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
22 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
23 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
24 `default' face and vice versa.
25
26 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
27
28 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
29 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
30 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
31 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
32
33 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
34 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
35 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
36
37 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
38 `ScreenGamma'.
39
40 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
41
42 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
43 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
44 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
45 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
46 the text.
47
48 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
49
50 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
51 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
52 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
53 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
54 specify a font.
55
56 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
57 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
58 under Lisp changes, below.
59
60 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
61
62 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
63 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
64 it is hollow.
65
66 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
67 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
68 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
69 customizing face `fringe'.
70
71 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
72 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
73
74 ** LessTif support.
75
76 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
77 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
78
79 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
80
81 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
82 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
83 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
84 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
85 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
86 Emacs.
87
88 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
89 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
90 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
91 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
92 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
93 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
94
95 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
96 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
97 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
98 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
99 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
100 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
101
102 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
103 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
104 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
105 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
106 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
107
108 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
109
110 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
111 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
112 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
113
114 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
115
116 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
117 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
118 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
119 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
120 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
121 whitespace.
122
123 ** Busy-cursor.
124
125 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
126 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
127
128 ** Blinking cursor
129
130 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
131 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
132 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
133 the group `cursor'.
134
135 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
136
137 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
138 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
139 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
140 details.
141
142 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
143 have to do anything to activate it.
144
145 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
146
147 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
148 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
149 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
150 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
151
152 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
153
154 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
155
156 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
157
158 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the Motif
159 one.
160
161 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, like in
162 Motif.
163
164 ** Hscrolling in C code.
165
166 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically.
167
168 ** Tool bar support.
169
170 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
171 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
172
173 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
174
175 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
176 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
177 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
178 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
179 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
180
181 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
182
183 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
184 buffers.
185
186 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
187 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
188
189 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
190
191 - Mouse-1 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
192 toggles the read-only status.
193
194 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
195
196 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
197
198 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
199 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialogs' is
200 non-nil.
201
202 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
203
204 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
205 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
206 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
207 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
208 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
209 attributes like overlines, strike-throught, box are ignored.
210
211 ** Sound support
212
213 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
214 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
215 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
216 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
217 to enable sound support.
218
219 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
220 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
221 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
222 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
223 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
224 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
225
226 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
227
228 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
229
230 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
231 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
232 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
233
234 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
235 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
236
237 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
238 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
239 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
240
241 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
242
243 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
244 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
245 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
246 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
247
248 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
249 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
250 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
251 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
252
253 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
254 notably at the end of lines.
255
256 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
257 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
258
259 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
260 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
261 after each match to get the replacement text.
262
263 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
264
265 If a message is longer than one line, or mini-buffer contents are
266 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the mini-window unless it is
267 on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum mini-window size
268 by setting the following variable:
269
270 - User option: max-mini-window-height
271
272 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
273 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
274 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
275
276 Default is 0.25.
277
278 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
279
280 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
281 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
282 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
283 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
284 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
285 can be edited from that buffer.
286
287 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
288 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
289 `A' to use all marked entries).
290
291 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
292 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
293
294 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
295 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
296 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
297 been cited.
298
299 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
300 has the following new features:
301
302 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
303 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
304 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
305 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
306
307 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
308 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
309 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
310 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
311 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
312 defaults to 1.
313
314 ** Tooltips.
315
316 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
317 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
318 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
319
320 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
321 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
322 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
323 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
324
325 ** Customize changes
326
327 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
328 `State' menu to add comments.
329
330 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
331 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
332 default).
333
334 ** New features in evaluation commands
335
336 The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
337 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
338 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
339 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
340 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
341
342 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
343 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
344 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
345 start sequences.
346
347 ** Dired changes
348
349 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
350 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
351 is, delete only empty directories.
352
353 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
354 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
355 copy directories recursively.
356
357 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
358 use the -f option when sending mail.
359
360 ** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
361 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
362
363 ** New modes and packages
364
365 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
366
367 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
368
369 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
370
371 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
372 Pascal) language.
373
374 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
375 the text at point.
376
377 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
378
379 *** whitespace.el ???
380
381 ** Withdrawn packages
382
383 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
384 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
385
386 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
387
388 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
389 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
390 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
391 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
392
393 ** New function `propertize'
394
395 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
396 strings with text properties.
397
398 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
399
400 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
401 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
402 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
403 specified value of that property. Example:
404
405 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
406
407 +++
408 ** push and pop macros.
409
410 A simple version of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
411 is now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
412 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
413
414 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
415 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
416 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
417
418 +++
419 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
420 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
421
422 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
423 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
424 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
425 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
426 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
427 space, and DEL.
428 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
429 and DEL.
430 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
431 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
432 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
433 [:alpha:] matches letters.
434 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
435 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
436 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
437 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
438 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
439 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
440 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
441 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
442 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
443 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
444 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
445
446 +++
447 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
448
449 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
450
451 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
452
453 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
454 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
455
456 :test TEST
457
458 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
459 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
460 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
461
462 :size SIZE
463
464 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
465 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
466
467 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
468
469 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
470 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
471 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
472 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
473 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
474
475 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
476
477 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
478 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
479 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
480
481 :weakness WEAK
482
483 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
484 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
485 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
486 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
487
488 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
489
490 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
491
492 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
493
494 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
495
496 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
497
498 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
499 values are shared.
500
501 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
502
503 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
504
505 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
506
507 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
508
509 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
510
511 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
512
513 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
514
515 Returns the size of TABLE.
516
517 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
518
519 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
520
521 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
522
523 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
524
525 - Function: clrhash TABLE
526
527 Clear TABLE.
528
529 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
530
531 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
532 not found.
533
534 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
535
536 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
537 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
538
539 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
540
541 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
542
543 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
544
545 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
546 arguments KEY and VALUE.
547
548 - Function: sxhash OBJ
549
550 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
551
552 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
553
554 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
555 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
556 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
557 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
558 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
559
560 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
561
562 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
563 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
564 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
565
566 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
567 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
568
569 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
570 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
571
572 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
573 (sxhash (upcase a)))
574
575 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
576 'case-fold-string-hash))
577
578 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
579
580 +++
581 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
582
583 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
584 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
585 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
586
587 +++
588 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
589
590 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
591 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
592
593 You can also do several calls to print functions using a common
594 set of #N= constructs; here is how.
595
596 (let ((print-circle t)
597 (print-continuous-numbering t)
598 print-number-table)
599 (print1 ...)
600 (print1 ...)
601 ...)
602
603 +++
604 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
605 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
606 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
607 is too short to reach that column.
608
609 +++
610 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
611 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
612 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
613 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
614
615 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
616 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
617 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
618
619 +++
620 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
621 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
622
623 +++
624 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
625 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
626
627 +++
628 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
629 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
630 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
631 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
632 temporary-file-directory instead.
633
634 +++
635 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
636 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
637 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
638 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
639
640 +++
641 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
642 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
643
644 +++
645 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
646
647 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
648 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
649 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
650
651 +++
652 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
653
654 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
655 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
656 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
657 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
658 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
659 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
660
661 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
662 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
663 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
664 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
665
666 +++
667 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
668
669 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
670 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
671 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
672 result string.
673
674 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
675 string where arguments appear in the result string.
676
677 Example:
678
679 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
680 (s2 "world"))
681 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
682 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
683 (format s1 s2)
684
685 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
686
687 +++
688 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
689
690 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
691 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
692 argument in it.
693
694 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
695 (arg "world"))
696 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
697 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
698 (message msg arg))
699
700 +++
701 ** Sound support
702
703 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
704 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
705
706 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
707 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
708 to enable sound support.
709
710 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
711 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
712 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
713 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
714 sound to play, before playing the sound.
715
716 The following sound properties are supported:
717
718 - `:file FILE'
719
720 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
721 searched relative to `data-directory'.
722
723 - `:volume VOLUME'
724
725 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
726 0..1. This property is optional.
727
728 Other properties are ignored.
729
730 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
731
732 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
733
734 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
735 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
736 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
737 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
738
739 ** New face implementation.
740
741 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
742 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
743
744 +++
745 *** New faces.
746
747 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
748
749 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
750
751 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
752 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
753
754 3. Font height in 1/10pt
755
756 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
757
758 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
759
760 6. Foreground color.
761
762 7. Background color.
763
764 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
765
766 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
767
768 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
769
770 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
771
772 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
773 color.
774
775 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
776 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
777
778 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
779 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
780 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
781 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
782 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
783 attributes mentioned above.
784
785 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
786 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
787 created frames.
788
789 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
790 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
791 `fully-specified'.
792
793 +++
794 *** Face merging.
795
796 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
797 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
798 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
799 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
800 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
801 results in a fully-specified face.
802
803 +++
804 *** Face realization.
805
806 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
807 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
808 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
809 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
810 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
811 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
812
813 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
814 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
815 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
816 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
817
818 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
819 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
820 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
821 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
822 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
823
824 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
825 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
826 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
827 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
828 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
829 Emacs.
830
831 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
832 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
833 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
834 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
835
836 ++++
837 **** Clearing face caches.
838
839 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
840 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
841 unused fonts.
842
843 +++
844 *** Font selection.
845
846 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
847 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
848 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
849
850 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
851 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
852 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
853 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
854 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
855
856 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
857 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
858 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
859
860 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
861
862 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
863 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
864 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
865 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
866 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
867 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
868 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
869
870 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
871 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
872 face doesn't exist.
873
874 +++
875 **** Scalable fonts
876
877 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
878 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
879 servers.
880
881 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
882 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means nver use
883 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
884 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
885 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
886 that list. Example:
887
888 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
889
890 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
891
892 +++
893 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
894
895 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
896
897 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
898 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
899 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
900
901 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
902 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
903 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
904 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
905 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
906 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
907 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
908 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
909 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
910 of the face font sort order.
911
912 - Function: x-font-family-list
913
914 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
915 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
916 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
917 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
918
919 - Variable: font-list-limit
920
921 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
922 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
923 matching font. The default is currently 100.
924
925 +++
926 *** Setting face attributes.
927
928 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
929 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
930 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
931 `face-attribute'.
932
933 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
934 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
935
936 The following attributes are recognized:
937
938 `:family'
939
940 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
941 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
942 and `?' are allowed.
943
944 `:width'
945
946 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
947 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
948 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
949 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
950
951 `:height'
952
953 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
954 1/10 pt.
955
956 `:weight'
957
958 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
959 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
960 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
961
962 `:slant'
963
964 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
965 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
966 `reverse-oblique'.
967
968 `:foreground', `:background'
969
970 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
971
972 `:underline'
973
974 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
975 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
976 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
977 don't underline.
978
979 `:overline'
980
981 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
982 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
983 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
984 overline.
985
986 `:strike-through'
987
988 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
989 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
990 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
991 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
992
993 `:box'
994
995 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
996 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
997 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
998 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
999 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
1000 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
1001 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
1002 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
1003 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
1004 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
1005 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
1006 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
1007 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
1008 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
1009 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
1010 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
1011 box.
