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1 -*- mode:outline -*-
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2
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3 * Introduction
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4 ==============
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5
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6 This file presents the changes in recent XEmacs versions. It
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7 primarily documents user-visible (interface) changes, but also
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8 includes internal changes of possible interest to the users. When
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9 describing new features, we try to also document ways of reverting to
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10 the old behavior, where applicable. If you dislike a recent change in
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11 how XEmacs behaves, this file might contain a remedy.
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12
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13 Use `C-c C-f' to move to the next equal level of outline, and
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14 `C-c C-b' to move to previous equal level. `C-h m' will give more
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15 info about the Outline mode. Many commands are also available through
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16 the menubar.
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17
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18 Users who would like to know which capabilities have been introduced
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19 in each release should look at the appropriate section of this file.
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20 Starting with version 20.0, XEmacs includes ChangeLogs, which can be
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21 consulted for a more detailed list of changes.
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22
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23 N.B. The term "GNU Emacs" refers to any release of Emacs Version
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24 19 from the Free Software Foundation's GNU Project. (We do not
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25 say just "Emacs" as Richard M. Stallman ["RMS"] prefers, because
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26 it is clearly a more generic term.) The term "XEmacs" refers to
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27 this program or sometimes to its predecessors "Era" and "Lucid
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28 Emacs". The predecessor of all these program is called "Emacs
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29 18". When no particular version is implied, "Emacs" will be used.
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30
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31
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32 * Changes in XEmacs 21.4
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33 ========================
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34
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440
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35 ** The delete key now deletes forward by default.
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36
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37 This is regulated by the variable `delete-key-deletes-forward', which
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38 now defaults to t. `delete-key-deletes-forward' takes effect only on
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39 the systems that offer both a backspace and a delete key. If set to
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40 nil, the key labeled "Delete" will always delete backward. If set to
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41 non-nil, the "Delete" key will delete forward, except on keyboards
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42 where a "Backspace" key is not provided (e.g. old DEC keyboards.)
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43
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44 Unless our implementation has bugs, the only reason why you would want
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45 to set `delete-key-deletes-forward' to nil is if you want to use the
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46 Delete key to delete backwards, despite the presence (according to
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47 Xlib) of a BackSpace key on the keyboard.
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48
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464
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49 ** You can now build XEmacs with support for GTK+ widget set.
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50
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51 XEmacs built that way uses GTK+ to draw menubars, scrollbars, and
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52 other GUI components, as well GDK for drawing text, choosing fonts,
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53 allocating colors, etc. Additionally, GTK-XEmacs supports Lisp
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54 functions for writing your own GTK programs in Emacs Lisp!
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55
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56 To use this, build XEmacs with the `--with-gtk' configure flag. (Of
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57 course, you'll need to have the GTK+ libraries and header files on the
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58 system.) Gnome widgets and functionality are supported where
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59 available, and can be turned off.
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60
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442
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61 ** Shifted motion keys now select text by default. You can turn this
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62 off by setting `shifted-motion-keys-select-region' to nil.
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63
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464
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64 ** There is a new command `kill-entire-line' that always kills the
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65 entire line at point, regardless of whether the point is at the
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66 beginning of line, and regardless of the setting of `kill-whole-line'.
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67
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68 ** The variable `kill-whole-line' now only takes effect when kill-line
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69 is called interactively. Although this is a departure from a previous
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70 behavior in the case of setting this variable kill-whole-line to t,
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71 it is almost certainly what has always been intended, and most likely
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72 the old way of doing things introduced bugs.
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73
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74 ** The help buffers created by the plethora of C-h commands now
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75 contain hyperlinks.
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76
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77 ** The modeline's text is now scrollable. This is controlled by the
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78 variable `modeline-scrolling-method', which you need to set to a
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79 non-nil value. You can also choose scrolling types; see the docstring
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80 of `modeline-scrolling-method' for more information.
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81
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82 ** XEmacs menus now have accelerators by default. If a menu item does
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83 not have an accelerator specified, one is created dynamically, using
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84 numbers 1-9 and letters.
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85
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86 ** Interactive searching and matching case improvements.