1012
1013 `:inverse-video'
1014
1015 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
1016 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
1017
1018 `:stipple'
1019
1020 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
1021 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
1022 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
1023 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
1024 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
1025 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
1026
1027 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
1028 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
1029
1030 `:font'
1031
1032 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
1033 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
1034 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
1035 versions of Emacs.
1036
1037 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
1038 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
1039 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
1040
1041 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
1042 `defface'.
1043
1044 *** Face attributes and X resources
1045
1046 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
1047 from X resources:
1048
1049 Face attribute X resource class
1050 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
1051 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
1052 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
1053 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
1054 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
1055 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
1056 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
1057 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
1058 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
1059 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
1060 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
1061 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
1062 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
1063 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
1064 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
1065 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
1066 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1067 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
1068 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
1069 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1070
1071 +++
1072 *** Text property `face'.
1073
1074 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
1075 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
1076 specification can be
1077
1078 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
1079
1080 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
1081 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
1082 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
1083 for face attribute names.
1084
1085 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
1086 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
1087 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
1088
1089 +++
1090 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
1091
1092 The function `face-register-tty-color' can be used to define colors
1093 for use on TTY frames. It maps a color name to a color number on the
1094 terminal. Emacs defines a couple of default color mappings by
1095 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
1096 `tty-defined-colors'. The function `face-clear-tty-colors' can be
1097 used to clear the mapping table.
1098
1099 +++
1100 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
1101 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
1102
1103 A number of functions such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
1104 forward-paragraph, and beginning-of-line, stop moving when they
1105 come to the boundary between the prompt and the actual contents.
1106 The function erase-buffer does not delete the prompt.
1107
1108 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
1109 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
1110 Otherwise, it returns zero.
1111
1112 The function buffer-string does not return the portion of the
1113 mini-buffer belonging to the prompt; buffer-substring does.
1114
1115 +++
1116 ** Image support.
1117
1118 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
1119 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
1120 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
1121 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
1122
1123 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
1124 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
1125 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
1126 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
1127 area.
1128
1129 IMAGE is an image specification.
1130
1131 *** Image specifications
1132
1133 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
1134 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
1135 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
1136 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'.
1137
1138 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
1139
1140 `:ascent ASCENT'
1141
1142 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, and specifies the percentage
1143 of the image's height to use for its ascent. Default is 50.
1144
1145 `:margin MARGIN'
1146
1147 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
1148 margin around the image. Default is 0.
1149
1150 `:relief RELIEF'
1151
1152 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
1153 around an image.
1154
1155 `:algorithm ALGO'
1156
1157 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
1158 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
1159 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
1160 which is intended to display images "disabled."
1161
1162 `:heuristic-mask BG'
1163
1164 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
1165 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
1166 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
1167 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
1168 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
1169 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
1170 background of the image.
1171
1172 `:file FILE'
1173
1174 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
1175 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
1176 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
1177 may be present in the image specification.
1178
1179
1180 *** Supported image types
1181
1182 **** XBM, iamge type `xbm'.
1183
1184 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
1185 properties supported are
1186
1187 `:foreground FG'
1188
1189 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
1190 is the frame's foreground.
1191
1192 `:background FG'
1193
1194 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
1195 the frame's background color.
1196
1197 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
1198 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
1199 instead of a `:file' property.
1200
1201 `:width WIDTH'
1202
1203 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
1204
1205 `:height HEIGHT'
1206
1207 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
1208
1209 `:data DATA'
1210
1211 DATA must be either
1212
1213 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
1214 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
1215
1216 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
1217
1218 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
1219 bitmap.
1220
1221 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
1222
1223 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
1224 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
1225 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
1226 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
1227
1228 Additional image properties supported are:
1229
1230 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
1231
1232 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
1233 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
1234 name.
1235
1236 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
1237 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
1238
1239 `:data DATA'
1240
1241 DATA must be a string containing an XPM image. The contents of the
1242 string are of the same format as that of XPM files.
1243
1244 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
1245 to display compressed images.
1246
1247 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
1248
1249 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
1250 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
1251 defined.
1252
1253 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
1254
1255 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
1256 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1257 properties defined.
1258
1259 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
1260
1261 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
1262 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1263 properties defined.
1264
1265 **** GIF, image type `gif'
1266
1267 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
1268 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
1269
1270 Additional image properties supported are:
1271
1272 `:index INDEX'
1273
1274 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
1275 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
1276
1277 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
1278 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
1279 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
1280 every 0.1 seconds.
1281
1282 (defun show-anim (file max)
1283 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
1284 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
1285
1286 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
1287 (when (= idx max)
1288 (setq idx 0))
1289 (let ((img (create-image file nil :index idx)))
1290 (save-excursion
1291 (set-buffer buffer)
1292 (goto-char (point-min))
1293 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
1294 (insert-image img "x"))
1295 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
1296
1297 **** PNG, image type `png'
1298
1299 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
1300 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1301 properties defined.
1302
1303 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
1304
1305 Additional image properties supported are:
1306
1307 `:pt-width WIDTH'
1308
1309 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
1310 integer. This is an required property.
1311
1312 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
1313
1314 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
1315 must be an integer. This is an required property.
1316
1317 `:bounding-box BOX'
1318
1319 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
1320 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
1321 files. This is an required property.
1322
1323 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
1324 lisp/gs.el.
1325
1326 *** Lisp interface.
1327
1328 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
1329 which are supported in the current configuration.
1330
1331 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
1332 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
1333 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
1334 manually.
1335
1336 *** Simplified image API, image.el
1337
1338 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
1339 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
1340 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
1341 define an image based on available image types. The functions
1342 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
1343 buffer.
1344
1345 +++
1346 ** Display margins.
1347
1348 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
1349 and images.
1350
1351 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
1352 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
1353 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
1354 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
1355 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
1356 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
1357 of the display margins.
1358
1359 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
1360 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
1361 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
1362 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
1363 in this file).
1364
1365 +++
1366 ** Help display
1367
1368 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
1369 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
1370 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
1371 that have a `help-echo' property.
1372
1373 The value of the `help-echo' property must be a string. For tool-bar
1374 items, their key definition is used to determine the help to display.
1375 If their definition contains a property `:help FORM', FORM is
1376 evaluated to determine the help string. Otherwise, the caption of the
1377 tool-bar item is used.
1378
1379 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
1380 help differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window causes the
1381 help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
1382
1383 +++
1384 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
1385
1386 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
1387 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
1388
1389 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
1390 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
1391 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
1392 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
1393 used.
1394
1395 (global-set-key [A-down]
1396 #'(lambda ()
1397 (interactive)
1398 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1399 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
1400 (global-set-key [A-up]
1401 #'(lambda ()
1402 (interactive)
1403 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1404 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
1405
1406 +++
1407 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
1408
1409 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
1410 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
1411 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
1412 is called with one argument, POS.
1413
1414 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
1415 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
1416 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
1417 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
1418 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
1419
1420 +++
1421 ** Tool bar support.
1422
1423 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
1424 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
1425 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
1426 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
1427 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
1428 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
1429
1430 *** Tool bar item definitions
1431
1432 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
1433 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
1434 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
1435
1436 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
1437 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
1438 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
1439 property (see below).
1440
1441 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
1442 binding are currently ignored.
1443
1444 The following properties are recognized:
1445
1446 `:enable FORM'.
1447
1448 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
1449 or disabled.
1450
1451 `:visible FORM'
1452
1453 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
1454
1455 `:filter FUNCTION'
1456
1457 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
1458 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
1459 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
1460
1461 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
1462
1463 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
1464 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
1465
1466 `:image IMAGES'
1467
1468 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
1469 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
1470 meaning of each of the four elements:
1471
1472 Index Use when item is
1473 ----------------------------------------
1474 0 enabled and selected
1475 1 enabled and deselected
1476 2 disabled and selected
1477 3 disabled and deselected
1478
1479 `:help HELP-STRING'.
1480
1481 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
1482 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
1483
1484 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
1485
1486 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
1487 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
1488 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
1489
1490 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
1491 raised when the mouse moves over them.
1492
1493 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
1494 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
1495 pixels. Default is 1.
1496
1497 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
1498 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
1499
1500 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
1501
1502 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
1503 a tool bar item. If
1504
1505 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
1506 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
1507 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
1508
1509 is the original tool bar item definition, then
1510
1511 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
1512
1513 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
1514 item.
1515
1516 ** Mode line changes.
1517
1518 +++
1519 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
1520
1521 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
1522 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
1523 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
1524
1525 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
1526 a `local-map' text property.
1527
1528 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
1529 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
1530
1531 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
1532 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
1533 `local-map' property.
1534
1535 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
1536 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
1537 example.
1538
1539 +++
1540 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
1541 variable mode-line-format to nil.
1542
1543 +++
1544 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
1545
1546 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
1547 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
1548 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
1549 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
1550 line.
1551
1552 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
1553 `header-line'.
1554
1555 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
1556 position in the header-line.
1557
1558 +++
1559 ** Text property `display'
1560
1561 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
1562 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
1563 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
1564 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
1565
1566 *** Variable width and height spaces
1567
1568 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
1569 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
1570 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
1571 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
1572 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
1573 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
1574 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
1575
1576 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
1577 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
1578 properties described below.
1579
1580 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
1581 characters having the `display' property.
1582
1583 - :width WIDTH
1584
1585 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
1586 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
1587
1588 - :relative-width FACTOR
1589
1590 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
1591 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
1592 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
1593 width of that character by FACTOR.
1594
1595 - :align-to HPOS
1596
1597 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
1598 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
1599
1600 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
1601
1602 - :height HEIGHT
1603
1604 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
1605 normal line height.
1606
1607 - :relative-height FACTOR
1608
1609 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
1610 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
1611
1612 - :ascent ASCENT
1613
1614 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
1615 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
1616 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
1617 equal to 100.
1618
1619 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
1620
1621 *** Images
1622
1623 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
1624 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
1625 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
1626 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
1627 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
1628 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
1629 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
1630 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
1631 as display specification.
1632
1633 *** Other display properties
1634
1635 - :space-width FACTOR
1636
1637 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
1638 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
1639 integer or float.
1640
1641 - :height HEIGHT
1642
1643 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
1644
1645 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
1646 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
1647 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
1648 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
1649 a font is available counts as a step.
1650
1651 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
1652 as tall as the frame's default font.
1653
1654 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
1655 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
1656
1657 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
1658 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
1659
1660 - :raise FACTOR
1661
1662 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
1663 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
1664 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
1665 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
1666 `:height' subproperty.
1667
1668 *** Conditional display properties
1669
1670 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
1671 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
1672 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
1673 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
1674 the text having the `display' property.
1675
1676 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
1677 `(:when t SPEC)'.
1678
1679 +++
1680 ** New menu separator types.
1681
1682 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
1683 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
1684 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
1685 to specify other menu separator types.
1686
1687 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
1688
1689 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
1690 separator occurs.