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87
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88 Case sensitiveness in searching operations is normally controlled by
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89 the variable `case-fold-search' (if non-nil, case is ignored while
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90 searching). This mechanism has now been slightly improved for
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91 interactive searches: if the search string (or regexp) contains
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92 uppercase characters, the searching is forced to be case-sensitive,
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93 `case-fold-search'.
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94
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95 The new behavior affects all functions performing interactive
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96 searches, like `zap-to-char', `list-matching-lines', `tags-search'
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97 etc. The incremental search facility has always behaved that way.
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98
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99 ** Incremental search will now highlight all visible matches, making
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100 it easier to anticipate where consecutive C-s or C-r will place the
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101 point. If you want to disable the feature, set
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102 `isearch-highlight-all-matches' to nil.
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103
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104 ** The "coding systems" feature now works even in an XEmacs compiled
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105 without international (Mule) support. This means that for example
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106 XEmacs can recognize newline convention used by the file you are
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107 editing.
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108
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109 ** You can now use the buffer tabs to switch between buffers. The
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110 tabs are located between the toolbar and the uppermost window, in a
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111 location called "gutter". If you dislike the buffer tabs, you can
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112 disable them by customizing `gutter-buffers-tab-visible-p', or by
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113 placing this in your .emacs:
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114
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115 (set-gutter-element-visible-p default-gutter-visible-p 'buffers-tab nil)
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116
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117 You can change the location of the gutter with
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118 `set-default-gutter-position', however currently only MS-Windows
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119 supports tab widgets with orientations other than vertical.
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120
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121 ** Kill and yank now interact with the clipboard by default under
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122 Windows. This was done by changing the default value of
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123 `interprogram-cut-function' and `interprogram-paste-function'. You
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124 can get the old behavior by setting these to nil, and there is an
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125 option on the options menu to do this.
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126
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127 ** When you press RET at a minibuffer prompt that provides a default
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128 value, the value is stored in history instead of an empty line. Also,
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129 you can now edit the default value by pressing the down arrow,
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130 accessing the logical "future" value. Not all minibuffer prompts have
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131 yet been converted to support this feature.
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132
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133 ** International keysyms are now supported under X. This means that
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134 XEmacs running under Mule will automatically recognize the keysym
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135 `scaron' to be the lower-case `s' with caron in the Latin 2 character
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136 set. (Specifically, it will bind the keysym to `self-insert' and
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137 augment its `ascii-character' property.) This is very useful with
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138 XFree under European locales as shipped by recent Linux distributions.
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139 If XEmacs is compiled without Mule support, the feature still works,
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140 but it is unaware of different character sets -- it unconditionally
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141 sets the `ascii-character' property to values in the [160, 256) range.
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142
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143 ** The rectangle functions have been almost completely rewritten in
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144 order to avoid inserting undesirable spaces, notably at the end of
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145 lines. Two typical examples of the old behavior were
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146 `string-rectangle', which filled all lines up to the right side of the
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147 rectangle, and `clear-rectangle', which filled even empty lines up to
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148 the left side. All functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting
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149 unwanted spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the
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150 old way.
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151
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152 Also, the behavior of `string-rectangle' is now compliant with
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153 `pending-delete-mode': if this mode is active, then the string
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154 replaces the region rectangle. Otherwise, the command does not delete
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155 or overwrite any existing text. For those who want that feature but do
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156 not use pending-delete-mode, a new function, `replace-rectangle', is
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157 available.
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158
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159 As a side effect, the FORCE argument to `move-to-column' now
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160 understands the special value `coerce', which means that the line
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161 should not be filled if it is too short to reach the desired column.
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162
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163 ** Customize now supports adding comments about your face and variable
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164 settings using a new menu entry. Comments for variables can also be
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165 assigned by calling `customize-set-(value|variable)' with a prefix
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166 argument.
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167
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168 ** XEmacs now locates the early package hierarchies at
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169 ~/.xemacs/mule-packages/ and ~/.xemacs/xemacs-packages/. Previously,
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170 the early packages were located in ~/.xemacs/.
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171
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172 ** You can now create "indirect buffers", like in GNU Emacs. An
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173 indirect buffer shares its text with another buffer ("base buffer"),
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174 but has its own major mode, local variables, extents, and narrowing.
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175 An indirect buffer has a name of its own, distinct from those of the
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176 base buffer and all other buffers. An indirect buffer cannot itself
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177 be visiting a file (though its base buffer can be). The base buffer
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178 cannot itself be indirect.
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179
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180 Use (make-indirect-buffer BASE-BUFFER NAME) to make an indirect buffer
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181 named NAME whose base is BASE-BUFFER. If BASE-BUFFER is itself an
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182 indirect buffer, its base buffer is used as the base for the new
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183 buffer.
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184
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185 You can make an indirect buffer current, or switch to it in a window,
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186 just as you would a non-indirect buffer.
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187
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188 The function `buffer-base-buffer' returns a buffer's base buffer or
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189 nil, if given an ordinary (non-indirect) buffer. The function
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190 `buffer-indirect-children' returns a list of the indirect children of
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191 a base buffer.
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192
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193 ** User names following the tilde character can now be completed at
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194 file name prompts; e.g. `C-x C-f ~hni<TAB>' will complete to
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195 `~hniksic/'. To make this operation faster, a cache of user names is
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196 maintained internally.
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197
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198 The new primitives available for this purpose are functions named
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199 `user-name-completion' and `user-name-all-completions'.
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200
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201 ** XEmacs can now play sound using Enlightenment Sound Daemon (ESD).
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202 It will try NAS first, then ESD, then playing native sound directly.
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203
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204 ** X-Face support is now available under MS-Windows.
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205 If an X-Face library built under MS-Windows is available then XEmacs
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206 will use this at build time.
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207
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208 ** The font-menu is now available under MS-Windows.
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209
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210 ** MS-Windows support for selection is now much more robust.
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211
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212 Generally selection should now do what you would expect under
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213 MS-Windows: the middle mouse button will paste your current selection
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214 or the clipboard; conversions from different types of selection to the
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215 clipboard can be made; the kill-ring and friends will be updated as
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216 per X.
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217
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218 The only thing selection doesn't do is set the clipboard automatically
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219 as this would break the MS-Windows model. If you want this behavior
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220 then set `selection-sets-clipboard' to t.
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221
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222 ** Motif selection support is now more correct (but slower) in its behaviour.
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223
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224 Changes have been made to allow correct operation of cut/copy/paste
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225 operations between native widgets and XEmacs buffers. However, this
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226 can lead to a lot of X traffic which slows down the performance of
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227 `C-k'. If you want the old behaviour then set
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228 `x-selection-strict-motif-ownership' to nil.
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229
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230 ** Mail spool locking now works correctly.
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231 XEmacs has always come with a little auxiliary program, movemail,
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232 which moves mail out of the system's spool area into user storage. To
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233 coordinate between XEmacs, the mail delivery agent, and other mail
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234 user agents, movemail needs to properly lock the spool file before
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235 moving it. Movemail now correctly respects the --mail-locking option
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236 to configure. Moreover, movemail's locking behavior can be specified
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237 at run-time, via a new command-line option -m to movemail, or through
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238 the environment variable EMACSLOCKMETHOD.
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239
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240 When installing XEmacs, make sure you configure it according to your
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241 environment's mail spool locking conventions. When you're using a
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242 binary kit, set the `mail-lock-method' variable at startup, or the
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243 EMACSLOCKMETHOD environment variable.
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244
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245 ** Indentation no longer indents comments that begin at column zero.
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246 This makes it easy to deal with commented out regions of code.
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247
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248 ** Init file changes.
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249
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250 *** XEmacs now supports a `~/.xemacs/init.el' startup file. If
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251 it exists, XEmacs will prefer it over `.emacs' and `.emacs.el'. The
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252 file may be byte-compiled as `~/.xemacs/init.elc'.
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253
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254 If present, the `~/.xemacs/' directory may contain startup files for
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255 XEmacs packages that support it.
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256
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257 *** Init file in your home directory may be called `.emacs.el'.