1691
1692 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
1693
1694 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
1695
1696 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
1697
1698 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
1699
1700 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
1701
1702 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
1703
1704 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
1705
1706 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
1707
1708 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
1709
1710 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
1711 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
1712
1713 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
1714
1715 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
1716
1717 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
1718
1719 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
1720
1721 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
1722
1723 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
1724
1725 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
1726
1727 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
1728
1729 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
1730
1731 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
1732
1733 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
1734
1735 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
1736
1737 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
1738
1739 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
1740
1741 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
1742 the corresponding single-line separators.
1743
1744 +++
1745 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
1746
1747 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
1748 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
1749 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
1750 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
1751 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
1752 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
1753 default foreground is black.
1754
1755 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
1756 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
1757 `ScrollBarBackground').
1758
1759 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
1760 settings for scroll bar colors.
1761
1762 +++
1763 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
1764 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
1765
1766 ---
1767 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
1768 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
1769 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
1770 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
1771 the original window start.
1772
1773 ---
1774 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
1775 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
1776 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
1777
1778 +++
1779 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
1780
1781 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
1782 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
1783 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
1784 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
1785
1786 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
1787 fixed-width and fixed-height.
1788
1789 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
1790
1791 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
1792 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
1793 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
1794 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
1795 temporarily to nil, for example
1796
1797 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
1798 (enlarge-window 10))
1799
1800 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
1801 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
1802
1803 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
1804
1805 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
1806
1807 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
1808 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
1809 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
1810
1811 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
1812 is the one that is used.
1813
1814 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
1815 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
1816 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
1817 separate from the command's regular output.
1818 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
1819 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
1820 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
1821 the buffer name.
1822
1823 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
1824 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
1825 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
1826 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
1827
1828 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
1829 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
1830 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
1831 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
1832
1833 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
1834 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
1835 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
1836 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
1837
1838 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
1839 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
1840 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
1841 they never ignore case.
1842
1843 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
1844 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
1845 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
1846 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
1847 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
1848 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
1849 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
1850
1851 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
1852 the same format that was used in the file before.
1853
1854 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
1855 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
1856
1857 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
1858 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
1859 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
1860
1861 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
1862 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
1863 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
1864 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
1865 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
1866 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
1867 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
1868
1869 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
1870 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
1871 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
1872 format. You can now customize these variables.
1873
1874 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
1875 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
1876 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
1877 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
1878
1879 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
1880 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
1881 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
1882
1883 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
1884 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
1885 doesn't have any effect.
1886
1887 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
1888 not one per buffer.
1889
1890 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
1891 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
1892 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
1893
1894 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
1895 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
1896 `auto-show-mode' command.
1897
1898 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
1899 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
1900 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
1901 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
1902 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
1903
1904 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
1905 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
1906
1907 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
1908 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
1909 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
1910
1911 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
1912 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
1913 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
1914 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
1915
1916 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
1917
1918 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
1919 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
1920 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
1921 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
1922 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
1923
1924 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
1925 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
1926
1927 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
1928 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
1929 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
1930 `?' on other systems.
1931
1932 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
1933 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
1934 Unix.
1935
1936 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
1937 current codepage when it starts.
1938
1939 ** Mail changes
1940
1941 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
1942 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
1943 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
1944 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
1945 buffer-file-coding-system.
1946
1947 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
1948 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
1949 mail.
1950
1951 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
1952 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
1953 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
1954 list of possible coding systems.
1955
1956 ** CC Mode changes
1957
1958 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
1959 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
1960 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
1961 docstring for details.
1962
1963 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
1964 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
1965 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
1966 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
1967 lineup functions use this feature currently.
1968
1969 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
1970 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
1971
1972 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
1973 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
1974
1975 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
1976 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
1977 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
1978 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
1979 anonymous classes.
1980
1981 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
1982 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
1983
1984 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
1985 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
1986 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
1987 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
1988
1989 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
1990 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
1991 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
1992 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
1993 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
1994
1995 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
1996
1997 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
1998
1999 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
2000 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
2001
2002 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
2003
2004 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
2005 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
2006 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
2007 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
2008 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
2009
2010 ** Gnus changes.
2011
2012 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
2013 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
2014 Gnus manual for the full story.
2015
2016 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
2017 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
2018 group, which is created automatically.
2019
2020 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
2021 values.
2022
2023 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
2024
2025 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
2026 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
2027
2028 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
2029 `C-u C-c C-c'.
2030
2031 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
2032
2033 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
2034 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
2035
2036 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
2037
2038 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
2039 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
2040
2041 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
2042 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
2043
2044 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
2045 control over simplification.
2046
2047 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
2048
2049 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
2050 limit.
2051
2052 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
2053
2054 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
2055
2056 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
2057 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
2058 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
2059
2060 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
2061 `a' forces normal posting method.
2062
2063 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
2064 -- `W d'.
2065
2066 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
2067 to a non-nil value.
2068
2069 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
2070 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
2071
2072 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
2073 has been added.
2074
2075 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
2076
2077 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
2078
2079 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
2080 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
2081
2082 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
2083 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
2084
2085 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
2086
2087 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
2088 been added.
2089
2090 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
2091 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
2092
2093 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
2094 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
2095
2096 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
2097
2098 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
2099
2100 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
2101
2102 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
2103
2104 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
2105 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
2106 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
2107
2108 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
2109 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
2110 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
2111 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
2112 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
2113
2114 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
2115 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
2116 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
2117 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
2118
2119 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
2120 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
2121 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
2122 mismatch.
2123
2124 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
2125
2126 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
2127 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
2128
2129 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
2130 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
2131 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
2132 removed from the label.
2133
2134 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
2135 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
2136
2137 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
2138 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
2139
2140 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
2141 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
2142 expressions.
2143
2144 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
2145
2146 ** New/deleted modes and packages
2147
2148 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
2149 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
2150
2151 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
2152 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
2153 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
2154
2155 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
2156 changes with a special face.
2157
2158 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
2159 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
2160 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
2161
2162 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
2163
2164 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
2165 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
2166 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
2167 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
2168 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
2169
2170 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
2171 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
2172 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
2173
2174 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
2175 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
2176 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
2177 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
2178 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
2179 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
2180 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
2181 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
2182 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
2183
2184 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
2185 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
2186 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
2187 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
2188 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
2189 program.
2190
2191 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
2192 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
2193 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
2194 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
2195 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
2196 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
2197
2198 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
2199 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
2200 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
2201 was not documented clearly before.
2202
2203 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
2204 This includes Tetris and Snake.
2205
2206 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
2207
2208 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
2209 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
2210 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
2211 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
2212
2213 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
2214 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
2215 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
2216
2217 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
2218
2219 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
2220 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
2221
2222 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
2223 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
2224 integers.
2225
2226 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
2227 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
2228 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
2229 file names and attributes are returned.
2230
2231 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
2232 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
2233 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
2234 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
2235 returns the result.
2236
2237 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
2238 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
2239
2240 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
2241
2242 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
2243 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
2244 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
2245 optionally.
2246
2247 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
2248 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
2249
2250 **
2251 The new function process-running-child-p
2252 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
2253 terminal to its own child process.
2254
2255 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
2256 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
2257 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
2258 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
2259
2260 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
2261 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
2262
2263 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
2264 :included is an alias for :visible.
2265
2266 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
2267 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
2268 to move or copy menu entries.
2269
2270 ** Multibyte editing changes
2271
2272 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
2273 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
2274 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
2275 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
2276 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
2277 (setq char (sref str idx)
2278 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
2279 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
2280
2281 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
2282 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
2283 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
2284
2285 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
2286 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
2287 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
2288
2289 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
2290
2291 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
2292 across the boundary.
2293
2294 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
2295 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
2296 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
2297 contains 8-bit characters.
2298 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
2299 contains invalid characters.
2300
2301 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
2302 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
2303 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
2304 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
2305 way.
2306
2307 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
2308 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
2309 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
2310 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
2311
2312 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
2313 compose Thai characters in a string.
2314
2315 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
2316 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
2317 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
2318 menus should always use the third argument.
2319
2320 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
2321 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
2322 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
2323 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
2324
2325 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
2326 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
2327 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
2328 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
2329
2330 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
2331 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
2332 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
2333 echo area contents.
2334
2335 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
2336
2337 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
2338 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
2339 requested feature cannot be loaded.
2340
2341 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
2342 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
2343 means to clear out that attribute.
2344
2345 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
2346 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
2347
2348 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
2349 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
2350 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
2351 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
2352
2353 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
2354 the gap of the current buffer.
2355
2356 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
2357 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
2358 current buffer.
2359
2360 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
2361 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
2362 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
2363 it back in after any modifications have been made.
2364
2365 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
2366
2367 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
2368 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
2369 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
2370 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
2371 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
2372
2373 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
2374 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
2375 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
2376 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
2377 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
2378
2379 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
2380 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
2381 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
2382
2383 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
2384 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
2385 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
2386 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
2387 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
2388 results.
2389
2390 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
2391 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
2392 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
2393 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
2394
2395 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
2396
2397 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
2398 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
2399 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
2400 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
2401
2402 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
2403 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
2404 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
2405 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
2406 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
2407 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
2408 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
2409 region.
2410
2411 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
2412 selective undo.
2413
2414 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
2415 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
2416 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
2417 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
2418 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
2419
2420 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
2421 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
2422 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
2423 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
2424
2425 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
2426 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
2427 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
2428 something that most users not do.
2429
2430 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
2431 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
2432 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
2433 applications.
2434
2435 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
2436 pasting operations.
2437
2438 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
2439 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
2440 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
2441 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
2442 `ps-printer-name'.
2443
2444 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
2445 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
2446 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
2447 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
2448 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
2449 hits a new word.
2450
2451 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
2452 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
2453 to be confused by TeX commands.
2454
2455 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
2456 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
2457 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
2458 of various alternative replacements and actions.
2459
2460 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
2461 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
2462 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
2463 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
2464 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
2465
2466 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
2467 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
2468
2469 ** Changes in input method usage.
2470
2471 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
2472 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
2473 respectively.
2474
2475 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
2476
2477 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
2478 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
2479
2480 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
2481 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
2482
2483 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
2484
2485 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
2486
2487 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
2488 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
2489
2490 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
2491 given in the following case:
2492 o When you are using a complex input method.
2493 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
2494
2495 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
2496 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
2497 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
2498 setting it to t is helpful.
2499
2500 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
2501
2502 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
2503 keys:
2504 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
2505 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
2506 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
2507 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
2508 environment.
2509
2510 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
2511 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
2512 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
2513 get
2514
2515 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
2516
2517 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
2518
2519 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
2520 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
2521
2522 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
2523 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
2524 its owner and group.
2525
2526 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
2527 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
2528
2529 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
2530 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
2531
2532 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
2533 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
2534 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
2535 by the left edge of the rectangle.
2536
2537 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
2538 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
2539 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
2540 for writing keyboard macros.
2541
2542 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
2543 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
2544 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
2545 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
2546 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
2547 info.
2548
2549 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
2550
2551 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
2552 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
2553 contents only.
2554
2555 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
2556 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
2557 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
2558 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
2559
2560 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
2561 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
2562 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
2563
2564 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
2565 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
2566 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
2567 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
2568
2569 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
2570 failure if the command produces no output.