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258
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259 Like in GNU Emacs 20.4 and on, you can now name the XEmacs init file
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260 located in your home directory `.emacs.el'. Formerly the name had to
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261 be `.emacs'. If you use the name `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile
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262 the file in the usual way.
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263
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264 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file is the one
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265 that is used.
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266
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464
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267 *** New command-line switches -user-init-file and -user-init-directory.
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268 These can be used to specify alternate locations for what is normally
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269 ~/.emacs and ~/.xemacs.
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270
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271 Moreover, the `-user <user>' command-line option (which used to only
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272 work in unpredictable ways) is now equivalent to `-user-init-file
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273 ~<user>/.xemacs/init.el -user-init-directory ~<user>/.xemacs', or
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274 `-user-init-file ~<user>/.emacs -user-init-directory ~<user>/.xemacs',
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275 whichever init file comes first.
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276
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277 *** Custom file will move to ~/.xemacs/custom.el.
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278
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279 Whereas customize settings were formerly stored in the regular init
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280 file, XEmacs now prefers them to be in a separate file
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281 `~/.xemacs/custom.el', completely under automatic control. This
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282 change goes with the migration of the init file, and XEmacs offers
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283 automatic migration upon startup.
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284
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285 ** New variable `mswindows-alt-by-itself-activates-menu'.
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286 If you set this variable to nil then pressing and releasing the Alt
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287 key under MS-Windows will no longer activate the menubar. The default
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288 is t. This is not to be confused with `menu-accelerator-enabled',
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289 which enables the use of Alt+<Letter> accelerators to invoke the
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290 menus.
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291
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292 ** Pixel-based scrolling has been implemented.
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293 By default this will attempt to scroll in increments equal to the
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294 height of the default face. Set `window-pixel-scroll-increment' to
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295 modify this behavior.
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296
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297 ** Operation progress can be displayed using graphical widgets.
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298 See `progress-feedback' for details. This support has been switched
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299 on by default for font-lock and some web browsing functions. If you
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300 do not like this behavior set `progress-feedback-use-echo-area'.
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301
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302 ** The PostgreSQL Relational Database Management System is now supported.
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303 It is now possible to build XEmacs so that the programming interface
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304 to the PostgreSQL RDBMS (libpq) is available in XEmacs Lisp.
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305 Supported versions of PostgreSQL are 6.5.3 (earlier versions may work,
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306 but have not been tested) and 7.0-beta1.
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307
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464
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308 ** Help functions (e.g. `C-h f') now know how to print macro argument
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309 lists. If your macro definition included an argument list for the
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310 sake of help output, you no longer need to do that.
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311
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312 ** Mule changes.
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313
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314 *** Windows 1251 code page is now supported as coding system
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315 `windows-1251'.
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316
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317 *** Czech, Thai, Cyrillic-KOI8, Vietnamese, Ethiopic support now
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318 available.
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319
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320 *** The appropriate characters in Latin 3 and Latin 4 character sets
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321 are correctly defined as words.
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322
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323 *** The default coding-priority-list is now safer. This means that if
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324 you have no language environment set, Mule no longer automatically
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325 recognizes ISO 2022 escapes in your files. This makes editing binary
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326 files safe.
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327
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328 ** Etags changes.
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329
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330 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
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331
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332 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
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333 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
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334 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints
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335 out. This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each
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336 line contains a regular expression. The manual contains details.
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337
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338 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
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339 declarations when given the --declarations option.
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340
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341 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
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342 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
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343
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344 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
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345 types.
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346
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464
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347 *** In Fortran, procedure is no longer tagged.
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348
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349 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
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350
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351 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
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352 are now tagged.
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353
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354 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
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355 variables are tagged.
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356
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357 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
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358
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359 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
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360 for PSWrap.
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361
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362
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464
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363 * Lisp and internal changes in XEmacs 21.4
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364 ==========================================
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365
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440
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366 ** A new portable dumper is available for beta testing.
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367
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368 Olivier Galibert has written a portable dumper for XEmacs, based on
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369 initial work by Kyle Jones. To perform even the most basic editor,
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370 XEmacs requires some amount of Lisp code to be loaded. To avoid
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371 repeating the expensive loading process at every startup, XEmacs is
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372 built in a special way. Its C sources link into an executable called
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373 `temacs', which loads the bootstrap Lisp code and uses a special
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374 "unexec" call to dump the resulting memory image into a proper
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375 `xemacs' executable on disk. The unexec() process is hard to
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376 implement correctly and makes XEmacs very hard to port to new
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377 operating systems, or even to new releases of old systems.
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378
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379 The new portable dumper uses a different approach to dumping: instead
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380 of dumping full-fledged executable, it only dumps out the initialized
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381 data structures (both Lisp and C) into an external file. A normally
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382 running XEmacs only needs to mmap that file and relocate a bit to get
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383 to the initialized data. In that scheme, there is no difference
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384 between `temacs' and `xemacs'.
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385
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386 Unfortunately, the portable dumper has not been completely finished
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387 for this release, and will not be used by default. However, if you
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388 wish to experiment with it, or if you need to compile XEmacs on a new
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389 and unsupported platform, you can test it by configuring XEmacs with
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390 `--pdump' flag.
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391
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428
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392 ** Much effort has been invested to make XEmacs Lisp faster:
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393
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394 *** Many basic lisp operations are now faster.
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395 This is especially the case when running a Mule-enabled XEmacs.
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396
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397 A general overhaul of the lisp engine should produce a speedup of 1.4
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398 in a non-Mule XEmacs, and 2.1 in a Mule XEmacs. These numbers were
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399 obtained running `(byte-compile "simple.el")', which should be a
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400 pretty typical test of "pure" Lisp.
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401
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402 *** Lisp hash tables have been re-implemented. The Common Lisp style
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403 hash table interface has been made standard, and moved from cl.el into
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404 fast C code (See the section on hash tables in the XEmacs Lisp
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405 Reference). A speedup factor of 3 can be expected with code that
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406 makes intensive use of hash tables.
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407
|
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408 *** The garbage collector has been tuned, leading to a speedup of
|
|
409 1.16.
|
|
410
|
464
|
411 *** The byte-compiler and the byte-optimizer have been tuned to
|
|
412 produce better code in many small ways.
|
|
413
|
428
|
414 *** The family of functions that iterate over lists, like `memq', and
|
|
415 `rassq', have been made a little faster (typically 1.3).
|
|
416
|
|
417 *** Lisp function calls are faster, by approximately a factor of two.
|
|
418 However, defining inline functions (via defsubst) still makes sense
|
|
419 for tight loops.
|
|
420
|
|
421 *** Finally, a few functions have had dramatic performance
|
|
422 improvements. For example, `(last long-list)' is now 30 times faster.
|
|
423
|
|
424 Of course, your mileage will vary.
|
|
425
|
|
426 Many operations do not see any improvement. Surprisingly, running
|
|
427 (font-lock-fontify-buffer) does not use the Lisp engine much at all.
|
|
428 Speeding up your favorite slow operation is an excellent project to
|
|
429 improve XEmacs. Don't forget to profile!
|
|
430
|
430
|
431 ** Native widgets can be displayed in buffers.
|
|
432
|
|
433 The glyph system has been extended to allow the display of glyphs that
|
|
434 are implemented as native window-system widgets. Thus you can embed
|
|
435 buttons, scrollbars, combo boxes, edit fields and progress gauges in a
|
|
436 buffer. As a side effect subwindow support now works once again.
|
|
437
|
440
|
438 All of this is still fairly experimental and there is no
|
442
|
439 documentation. The current APIs might change in a future version of
|
|
440 XEmacs. Some widgets are only available under MS-Windows. See the
|
440
|
441 file glyphs-test.el in the XEmacs src distribution for examples of
|
|
442 usage.
|
430
|
443
|
440
|
444 The buffers-tab functionality and progress gauge have been implemented
|
|
445 using this feature.
|
430
|
446
|
464
|
447 ** A new Windows installer, netinstall ported from Cygwin.