2571
2572 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
2573 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
2574 the mouse.
2575
2576 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
2577 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
2578 function and variable names.
2579
2580 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
2581 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
2582 file-coding-system-alist.
2583
2584 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
2585 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
2586 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
2587 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
2588 according to the current fontset.
2589
2590 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
2591
2592 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
2593 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
2594 nonascii-insert-offset.
2595
2596 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
2597 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
2598 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
2599 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
2600
2601 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
2602 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
2603
2604 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
2605 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
2606
2607 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
2608 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
2609 command keys.
2610
2611 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
2612 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
2613
2614 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
2615 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
2616 all variables that have documentation.
2617
2618 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
2619 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
2620 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
2621 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
2622 it should show; the default is 20.
2623
2624 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
2625 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
2626 of your input.
2627
2628 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
2629 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
2630 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
2631 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
2632 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
2633 Newly added options are included as well.
2634
2635 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
2636 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
2637 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
2638
2639 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
2640 Customize menu.
2641
2642 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
2643 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
2644
2645 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
2646 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
2647 invoked.
2648
2649 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
2650 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
2651 The default is 1.
2652
2653 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
2654 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
2655 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
2656 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
2657 sensibly.
2658
2659 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
2660
2661 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
2662 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
2663 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
2664
2665 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
2666 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
2667 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
2668 every night.
2669
2670 ** All you need to do, to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
2671 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
2672
2673 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
2674 read and post multi-lingual articles.
2675
2676 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
2677 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
2678 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
2679 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
2680 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
2681 made invisible again.
2682
2683 ** Mail reading and sending changes
2684
2685 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
2686 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
2687 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
2688 toggle.
2689
2690 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
2691 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
2692 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
2693 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
2694 rmail-default-body-file.
2695
2696 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
2697 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
2698 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
2699
2700 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
2701 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
2702 is evaluated to insert the signature.
2703
2704 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
2705 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
2706 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
2707 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
2708 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
2709 especially interested in trying feedmail.
2710
2711 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
2712 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
2713 provided by feedmail are:
2714
2715 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
2716 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
2717 there is also a queue for draft messages
2718
2719 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
2720 be prompted for confirmation
2721
2722 **** does smart filling of address headers
2723
2724 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
2725 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
2726 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
2727
2728 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
2729 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
2730 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
2731 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
2732
2733 ** Dired changes
2734
2735 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
2736 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
2737
2738 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
2739 run Dired on the directory name at point.
2740
2741 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
2742 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
2743 for a specified regexp.
2744
2745 ** VC Changes
2746
2747 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
2748 conveniently.
2749
2750 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
2751 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
2752 Dired.
2753
2754 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
2755 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
2756 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
2757 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
2758
2759 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
2760 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
2761 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
2762 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
2763 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
2764
2765 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
2766 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
2767 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
2768 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
2769 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
2770
2771 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
2772 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
2773 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
2774 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
2775
2776 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
2777 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
2778 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
2779
2780 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
2781 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
2782 session to resolve them.
2783
2784 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
2785 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
2786 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
2787 uses as well).
2788
2789 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
2790 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
2791 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
2792 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
2793 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
2794 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
2795 using ediff.
2796
2797 ** Changes in Font Lock
2798
2799 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
2800 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
2801 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
2802 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
2803 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
2804
2805 ** Frame name display changes
2806
2807 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
2808 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
2809 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
2810 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
2811
2812 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
2813 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
2814 menu.
2815
2816 ** Comint (subshell) changes
2817
2818 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
2819 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
2820 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
2821
2822 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
2823
2824 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
2825 that is, the line after the last line you got.
2826 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
2827
2828 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
2829 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
2830 the following line.
2831
2832 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
2833 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
2834 previously sent input.
2835
2836 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
2837 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
2838 as the search string.
2839
2840 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
2841 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
2842
2843 ** C mode changes
2844
2845 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
2846 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
2847 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
2848 definition.
2849
2850 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
2851 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
2852 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
2853 style is still the default however.
2854
2855 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
2856
2857 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
2858 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
2859 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
2860
2861 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
2862 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
2863
2864 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
2865 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
2866
2867 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
2868 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
2869
2870 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
2871 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
2872
2873 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
2874 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
2875 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
2876 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
2877
2878 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
2879
2880 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
2881 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
2882 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
2883
2884 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
2885 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
2886 expanding dynamically.
2887
2888 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
2889 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
2890
2891 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
2892 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
2893 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
2894 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
2895
2896 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
2897
2898 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
2899
2900 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
2901 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
2902 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
2903 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
2904 against the first word in the title.
2905
2906 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
2907 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
2908 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
2909 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
2910 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
2911 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
2912
2913 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
2914 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
2915 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
2916 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
2917
2918 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
2919
2920 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
2921 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
2922 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
2923 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
2924 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
2925 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
2926
2927 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
2928 Editing group once the package is loaded.
2929
2930 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
2931 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
2932 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
2933
2934 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
2935 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
2936
2937 ** Ispell changes.
2938
2939 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
2940 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
2941 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
2942
2943 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
2944 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
2945 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
2946 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
2947 include:
2948
2949 o URLs are automatically skipped
2950 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
2951
2952 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
2953
2954 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
2955
2956 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
2957 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
2958 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
2959 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
2960
2961 *** New recursive parser.
2962
2963 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
2964 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
2965 recursive parser scans the individual files.
2966
2967 *** Parsing only part of a document.
2968
2969 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
2970 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
2971 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
2972
2973 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
2974
2975 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
2976
2977 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
2978
2979 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
2980
2981 *** Using multiple selection buffers
2982
2983 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
2984 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
2985
2986 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
2987
2988 *** References to external documents.
2989
2990 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
2991 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
2992 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
2993 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
2994 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
2995 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
2996 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
2997
2998 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
2999
3000 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
3001 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
3002
3003 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
3004 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
3005
3006 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
3007
3008 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
3009 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
3010
3011 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
3012
3013 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
3014 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
3015 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
3016 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
3017 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
3018 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
3019 more.
3020
3021 *** Support for the varioref package
3022
3023 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
3024
3025 *** New hooks
3026
3027 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
3028 and citations are created. These hooks are
3029 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
3030 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
3031
3032 *** Citations outside LaTeX
3033
3034 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
3035 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
3036
3037 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
3038
3039 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
3040 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
3041 fontified, use
3042
3043 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
3044
3045 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
3046 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
3047 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
3048 directories that contain the same file name.
3049
3050 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
3051 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
3052 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
3053 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
3054 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
3055 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
3056 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
3057 directory.
3058
3059 ** New modes and packages
3060
3061 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
3062 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
3063 it, but some do not.
3064
3065 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
3066 code.
3067
3068 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
3069 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
3070 around in a buffer.
3071
3072 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
3073
3074 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
3075 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
3076 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
3077 established system of notation similar to Chess.
3078
3079 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
3080 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
3081 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
3082
3083 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
3084 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
3085 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
3086 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
3087 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
3088 the like.
3089
3090 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
3091 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
3092
3093 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
3094 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
3095 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
3096 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
3097
3098 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
3099
3100 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
3101 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
3102 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
3103 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
3104 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
3105 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
3106 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
3107 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
3108 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
3109 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
3110 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
3111
3112 Platform-specific modes:
3113
3114 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
3115 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
3116 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
3117 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
3118 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
3119 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
3120 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
3121 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
3122 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
3123
3124 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3125
3126 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
3127 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
3128 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
3129 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
3130
3131 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
3132 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
3133 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
3134
3135 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
3136 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
3137 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
3138 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
3139
3140 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
3141 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
3142 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
3143 environment.
3144
3145 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
3146 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
3147 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
3148 current input method for reading this one event.
3149
3150 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
3151 now control whether to output certain characters as
3152 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
3153 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
3154 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
3155 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
3156
3157 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3158
3159 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
3160 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
3161
3162 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
3163 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
3164 always increases point by 1.
3165
3166 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
3167 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
3168
3169 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
3170
3171 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
3172 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
3173 default value changed. For example,
3174
3175 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
3176 :type 'integer
3177 :group 'foo
3178 :version "20.3")
3179
3180 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
3181 :version "20.3")
3182
3183 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
3184 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
3185 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
3186 `:version' in the top level group.
3187
3188 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
3189
3190 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
3191 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
3192
3193 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
3194 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
3195 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
3196 to themselves.
3197
3198 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
3199 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
3200 values whatever.
3201
3202 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
3203 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
3204 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
3205
3206 ** Frame-local variables.
3207
3208 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
3209 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
3210 local bindings for that variable.
3211
3212 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
3213 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
3214 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
3215 parameter name.
3216
3217 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
3218 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
3219 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
3220 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
3221
3222 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
3223 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
3224 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
3225 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
3226
3227 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
3228 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
3229 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
3230 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
3231 See the documentation in sregex.el.
3232
3233 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
3234 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
3235 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
3236 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
3237
3238 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
3239 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
3240
3241 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
3242 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
3243 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
3244
3245 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
3246 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
3247 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
3248 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
3249
3250 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
3251 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
3252 empty input.
3253
3254 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
3255 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
3256 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
3257 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
3258 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
3259
3260 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
3261 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
3262 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
3263 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
3264
3265 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
3266 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
3267 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
3268 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
3269 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
3270
3271 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
3272 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
3273 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
3274 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
3275
3276 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
3277 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
3278 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
3279
3280 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
3281 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
3282 was directed to display this buffer.
3283
3284 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
3285 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
3286 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
3287 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
3288 set-window-configuration.
3289
3290 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
3291 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
3292 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
3293 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
3294
3295 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
3296 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
3297 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
3298
3299 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
3300 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
3301 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
3302
3303 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
3304 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
3305
3306 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
3307 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
3308
3309 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
3310 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
3311 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
3312
3313 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
3314 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
3315 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
3316 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
3317
3318 ** Menu changes
3319
3320 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
3321 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
3322 better supported.
3323
3324 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
3325 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
3326 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
3327 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
3328 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
3329
3330 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
3331
3332 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
3333 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
3334 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
3335 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
3336
3337 The format is:
3338 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
3339 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
3340 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
3341 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
3342 The supported properties include
3343
3344 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3345 item is enabled.
3346 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3347 item should appear in the menu.
3348 :filter FILTER-FN
3349 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
3350 which will be REAL-BINDING.
3351 It should return a binding to use instead.
3352 :keys DESCRIPTION
3353 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
3354 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
3355 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
3356 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
3357 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
3358 keyboard binding.
3359 :key-sequence nil
3360 This means that the command normally has no
3361 keyboard equivalent.
3362 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
3363 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
3364 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
3365 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
3366 value says whether this button is currently selected.
3367
3368 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
3369 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
3370
3371 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
3372
3373 ** New event types
3374
3375 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
3376 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
3377 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
3378 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
3379
3380 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
3381
3382 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3383 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
3384 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
3385 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
3386 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
3387 forward, away from the user.
3388
3389 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3390
3391 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
3392 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
3393 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
3394 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
3395 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
3396
3397 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
3398
3399 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3400 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
3401 that were dragged and dropped.