|
|
448
|
|
449 Nearly complete automation of the XEmacs install process from
|
|
450 ftp.xemacs.org. Includes selection of Lisp packages to install, etc.
|
|
451
|
|
452 ** Syntax tables may now be specified for a part of a buffer by
|
|
453 attaching the `syntax-table' property to an extent. For compatibility
|
|
454 with GNU Emacs, you may use the text-property interface to achieve the
|
|
455 same result.
|
|
456
|
|
457 ** Case translation now supports international characters.
|
|
458
|
|
459 *** Instead of being lists of 256-character strings, case tables are
|
|
460 now opaque objects. The interface to access them is almost the same,
|
|
461 except it now works for international characters, and you can set the
|
|
462 case pairs using `put-case-table-pair'. `set-case-table' and friends
|
|
463 still support the old list/string based interface for backward
|
|
464 compatibility.
|
|
465
|
|
466 *** As a consequence of this change, functions `downcase' and `upcase'
|
|
467 as well as all the case-transformation commands now work with
|
|
468 non-ASCII characters. Built-in tables cover all the Latin character
|
|
469 sets that we support. If your language has a distinction between
|
|
470 upper and lower case that is not handled by XEmacs/Mule, please let us
|
|
471 know.
|
|
472
|
|
473 *** The code that implements case-insensitive search has been modified
|
|
474 to respect the case table settings. This also applies to regexp
|
|
475 search.
|
|
476
|
|
477 ** Values of variables `user-init-file' and `user-init-directory' are
|
|
478 now absolute file/directory names. Previously, both variables used to
|
|
479 be relative to `(concat "~" init-file-user)'. This turned out to be
|
|
480 too complicated for most packages (and some core Lisp files) to use
|
|
481 correctly. Also, the `init-file-user' variable has been obsoleted in
|
|
482 the process.
|
440
|
483
|
442
|
484 The user-visible options like `-u' have not changed their behavior.
|
430
|
485
|
428
|
486 ** XEmacs finally has an automated test suite!
|
|
487 Although this is not yet very sophisticated, it is already responsible
|
|
488 for several important bug fixes in XEmacs. To try it out, simply use
|
|
489 the makefile target `make check' after building XEmacs.
|
|
490
|
|
491 ** Hash tables have been reimplemented.
|
|
492 As was pointed out above, the standard interface to hash tables is now
|
|
493 the Common Lisp interface, as described in Common Lisp, the Language
|
|
494 (CLtL2, by Steele). The older interface (functions with names
|
|
495 containing the phrase `hashtable') will continue to work, but the
|
|
496 preferred interface now has names containing the phrase `hash-table'.
|
|
497
|
|
498 Here's the executive overview: create hash tables using
|
|
499 make-hash-table, and use gethash, puthash, remhash, maphash and
|
|
500 clrhash to manipulate entries in the hash table. See the (updated)
|
|
501 Lisp Reference Manual for details.
|
|
502
|
|
503 ** Lisp code handles circular lists much more robustly.
|
|
504 Many basic lisp functions used to loop forever when given a circular
|
|
505 list, expecting you to C-g (quit) out of the loop. Now this is more
|
|
506 likely to trigger a `circular-list' error. Printing a circular list
|
|
507 now results in something like this:
|
|
508
|
|
509 (let ((x (cons 'foo 'foo)))
|
|
510 (setcdr x x)
|
|
511 x)
|
|
512 => (foo ... <circular list>)
|
|
513
|
|
514 An extra bonus is that checking for circularities is not just
|
|
515 friendlier, but actually faster than checking for C-g.
|
|
516
|
430
|
517 ** Functions for decoding base64 encoding are now available; see
|
|
518 `base64-encode-region', `base64-encode-string', `base64-decode-region'
|
|
519 and `base64-decode-string'.
|
428
|
520
|
440
|
521 ** The functions `read-string', `read-expression', `eval-minibuffer',
|
|
522 `read-variable', `read-command', `read-function', `read-number',
|
|
523 `read-shell-command', `read-from-minibuffer', and `completing-read'
|
|
524 now take an additional argument which specifies the default value. If
|
|
525 this argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used
|
|
526 in two ways:
|
|
527
|
464
|
528 * It is returned if the user enters empty input.