3402
3403 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3404
3405 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
3406
3407 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
3408 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
3409 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
3410
3411 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
3412 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
3413 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
3414
3415 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
3416 in Emacs 19 and before.
3417
3418 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
3419 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
3420
3421 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
3422 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
3423 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
3424 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
3425
3426 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
3427 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
3428 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
3429 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
3430 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
3431
3432 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
3433 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
3434 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
3435 consistent with the new representation.
3436
3437 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
3438 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
3439 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
3440 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3441
3442 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
3443 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
3444 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
3445
3446 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
3447 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
3448 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3449
3450 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
3451 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
3452 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
3453
3454 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3455 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
3456
3457 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3458 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
3459
3460 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
3461 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
3462 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
3463 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
3464
3465 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
3466 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
3467
3468 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
3469 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
3470 buffer or string being searched.
3471
3472 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
3473 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
3474 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
3475 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
3476 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
3477 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
3478 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
3479
3480 *** Structure of coding system changed.
3481
3482 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
3483 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
3484 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
3485 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
3486 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
3487 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
3488 define-coding-system-alias.
3489
3490 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
3491 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
3492 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
3493 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
3494 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
3495 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
3496 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
3497 `iso-8859-1'.
3498
3499 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
3500 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
3501 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
3502 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
3503
3504 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
3505 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
3506 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
3507 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
3508
3509 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
3510 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
3511 This function requires a user interaction.
3512
3513 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
3514 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
3515 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
3516 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
3517 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
3518 select-safe-coding-system.
3519
3520 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
3521 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
3522 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
3523 was done.
3524
3525 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
3526 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
3527 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
3528
3529 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
3530 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
3531 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
3532 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
3533
3534 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
3535 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
3536 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
3537 converted.
3538
3539 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
3540 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
3541
3542 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
3543 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
3544 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
3545 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
3546 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
3547 range of characters.
3548
3549 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
3550 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
3551
3552 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
3553 in the current buffer at position POS.
3554
3555 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
3556 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
3557 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
3558 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
3559 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
3560 binding input-method-function to nil.
3561
3562 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
3563 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
3564 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
3565 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
3566 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
3567
3568 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
3569 subsequent events of a key sequence.
3570
3571 *** You can customize any language environment by using
3572 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
3573
3574 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
3575 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
3576 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
3577 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
3578 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
3579
3580 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
3581
3582 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
3583 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
3584 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
3585 tree structure.
3586
3587 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
3588 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
3589
3590 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
3591 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
3592 in your .emacs file.)
3593
3594 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
3595 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
3596
3597 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
3598 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
3599
3600 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
3601 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
3602 kills the region.
3603
3604 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
3605 delete the character before point, as usual.
3606
3607 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
3608 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
3609 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
3610
3611 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
3612 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
3613 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
3614 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
3615 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
3616 past.)
3617
3618 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
3619 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
3620 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
3621 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
3622 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
3623
3624 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
3625 and is an alias for it.
3626
3627 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
3628 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
3629
3630 ** Scrolling changes
3631
3632 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
3633 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
3634
3635 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
3636 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
3637 where it started.
3638
3639 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
3640 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
3641 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
3642 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
3643
3644 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
3645 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
3646 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
3647 recenters the window.
3648
3649 ** International character set support (MULE)
3650
3651 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
3652 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
3653 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
3654 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
3655 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
3656 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
3657
3658 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
3659 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
3660 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
3661 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
3662 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
3663
3664 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
3665 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
3666 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
3667 language, to make it possible to type them.
3668
3669 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
3670 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
3671
3672 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
3673 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
3674
3675 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
3676
3677 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
3678
3679 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
3680 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
3681 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
3682 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
3683 characters for their work until they want to change.
3684
3685 *** Input methods
3686
3687 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
3688 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
3689 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
3690 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
3691 support several input methods.
3692
3693 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
3694 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
3695 work.
3696
3697 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
3698 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
3699 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
3700 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
3701 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
3702 letter.
3703
3704 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
3705 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
3706 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
3707 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
3708 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
3709
3710 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
3711 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
3712 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
3713 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
3714
3715 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
3716 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
3717 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
3718 the first guess is wrong.
3719
3720 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
3721 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
3722
3723 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
3724 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
3725 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
3726 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
3727
3728 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
3729 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
3730 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
3731 translate automatically to and from either one.
3732
3733 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
3734
3735 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
3736 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
3737 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
3738 what you want.
3739
3740 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
3741 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
3742 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
3743 multibyte characters in that buffer.
3744
3745 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
3746 character conversion as well.
3747
3748 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
3749
3750 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
3751 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
3752 requires using many fonts.
3753
3754 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
3755 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
3756
3757 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
3758 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
3759 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
3760 you would use a font.
3761
3762 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
3763 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
3764 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
3765
3766 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
3767 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
3768 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
3769 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
3770 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
3771
3772 *** Defining fontsets.
3773
3774 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
3775 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
3776 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
3777
3778 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
3779 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
3780 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
3781 standard fontset are created automatically.
3782
3783 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
3784 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
3785 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
3786 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
3787 name is `fontset-startup'.
3788
3789 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
3790 The resource value should have this form:
3791 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
3792 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
3793 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
3794 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
3795 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
3796 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
3797 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
3798 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
3799 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
3800
3801 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
3802 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
3803 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
3804
3805 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
3806 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
3807 following resource,
3808 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
3809 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
3810 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
3811 Here is the substitution rule:
3812 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
3813 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
3814 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
3815 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
3816 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
3817
3818 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
3819 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
3820 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
3821
3822 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
3823 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
3824 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
3825 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
3826 fontsets.
3827
3828 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
3829 defaults for a particular choice of language.
3830
3831 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
3832 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
3833 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
3834 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
3835 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
3836 system for new files that you create.
3837
3838 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
3839 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
3840 whole Emacs session.
3841
3842 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
3843 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
3844 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
3845
3846 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
3847 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
3848 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
3849 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
3850 coding systems that Emacs supports.
3851
3852 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
3853 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
3854 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
3855 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
3856 is used for *the immediately following command*.
3857
3858 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
3859 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
3860
3861 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
3862 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
3863
3864 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
3865 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
3866
3867 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
3868 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
3869 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
3870 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
3871 of the file.
3872
3873 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
3874 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
3875 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
3876 translated into that character code.
3877
3878 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
3879 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
3880
3881 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
3882
3883 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
3884 the coding system for keyboard input.
3885
3886 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
3887 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
3888 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
3889
3890 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
3891
3892 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
3893 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
3894 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
3895 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
3896 designed to work with terminals.
3897
3898 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
3899 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
3900 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
3901 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
3902 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
3903 in the corresponding buffer.
3904
3905 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
3906
3907 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
3908 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
3909 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
3910
3911 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
3912 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
3913 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
3914 want to use.
3915
3916 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
3917 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
3918
3919 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
3920 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
3921 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
3922 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
3923
3924 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
3925 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
3926 related information.
3927
3928 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
3929 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
3930 scripts.
3931
3932 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
3933 information about the support for a particular language.
3934 You specify the language as an argument.
3935
3936 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
3937 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
3938 first dash.
3939
3940 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
3941 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
3942 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
3943 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
3944
3945 A alternativnyj (Russian)
3946 B big5 (Chinese)
3947 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
3948 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
3949 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
3950 E euc-japan (Japanese)
3951 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
3952 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
3953 K euc-korea (Korean)
3954 R koi8 (Russian)
3955 Q tibetan
3956 S shift_jis (Japanese)
3957 T lao
3958 T tis620 (Thai)
3959 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
3960 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
3961 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
3962 v viqr (Vietnamese)
3963 z hz (Chinese)
3964
3965 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
3966 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
3967 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
3968 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
3969
3970 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
3971 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
3972
3973 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
3974 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
3975 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
3976 Rmail files themselves.
3977
3978 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
3979 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
3980
3981 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
3982 for sending mail:
3983
3984 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
3985 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
3986 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
3987 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
3988 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
3989
3990 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
3991 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
3992 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
3993 translations.
3994
3995 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
3996 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
3997 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
3998 without any conversion.
3999
4000 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
4001 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
4002 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
4003 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
4004
4005 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
4006 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
4007
4008 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
4009 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
4010
4011 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
4012 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
4013
4014 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
4015 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
4016 in the buffer before point.
4017
4018 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
4019 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
4020 you are using.
4021
4022 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
4023 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
4024
4025 ** File locking works with NFS now.
4026
4027 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
4028 in the same directory as FILENAME.
4029
4030 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
4031 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
4032 can become a bottleneck.
4033
4034 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
4035 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
4036 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
4037 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
4038 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
4039 so useful that the change is worth while.
4040
4041 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
4042 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
4043 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
4044 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
4045
4046 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
4047 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
4048 show-paren-mode.
4049
4050 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
4051 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
4052 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
4053
4054 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
4055 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
4056 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
4057
4058 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
4059 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
4060 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
4061
4062 ** Changes in View mode.
4063
4064 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
4065 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
4066
4067 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
4068 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
4069
4070 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
4071 previous state.
4072
4073 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
4074 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
4075
4076 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
4077 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
4078 not just the selected window.
4079
4080 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
4081 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
4082 turns View mode on or off.
4083
4084 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
4085 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
4086 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
4087
4088 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
4089 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
4090
4091 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
4092 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
4093 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
4094 which version to compare with.
4095
4096 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
4097 blocks if a match is inside the block.
4098
4099 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
4100 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
4101 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
4102 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
4103
4104 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
4105 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
4106 blocks, all of them or none.
4107
4108 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
4109 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
4110 confirmation first.
4111
4112 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
4113 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
4114 However, the mode will not be changed if
4115 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
4116 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
4117 not suitable for ordinary files, or
4118 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
4119
4120 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
4121
4122 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
4123 these commands do not change the major mode.
4124
4125 ** M-x occur changes.
4126
4127 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
4128 it performs a case-sensitive search.
4129
4130 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
4131 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
4132 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
4133
4134 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
4135 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
4136 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
4137 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
4138 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
4139
4140 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
4141 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
4142 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
4143 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
4144
4145 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
4146 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
4147 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
4148
4149 ** Outline mode changes.
4150
4151 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
4152
4153 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
4154
4155 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
4156 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
4157 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
4158 was already active.
4159
4160 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
4161 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
4162 get confused by it.
4163
4164 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
4165 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
4166
4167 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
4168
4169 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
4170 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
4171 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
4172 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
4173
4174 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
4175 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
4176 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
4177
4178 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
4179 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
4180 values.
4181
4182 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
4183 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
4184 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
4185 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
4186
4187 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
4188 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
4189 can be. The default value is 30.
4190
4191 ** Changes in Mail mode.
4192
4193 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
4194 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
4195 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
4196 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
4197 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
4198 behavior.
4199
4200 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
4201 compose-mail-other-frame.
4202
4203 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
4204 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
4205 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
4206 buffer that shows the original message.
4207
4208 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
4209 with separator lines around the contents.
4210
4211 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
4212 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
4213 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
4214 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
4215
4216 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
4217
4218 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
4219 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
4220 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
4221 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
4222
4223 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
4224 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
4225 /etc/passwd.
4226
4227 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
4228 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
4229 /etc/passwd.
4230
4231 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
4232 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
4233 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
4234 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
4235
4236 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
4237 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
4238 be taken to be magic.
4239
4240 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
4241 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
4242 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
4243
4244 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
4245 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
4246
4247 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
4248 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
4249
4250 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
4251
4252 new key dired.el binding old key
4253 ------- ---------------- -------
4254 * c dired-change-marks c
4255 * m dired-mark m
4256 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
4257 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
4258 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
4259 * u dired-unmark u
4260 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
4261 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
4262 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
4263 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
4264 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
4265 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
4266
4267 ** Rmail changes.
4268
4269 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
4270 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
4271 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
4272 each time you run it.
4273
4274 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
4275 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
4276
4277 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
4278 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
4279 means to move in the opposite direction.
4280
4281 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
4282 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
4283
4284 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
4285 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
4286 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
4287 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
4288 for output.
4289
4290 ** Gnus changes.
4291
4292 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
4293
4294 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
4295 Gnus.
4296
4297 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
4298 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
4299
4300 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
4301 article mode line.
4302
4303 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
4304
4305 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
4306
4307 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
4308
4309 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
4310 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
4311 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
4312
4313 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
4314
4315 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
4316
4317 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
4318 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
4319
4320 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
4321 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
4322 used to pick articles.
4323
4324 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
4325 another have been added.
4326
4327 `M-x gnus-change-server'
4328
4329 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
4330 generating lines in buffers.
4331
4332 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
4333 `M-C-_'.
4334
4335 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
4336
4337 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
4338
4339 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
4340
4341 *** Scores can be decayed.
4342
4343 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
4344
4345 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
4346 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
4347
4348 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
4349 the native server.
4350
4351 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
4352
4353 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
4354 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
4355
4356 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
4357
4358 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
4359 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
4360
4361 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
4362 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
4363
4364 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
4365 a group.
4366
4367 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
4368 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
4369
4370 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
4371
4372 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
4373
4374 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
4375
4376 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
4377
4378 Use the `Y c' command.
4379
4380 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
4381
4382 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
4383
4384 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
4385
4386 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
4387 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
4388
4389 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
4390
4391 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
4392
4393 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
4394 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
4395
4396 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
4397
4398 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
4399 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
4400 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
4401 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
4402 this issue.)
4403
4404 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
4405 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
4406 particular news group. This can be done by:
4407
4408 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
4409
4410 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
4411 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
4412 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
4413 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
4414 for reading and posting).
4415
4416 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
4417 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
4418 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
4419 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
4420 there.
4421
4422 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
4423 default. Here are some of these default settings:
4424
4425 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
4426 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
4427 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
4428 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
4429 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
4430
4431 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
4432 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
4433
4434 ** CC mode changes.
4435
4436 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
4437 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
4438 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
4439 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
4440 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
4441 loaded.
4442
4443 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
4444 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
4445 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
4446 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
4447 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
4448 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
4449
4450 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
4451 of the current buffer.
4452
4453 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
4454 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
4455 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
4456
4457 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
4458 style that the Python developers like.
4459
4460 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
4461 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
4462 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
4463
4464 ** VC Changes [new]
4465
4466 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
4467 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
4468 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
4469
4470 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
4471 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
4472 developers.
4473
4474 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
4475 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
4476
4477 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
4478 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
4479 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
4480 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
4481
4482 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
4483 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
4484
4485 ** Calendar changes.
4486
4487 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
4488 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
4489 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
4490
4491 ** ps-print changes
4492
4493 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
4494
4495 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
4496
4497 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
4498 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
4499 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
4500 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
4501 It defaults to `letter'.
4502 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
4503
4504 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
4505 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
4506 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
4507
4508 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
4509 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
4510 It defaults to 1.
4511
4512 *** Horizontal layout
4513
4514 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
4515 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
4516 All are measured in points.
4517
4518 *** Vertical layout
4519
4520 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
4521 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
4522 All are measured in points.
4523
4524 *** Headers
4525
4526 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
4527 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
4528 margin above the text.
4529
4530 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
4531 framing box is printed around the header.
4532
4533 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
4534 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
4535
4536 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
4537 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
4538 `ps-header-font-size'.
4539
4540 *** Font managing
4541
4542 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
4543 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
4544 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
4545 elements to this alist.
4546
4547 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
4548 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
4549
4550 ** hideshow changes.
4551
4552 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
4553 C++, ; for lisp).
4554
4555 *** Support for java-mode added.
4556
4557 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
4558 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
4559
4560 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
4561 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
4562 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
4563
4564 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
4565 robust and a lot faster.
4566
4567 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
4568
4569 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
4570 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
4571 documentation for more details.
4572
4573 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
4574
4575 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
4576 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
4577 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
4578 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
4579 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
4580
4581 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
4582 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
4583 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
4584 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
4585
4586 ** Font Lock mode
4587
4588 *** Custom support
4589
4590 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
4591 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
4592 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
4593 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
4594 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
4595 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
4596
4597 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
4598
4599 *** Maximum decoration
4600
4601 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
4602 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
4603 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
4604 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
4605 to get the old behavior.
4606
4607 *** New support
4608
4609 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
4610
4611 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
4612 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
4613
4614 *** Configurable support
4615
4616 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
4617 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
4618 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
4619 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
4620 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
4621 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
4622 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
4623
4624 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
4625 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
4626 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
4627
4628 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
4629
4630 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
4631 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
4632 for any mode.
4633
4634 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
4635
4636 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
4637
4638 in your ~/.emacs.
4639
4640 *** New faces
4641
4642 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
4643 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
4644 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
4645 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
4646
4647 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
4648
4649 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
4650 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
4651 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
4652
4653 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
4654
4655 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
4656 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
4657 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
4658 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
4659 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
4660 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
4661 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
4662
4663 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
4664 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
4665 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
4666 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
4667 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
4668 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
4669
4670 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
4671
4672 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
4673 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
4674 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
4675 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
4676
4677 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
4678 settings.
4679
4680 ** Ada mode changes.
4681
4682 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
4683 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
4684 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
4685 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
4686 stubs.
4687
4688 *** There are two new commands:
4689 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
4690 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
4691
4692 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
4693 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
4694 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
4695
4696 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
4697 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
4698 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
4699
4700 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
4701 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
4702 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
4703 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
4704
4705 ** Scheme mode changes.
4706
4707 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
4708 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
4709 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
4710 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
4711 have any effect.
4712
4713 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
4714 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
4715 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
4716 variables as buffer-local variables.
4717
4718 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
4719 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
4720
4721 ** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
4722 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
4723 buffer in Emacs.
4724
4725 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
4726 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
4727 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
4728
4729 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
4730 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
4731 the current defun.
4732
4733 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
4734 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
4735
4736 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
4737 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
4738 necessary).
4739
4740 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
4741 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
4742 these register values no longer become completely useless.
4743 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
4744 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
4745 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
4746
4747 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
4748 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
4749 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
4750 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
4751
4752 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
4753 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
4754 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
4755 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
4756 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
4757
4758 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
4759 since it applies only to the current frame.
4760
4761 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
4762 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
4763 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
4764
4765 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
4766 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
4767 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
4768 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
4769 instead of just the file you are editing.
4770
4771 ** RefTeX mode
4772
4773 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
4774 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
4775 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
4776 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
4777 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
4778
4779 C-c ( reftex-label
4780 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
4781 knows which kind of label is needed.
4782
4783 C-c ) reftex-reference
4784 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
4785 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
4786
4787 C-c [ reftex-citation
4788 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
4789 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
4790
4791 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
4792 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
4793
4794 C-c = reftex-toc
4795 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
4796 can quickly jump to every section.
4797
4798 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
4799 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
4800 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
4801 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
4802 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
4803
4804 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4805
4806 *** Info documentation is now available.
4807
4808 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
4809 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
4810
4811 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
4812 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
4813
4814 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
4815 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
4816
4817 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
4818 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
4819 appropriate functions.
4820
4821 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
4822 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
4823
4824 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
4825 been cleaned.
4826
4827 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
4828 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
4829
4830 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
4831 shall be delimited.
4832
4833 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
4834 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
4835 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
4836
4837 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
4838 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
4839 prefixed with `ALT'.
4840
4841 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
4842 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
4843 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
4844 documentation).
4845
4846 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
4847 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
4848 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
4849
4850 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
4851 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
4852
4853 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
4854 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
4855 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
4856
4857 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
4858
4859 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
4860
4861 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
4862 from alien sources.
4863
4864 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
4865 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
4866 crossref entries.
4867
4868 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
4869 region.
4870
4871 *** Added support for imenu.
4872
4873 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
4874 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
4875 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
4876 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
4877
4878 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
4879 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
4880
4881 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
4882
4883 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
4884 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
4885 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
4886 as an argument.
4887
4888 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
4889 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
4890
4891 ** browse-url changes
4892
4893 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
4894 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
4895 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
4896 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
4897 customization variables.
4898
4899 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
4900
4901 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
4902 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
4903 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
4904
4905 ** Changes in Ediff
4906
4907 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
4908 pops up the Info file for this command.
4909
4910 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
4911 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
4912 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
4913 directories).
4914
4915 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
4916 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
4917 files in the same directory.
4918
4919 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
4920 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
4921 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
4922
4923 ** Changes in Viper
4924
4925 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
4926 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
4927 instead of vip-.
4928 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
4929 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
4930 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
4931 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
4932 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
4933 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
4934 color when Viper is in insert state.
4935 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
4936 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
4937 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
4938
4939 ** Etags changes.
4940
4941 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
4942 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
4943 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
4944 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
4945 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
4946
4947 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
4948
4949 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
4950 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
4951
4952 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
4953 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
4954 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
4955
4956 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
4957 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
4958 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
4959 methods and protocols.
4960
4961 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
4962 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
4963 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
4964 paragraph name.
4965
4966 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
4967 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
4968 at least M times and as many as N times.
4969
4970 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
4971 in files has changed slightly.
4972
4973 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
4974 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
4975 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
4976 with old time-stamp-format values.
4977
4978 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
4979 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
4980 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
4981 reasons.
4982
4983 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
4984 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
4985 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
4986 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
4987 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
4988 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
4989
4990 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
4991 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
4992 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
4993
4994 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
4995 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
4996 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
4997 recommended now will continue to work then.
4998
4999 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
5000 details.
5001
5002 ** There are some additional major modes:
5003
5004 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
5005 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
5006 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
5007
5008 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
5009 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
5010 into Emacs.
5011
5012 ** New Lisp packages include:
5013
5014 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
5015
5016 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
5017 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
5018
5019 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
5020
5021 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
5022 in shell buffers.
5023
5024 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
5025 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
5026 and `elint-defun'.
5027
5028 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
5029 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
5030 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
5031 strings or comments.
5032
5033 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
5034 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
5035 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
5036 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
5037 at these points.