|
|
529 * It is available as the logical "future" entry, by pressing the down
|
|
530 arrow.
|
440
|
531
|
|
532 ** LDAP changes.
|
|
533
|
|
534 *** The LDAP interface now consists of two layers, a low-level layer
|
|
535 that closely matches the LDAP C API, and a more convenient
|
|
536 higher-level set of functions.
|
|
537
|
|
538 *** The low-level functions that used to be named *-internal are now
|
|
539 named more simply: `ldap-open', `ldap-close', `ldap-search-basic',
|
|
540 `ldap-add', and `ldap-modify'. They should be used directly for very
|
|
541 specific purposes (such as multiple operations on a connection) only.
|
|
542
|
|
543 *** The higher-level functions provide a more convenient way to access
|
|
544 LDAP directories hiding the subtleties of handling the connection,
|
|
545 translating arguments and ensuring compliance with LDAP
|
|
546 internationalization rules and formats (currently partly implemented
|
|
547 only.) This layer provides atomic operations for searches,
|
|
548 modification, addition and deletion of multiple entries at once:
|
|
549 `ldap-search-entries', `ldap-add-entries', `ldap-delete-entries', and
|
|
550 `ldap-modify-entries'.
|
|
551
|
|
552 *** To maintain compatibility with previous code, the now obsolete
|
|
553 function `ldap-search' is now merely a wrapper that calls either
|
|
554 `ldap-search-basic' or `ldap-search-entries'. Please don't use the
|
|
555 `ldap-search' function in your new programs -- a direct call to one of
|
|
556 the two replacements is more efficient and unambiguous.
|
|
557
|
430
|
558 ** The arguments to `locate-file' are now more Lisp-like. As before,
|
|
559 the usage is:
|
428
|
560
|
|
561 (locate-file FILENAME PATH-LIST &optional SUFFIXES MODE)
|
|
562
|
|
563 Except that SUFFIXES are now a list of strings instead of a single,
|
|
564 colon-separated string. MODE is now a symbol or a list of symbols
|
|
565 (symbols `exists', `executable', `writable', and `readable' are
|
|
566 supported) instead of an integer code. See the documentation for
|
|
567 details. Of course, the old form is still accepted for backward
|
|
568 compatibility.
|
|
569
|
|
570 Several bugs in locate-file have been fixed, most notably its failure
|
|
571 to call expand-file-name on elements of PATH-LIST. Because of that
|
|
572 elements of load-path of the form "~/..." used to not work.
|
|
573 locate-file is now guaranteed to expand files during its course of
|
|
574 operation.
|
|
575
|
|
576 ** `translate-region' has been improved in several ways. Its TABLE
|
|
577 argument used to be a 256-character string. In addition to this, it
|
|
578 can now also be a vector or a char-table, which makes the function
|
464
|
579 useful for Mule, which it wasn't. If TABLE is a vector or a generic
|
428
|
580 char-table, you can map characters to strings instead of to other
|
|
581 characters. For instance:
|
|
582
|
|
583 (let ((table (make-char-table 'generic)))
|
|
584 (put-char-table ?a "the letter a" table)
|
|
585 (put-char-table ?b "" table)
|
|
586 (put-char-table ?c ?\n table)
|
|
587 (translate-region (point-min) (point-max) table))
|
|
588
|
430
|
589 ** The new form `ignore-file-errors', similar to `ignore-errors' may
|
|
590 be used as a short-hand for condition-case when you wish to ignore
|
|
591 file-related error. For example:
|
|
592
|
|
593 (ignore-file-errors (delete-file "foo"))
|
|
594
|
|
595 ** The first argument to `intern-soft' may now also be a symbol, like
|
|
596 with `unintern'. If given a symbol, `intern-soft' will look for that
|
|
597 exact symbol rather than for any string. This is useful when you want
|
|
598 to check whether a specific symbol is interned in an obarray, e.g.:
|
|
599
|
|
600 (intern "foo")
|
|
601 (intern-soft "foo")
|
|
602 => foo
|
|
603 (intern-soft (make-symbol "foo"))
|
|
604 => nil
|
|
605
|
428
|
606 ** The `keywordp' function now returns non-nil only on symbols
|
|
607 interned in the global obarray. For example:
|
|
608
|
|
609 (keywordp (intern ":foo" [0]))
|
|
610 => nil
|
|
611 (keywordp (intern ":foo")) ; The same as (keywordp :foo)
|
|
612 => t
|
|
613
|
442
|
614 This behavior is compatible with other code which treats symbols
|
428
|
615 beginning with colon as keywords only if they are interned in the
|
464
|
616 global obarray. `keywordp' used to wrongly return t in both above
|
|
617 cases.
|
|
618
|
|
619 ** The function `replace-in-string' has been rewritten to use
|
|
620 `replace-match'. This not only makes it much faster, but adds all the
|
|
621 features of `replace-match'.
|
428
|
622
|
442
|
623 ** New variables `this-command-properties' and
|
|
624 `last-command-properties' are now available for communication between
|
|
625 consecutive commands. Commands should use these to communicate with
|
|
626 the pre/post-command hooks, subsequent commands, wrapping commands,
|
|
627 etc. in preference to looking at and/or setting `this-command'.
|
|
628
|
|
629 ** New functions `add-one-shot-hook' and `add-local-one-shot-hook' make
|
|
630 it possible to add a "one-shot" hook, which is to say a hook that runs
|
|
631 only once, and automatically removes itself after the first time it
|
|
632 has run.
|
|
633
|
|
634 ** The descriptor that specifies the text of a menu item can now be an
|
464
|
635 evaluated expression. This makes it parallel with other descriptors,
|
|
636 which can also be expressions.
|
442
|
637
|
428
|
638
|
|
639 * Changes in XEmacs 21.0
|
|
640 ========================
|
|
641
|
|
642 ** XEmacs has been unbundled into constituent installable packages.
|
|
643 See the Info documentation under "Packages" for more information.
|
|
644 See the file `etc/PACKAGES' in the distribution for a partial list of
|
|
645 packages available at the time of the 21.0 release.
|
|
646
|
|
647 ** XEmacs is now supported under Microsoft Windows 95/98 and Windows
|
|
648 NT operating systems. For starters, look at the XEmacs on Windows FAQ
|
|
649 at <URL:http://jagor.srce.hr/~hniksic/xemacs-on-windows-faq.txt>. To
|
|
650 discuss Windows-specific issues, subscribe to the mailing list at
|
|
651 <xemacs-nt-request@xemacs.org>.
|
|
652
|
|
653 ** XEmacs will now use `XEmacs' as its application class if it finds
|
|
654 any `XEmacs' resources in the resource database. Otherwise, it will
|
|
655 continue to use the `Emacs' class.
|
|
656
|
|
657 ** The options menu has been ported to Custom.
|
|
658 This means that each entry in the options menu acts as if you had customized
|
|
659 the corresponding variable by hand. ### WARNING: there is currently no
|
|
660 upgrading function to help you port your old options settings to the new
|
|
661 format. Consequently, if you want to modify the options for XEmacs 21, you
|
|
662 will have to set them all again through the menu, and remove the code loading
|
|
663 .xemacs-options from your .emacs.
|
|
664
|
|
665 ** When the Zmacs region is active, `M-x query-replace' and the other
|
|
666 replace commands now operate on the region contents only.
|
|
667
|
|
668 ** XEmacs now is able to choose X visuals and use private colormaps.
|
|
669 The '-visual <visualStr>' command line option or the '.EmacsVisual'
|
|
670 Xresource controls which visual XEmacs will use, and
|
|
671 '-privateColormap' or '.privateColormap' will force XEmacs to create a
|
|
672 private colormap for use. The syntax for the visual string is
|
|
673 "<visual><bitdepth>" where <visual> is one of 'StaticColor',
|
|
674 'TrueColor', 'GrayScale', 'PseudoColor' or 'DirectColor' and
|
|
675 <bitdepth> is the appropriate number of bits per pixel. If an invalid
|
|
676 or non-supported combination is entered