5038
5039 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
5040 can visit them by short forms of their names.
5041
5042 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
5043 Emacs Lisp function at point.
5044
5045 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
5046
5047 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
5048 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
5049
5050 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
5051
5052 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
5053
5054 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
5055
5056 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
5057 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
5058
5059 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
5060 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
5061 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
5062 original place after inserting the copy.
5063
5064 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
5065 on the buffer.
5066
5067 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
5068 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
5069 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
5070
5071 Enable mouse-drag with:
5072 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
5073 -or-
5074 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
5075
5076 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
5077 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
5078
5079 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
5080 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
5081
5082 *** ogonek
5083
5084 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
5085 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
5086 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
5087 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
5088 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
5089 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
5090 instance) and vice versa.
5091
5092 To use this package load it using
5093 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
5094 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
5095 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
5096 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
5097 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
5098 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
5099
5100 *** Interface to ph.
5101
5102 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
5103
5104 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
5105 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
5106 these servers.
5107
5108 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
5109
5110 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
5111 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
5112 while the real cursor does not move.
5113
5114 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
5115 for visiting your favorite web sites.
5116
5117 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
5118 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
5119
5120 ** movemail change
5121
5122 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
5123 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
5124 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
5125 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
5126
5127 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
5128
5129 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
5130
5131 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
5132
5133 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
5134 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
5135 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
5136 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
5137 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
5138
5139 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
5140 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
5141 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
5142 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
5143 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
5144 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
5145
5146 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
5147
5148 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
5149 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
5150 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
5151 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
5152
5153 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
5154 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
5155
5156 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
5157 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
5158 "win".
5159
5160 ** Basic Lisp changes
5161
5162 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
5163 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
5164
5165 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
5166 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
5167 or by the user.
5168
5169 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
5170
5171 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
5172
5173 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
5174 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
5175
5176 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
5177 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
5178 its argument.
5179
5180 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
5181
5182 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
5183
5184 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
5185
5186 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
5187 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
5188 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
5189 `format' function.
5190
5191 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
5192 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
5193 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
5194
5195 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
5196 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
5197 adding one of these suffixes.
5198
5199 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
5200 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
5201 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
5202
5203 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
5204 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
5205
5206 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
5207
5208 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
5209 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
5210
5211 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
5212 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
5213
5214 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
5215
5216 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
5217 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
5218
5219 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
5220 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
5221 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
5222 works using `save-current-buffer'.
5223
5224 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
5225 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
5226 of the last form.
5227
5228 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
5229 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
5230 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
5231 as the last form.
5232
5233 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
5234 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
5235 matches.
5236
5237 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
5238
5239 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
5240 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
5241 Then it returns that string.
5242
5243 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
5244
5245 (with-output-to-string
5246 (princ "The buffer is ")
5247 (princ (buffer-name)))
5248
5249 returns "The buffer is foo".
5250
5251 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
5252 is non-nil.
5253
5254 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
5255 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
5256 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
5257
5258 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
5259 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
5260
5261 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
5262 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
5263 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
5264 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
5265 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
5266 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
5267
5268 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
5269 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
5270 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
5271 characters".
5272
5273 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
5274 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
5275 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
5276 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
5277 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
5278
5279 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
5280 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
5281 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
5282 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
5283
5284 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
5285 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
5286
5287 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
5288
5289 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
5290 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
5291 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
5292 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
5293 guaranteed.
5294
5295 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
5296 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
5297 character).
5298
5299 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
5300
5301 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
5302 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
5303 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
5304 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
5305 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
5306
5307 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
5308
5309 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
5310 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
5311 more than the number of characters.
5312
5313 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
5314 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
5315 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
5316 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
5317 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
5318 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
5319
5320 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
5321 and returns a string containing those characters.
5322
5323 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
5324 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
5325 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
5326 character, sref signals an error.
5327
5328 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
5329 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
5330 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5331
5332 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
5333 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
5334 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5335
5336 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
5337 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
5338 to a vector of the characters in it.
5339
5340 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
5341 of a string. You call it as follows:
5342
5343 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
5344
5345 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
5346 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
5347 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
5348 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
5349 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
5350
5351 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
5352 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5353
5354 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
5355 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5356
5357 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
5358 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
5359 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
5360 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
5361
5362 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
5363
5364 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
5365
5366 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
5367 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
5368 are not included in the resulting value.
5369
5370 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
5371 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
5372 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
5373 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
5374
5375 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
5376 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
5377 character extends across that column), then the padding character
5378 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
5379 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
5380 column START-COLUMN.
5381
5382 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
5383 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
5384 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
5385 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
5386 changed text, before the change.
5387
5388 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
5389 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
5390 one character set for each script, not for each language.
5391
5392 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
5393
5394 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
5395
5396 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
5397 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
5398
5399 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
5400 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
5401 which identify the character within that character set.
5402
5403 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
5404 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
5405 opposite of split-char.
5406
5407 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
5408 of all the characters between BEG and END.
5409
5410 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
5411 of all the characters in a string.
5412
5413 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
5414 and specifying coding systems.
5415
5416 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
5417 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
5418 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
5419 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
5420 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
5421 as what to do about code conversion.)
5422
5423 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
5424 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
5425
5426 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5427 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5428 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
5429
5430 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5431 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
5432 to match against a file name.
5433
5434 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5435 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5436 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5437 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5438 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5439 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5440
5441 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5442 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5443
5444 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
5445 the coding system to use for network sockets.
5446
5447 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5448 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
5449 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
5450 service names.
5451
5452 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5453 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5454 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5455 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5456 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5457 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5458
5459 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5460 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5461
5462 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5463 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5464 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
5465 start the subprocess.
5466
5467 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
5468 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
5469 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
5470 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
5471 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
5472
5473 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
5474 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
5475 subprocess.
5476
5477 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
5478 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
5479 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
5480 connection permanently or until overridden.
5481
5482 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
5483 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
5484 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
5485 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
5486 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
5487 system for one operation at a time.
5488
5489 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
5490 files, subprocesses or network connections.
5491
5492 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
5493 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
5494 The value is a cons cell,
5495 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
5496 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
5497 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
5498 input to the subprocess.
5499
5500 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
5501 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
5502
5503 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
5504 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
5505 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
5506
5507 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
5508 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
5509 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
5510 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
5511 customization.
5512
5513 Thus, instead of writing
5514
5515 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
5516 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
5517
5518 you would now write this:
5519
5520 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
5521 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
5522 :type 'boolean
5523 :group foo)
5524
5525 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
5526 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
5527 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
5528 for a description of them.
5529
5530 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
5531 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
5532
5533 (defgroup ispell nil
5534 "Spell checking using Ispell."
5535 :group 'processes)
5536
5537 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
5538 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
5539 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
5540 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
5541 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
5542
5543 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
5544 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
5545 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
5546 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
5547 first-level subgroups.
5548
5549 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
5550
5551 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
5552 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
5553
5554 ** easy-mmode
5555
5556 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
5557 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
5558 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
5559 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
5560 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
5561 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
5562
5563 ** Text property changes
5564
5565 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
5566 text property.
5567
5568 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
5569 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
5570 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
5571 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
5572 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
5573
5574 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
5575 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
5576 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
5577 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
5578
5579 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
5580 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
5581 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
5582
5583 ** Changes in invisibility features
5584
5585 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
5586 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
5587 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
5588 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
5589 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
5590 make the overlay visible.
5591
5592 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
5593 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
5594 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
5595 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
5596 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
5597 t when it should hide it.
5598
5599 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
5600
5601 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
5602 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
5603 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
5604 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
5605 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
5606 Here is an example of how to do this:
5607
5608 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
5609 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5610 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
5611 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5612
5613 ...
5614 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
5615
5616 ...
5617 ;; When done with the overlays:
5618 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5619 ;; Or respectively:
5620 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5621
5622 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
5623
5624 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
5625 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
5626 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
5627 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
5628
5629 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
5630 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
5631 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
5632
5633 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
5634 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
5635
5636 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
5637 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
5638
5639 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
5640 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
5641 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
5642
5643 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
5644 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
5645 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
5646 determine the syntax type of the character.
5647
5648 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
5649 of the current buffer.
5650
5651 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
5652 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
5653 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
5654
5655 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
5656 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
5657 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
5658 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
5659 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
5660
5661 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
5662 text property.
5663
5664 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
5665 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
5666 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
5667
5668 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
5669 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
5670 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
5671 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
5672 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
5673
5674 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
5675 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
5676 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
5677
5678 ** Changes in face features
5679
5680 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
5681 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
5682
5683 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
5684 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
5685
5686 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
5687 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
5688
5689 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
5690 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
5691
5692 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
5693 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
5694 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
5695 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
5696 overlay property).
5697
5698 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
5699 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
5700
5701 ** Changes in file-handling functions
5702
5703 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
5704 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
5705 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
5706 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
5707
5708 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
5709 begins with ~.
5710
5711 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
5712 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
5713
5714 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
5715 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
5716
5717 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
5718 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
5719
5720 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
5721 character code conversion as well as other things.
5722
5723 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
5724 (formerly it did not).
5725
5726 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
5727 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
5728
5729 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
5730 instead of constant strings.
5731
5732 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
5733 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
5734 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
5735
5736 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
5737 in the same way as before.
5738
5739 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
5740 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
5741 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
5742
5743 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
5744 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
5745 else, and returns nil.
5746
5747 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
5748 directory cannot be listed.
5749
5750 ** Changes in minibuffer input
5751
5752 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
5753 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
5754 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
5755 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
5756 ways:
5757
5758 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
5759 It is available through the history command M-n.
5760
5761 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
5762 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
5763 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
5764 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
5765 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
5766
5767 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
5768 argument in this way.
5769
5770 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
5771 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
5772 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
5773
5774 ** Echo area features
5775
5776 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
5777 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
5778 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
5779 after the echo area is cleared.
5780
5781 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
5782 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
5783
5784 ** Keyboard input features
5785
5786 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
5787 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
5788
5789 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
5790 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
5791 by keyboard macros.
5792
5793 ** Frame-related changes
5794
5795 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
5796 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
5797 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
5798
5799 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
5800 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
5801 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
5802
5803 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5804 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
5805 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
5806 in the selected frame.
5807
5808 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
5809 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
5810 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
5811
5812 ** X Windows features
5813
5814 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
5815 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
5816 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
5817
5818 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
5819 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
5820
5821 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
5822 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
5823 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
5824
5825 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
5826 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
5827
5828 ** Subprocess features
5829
5830 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
5831 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
5832 automatically.
5833
5834 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
5835 and returns the output from the command as a string.
5836
5837 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
5838 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
5839
5840 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
5841 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
5842
5843 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
5844 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
5845 goes after the other menu items.
5846
5847 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
5848 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
5849 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
5850 are in use.
5851
5852 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
5853 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
5854
5855 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
5856 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
5857 form.
5858
5859 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
5860 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
5861 but its hook is still run.
5862
5863 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
5864 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
5865
5866 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
5867 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
5868 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
5869
5870 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
5871 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
5872 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
5873 warned.
5874
5875 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
5876 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
5877
5878 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
5879 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
5880 functions like display-time.
5881
5882 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
5883 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
5884
5885 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
5886 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
5887 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
5888
5889 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
5890 if there is an error in compilation.
5891
5892 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
5893 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
5894 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
5895 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
5896
5897 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
5898 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
5899 the *scratch* buffer.
5900
5901 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
5902 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
5903 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
5904 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
5905
5906 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
5907 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
5908 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
5909
5910 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
5911 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
5912 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
5913 and compose-mail-other-frame.
5914
5915 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
5916 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
5917 full name of the specified user will be returned.
5918
5919 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
5920 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
5921 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
5922 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
5923 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
5924 files at all.
5925
5926 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
5927 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
5928 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
5929 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
5930
5931 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
5932 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
5933 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
5934 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
5935
5936 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
5937
5938 ** imenu.el changes.
5939
5940 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
5941 item from menu created by imenu.
5942
5943 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
5944 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
5945 select one of those items.
5946
5947 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
5948
5949 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
5950
5951 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
5952 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
5953
5954 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
5955 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
5956 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
5957
5958 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
5959
5960 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
5961 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
5962
5963 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5964 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
5965 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
5966 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
5967 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
5968 all caps.
5969
5970 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
5971 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
5972
5973 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
5974 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
5975 as in previous Emacs versions.
5976
5977 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
5978 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
5979 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
5980 frames.
5981
5982 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
5983 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
5984 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
5985 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
5986 accident.
5987
5988 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
5989 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
5990 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
5991 line and then executing the macro.
5992
5993 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
5994
5995 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
5996 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
5997 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
5998 characters.
5999
6000 ** Font Lock mode
6001
6002 *** Font Lock support modes
6003
6004 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
6005 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
6006 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
6007 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
6008 Font Lock mode is enabled.
6009
6010 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
6011
6012 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
6013
6014 in your ~/.emacs.
6015
6016 *** lazy-lock
6017
6018 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
6019 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
6020 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
6021 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
6022 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
6023 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
6024 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
6025
6026 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
6027
6028 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
6029
6030 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
6031
6032 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6033
6034 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
6035 paren and key.
6036
6037 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
6038 supported.
6039
6040 ** Gnus changes.
6041
6042 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
6043 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
6044 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
6045 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
6046
6047 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
6048 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
6049
6050 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
6051 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
6052 obsolete.
6053
6054 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
6055 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
6056
6057 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
6058
6059 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
6060
6061 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
6062
6063 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
6064 referred.
6065
6066 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
6067
6068 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
6069
6070 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
6071
6072 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
6073
6074 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
6075 buffers.
6076
6077 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
6078
6079 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
6080
6081 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
6082
6083 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
6084
6085 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
6086
6087 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
6088
6089 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
6090
6091 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
6092 is possible.
6093
6094 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
6095
6096 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
6097 groups of groups.
6098
6099 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
6100
6101 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
6102 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
6103
6104 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
6105
6106 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
6107
6108 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
6109
6110 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
6111
6112 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
6113 expiration times.
6114
6115 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
6116
6117 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
6118 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
6119
6120 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
6121 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
6122 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
6123
6124 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
6125 articles with the `*' command.
6126
6127 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
6128
6129 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
6130
6131 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
6132
6133 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
6134
6135 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
6136 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
6137
6138 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
6139 buffer.
6140
6141 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
6142
6143 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
6144
6145 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
6146
6147 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
6148
6149 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
6150
6151 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
6152
6153 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
6154
6155 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
6156
6157 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
6158
6159 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
6160 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
6161
6162 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
6163 refetching.
6164
6165 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
6166
6167 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
6168 buffer to allow easier treatment.
6169
6170 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
6171
6172 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
6173
6174 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
6175
6176 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
6177 articles.
6178
6179 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
6180
6181 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
6182
6183 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
6184 cited text to hide is now customizable.
6185
6186 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
6187
6188 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
6189
6190 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
6191
6192 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
6193
6194 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
6195
6196 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
6197 in greater detail.
6198
6199 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
6200
6201 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
6202 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
6203 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
6204 exists.
6205
6206 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
6207 as well as lists.
6208
6209 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
6210 of a given keymap.
6211
6212 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
6213 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
6214 keymap or nil.
6215
6216 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
6217 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
6218 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
6219 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
6220 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
6221 alias.
6222
6223 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
6224
6225 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
6226
6227 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
6228 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
6229 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
6230 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
6231 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
6232
6233 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
6234 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
6235 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
6236
6237 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
6238
6239 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
6240 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
6241 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
6242 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
6243 chapter of the manual for details.
6244
6245 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
6246 customization variables take effect.
6247
6248 ** Marking with the mouse.
6249
6250 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
6251 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
6252 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
6253
6254 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
6255
6256 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
6257
6258 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
6259 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
6260
6261 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
6262 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
6263 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
6264 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
6265 applications, these problems are significant.
6266
6267 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
6268 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
6269 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
6270 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
6271 other DOS application as a subprocess.
6272
6273 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
6274 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
6275
6276 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
6277 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
6278 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
6279 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
6280 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
6281 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
6282
6283 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
6284
6285 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
6286 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
6287 minibuffer contains.
6288
6289 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
6290
6291 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
6292 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
6293 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
6294 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
6295
6296 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
6297 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
6298 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
6299 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
6300
6301 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
6302 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
6303
6304 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
6305 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
6306 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
6307
6308 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
6309 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
6310 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
6311 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
6312
6313 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
6314
6315 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
6316 to replace the characters it "deletes".
6317
6318 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
6319
6320 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
6321 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
6322 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
6323 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
6324 immediately after the selected one.
6325
6326 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
6327 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
6328
6329 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
6330
6331 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
6332 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
6333 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
6334 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
6335 recover-session.
6336
6337 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
6338 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
6339 will not work.
6340
6341 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
6342 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
6343 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
6344 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
6345 now that the bug is fixed.
6346
6347 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
6348
6349 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
6350 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
6351 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
6352 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
6353
6354 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
6355 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
6356 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
6357 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
6358
6359 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
6360 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
6361 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
6362
6363 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
6364 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
6365 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
6366 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
6367 remain normal.
6368
6369 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
6370 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
6371
6372 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
6373 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
6374 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
6375 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
6376
6377 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
6378 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
6379 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
6380 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
6381 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
6382 `mail-directory-stream'.)
6383
6384 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
6385 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
6386 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
6387 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
6388
6389 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
6390 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
6391 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
6392
6393 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
6394 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
6395 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
6396 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
6397 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
6398 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
6399 to a limitation in font-lock).
6400
6401 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
6402
6403 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
6404 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
6405 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
6406 this example:
6407
6408 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
6409 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
6410
6411 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6412
6413 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
6414
6415 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
6416
6417 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
6418
6419 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
6420 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
6421 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
6422 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
6423 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
6424 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
6425
6426 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
6427 does the same job.
6428
6429 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
6430 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
6431
6432 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
6433 text.
6434
6435 ** Font Lock mode
6436
6437 *** Global Font Lock mode
6438
6439 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
6440 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
6441 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
6442 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
6443 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
6444
6445 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
6446
6447 (global-font-lock-mode t)
6448
6449 in your ~/.emacs.
6450
6451 *** Local Refontification
6452
6453 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
6454 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
6455 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
6456 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
6457
6458 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
6459 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
6460 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
6461 above and below point.
6462
6463 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
6464
6465 ** Follow mode
6466
6467 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
6468 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
6469 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
6470 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
6471 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
6472 follow-mode.
6473
6474 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
6475
6476 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
6477 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
6478
6479 ** hide-show changes.
6480
6481 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
6482 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
6483 normal hooks.
6484
6485 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
6486 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
6487
6488 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
6489 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
6490 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
6491
6492 ** MSDOS Changes
6493
6494 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
6495 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
6496
6497 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
6498 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
6499
6500 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
6501
6502 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
6503 pressing both mouse buttons.
6504
6505 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
6506 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
6507 are:
6508
6509 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
6510 now works.
6511
6512 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
6513
6514 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
6515 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
6516
6517 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
6518
6519 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
6520
6521 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
6522
6523 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
6524
6525 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
6526
6527 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
6528
6529 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
6530 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
6531 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
6532 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
6533 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
6534
6535 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
6536
6537 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
6538 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
6539 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
6540 be different.
6541
6542 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
6543 than `system-type'.
6544
6545 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
6546
6547 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
6548 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
6549
6550 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
6551 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
6552
6553 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
6554 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
6555 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
6556
6557 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
6558 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
6559 like this:
6560
6561 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6562
6563 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
6564 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
6565 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
6566
6567 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
6568 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
6569 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
6570
6571 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
6572 up if too much time passes.
6573
6574 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
6575
6576 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
6577 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
6578 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
6579 form in BODY.
6580
6581 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
6582 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
6583 call looks like this:
6584
6585 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6586
6587 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
6588 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
6589 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
6590 ARGS.
6591
6592 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
6593 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
6594 command.
6595
6596 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
6597 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
6598 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
6599 each time Emacs becomes idle.
6600
6601 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
6602 idle for SECS seconds.
6603
6604 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
6605 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
6606 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
6607 instead.
6608
6609 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
6610 there is no answer within a certain time.
6611
6612 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
6613
6614 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
6615 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
6616 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
6617
6618 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
6619 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
6620 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
6621 arguments in between are ignored.
6622
6623 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
6624 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
6625
6626 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
6627 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
6628 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
6629 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
6630 version.
6631
6632 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
6633 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
6634 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
6635 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
6636 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
6637 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
6638
6639 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
6640 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
6641 systems with limited file name syntax.
6642
6643 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
6644 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
6645 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
6646 completions.el:
6647
6648 (defvar save-completions-file-name
6649 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
6650 "*The filename to save completions to.")
6651
6652 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
6653 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
6654 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
6655 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
6656 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
6657
6658 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
6659 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
6660 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
6661
6662 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
6663 marker from its buffer position.
6664
6665 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
6666 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
6667 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
6668
6669 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
6670 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
6671 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
6672 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
6673 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
6674 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
6675
6676 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
6677 errors that happen often during editing.
6678
6679 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
6680 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
6681 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
6682
6683 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
6684 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
6685
6686 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
6687 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
6688 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
6689 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
6690 and not get-buffer-window.
6691
6692 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
6693 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
6694 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
6695
6696 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
6697 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
6698 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
6699 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
6700 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
6701 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
6702 over and over for the same text.
6703
6704 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
6705
6706 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
6707 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
6708
6709 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
6710 ;; $HEADER: text $
6711
6712 in addition to the normal
6713
6714 ;; HEADER: text
6715
6716 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
6717 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
6718 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
6719
6720 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
6721
6722 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
6723 Copyright information:
6724
6725 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6726
6727 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6728 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6729 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6730 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6731
6732 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6733 of this document, or of portions of it,
6734 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6735 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6736
6737 Local variables:
6738 mode: outline
6739 paragraph-separate: "[ ]*$"
6740 end: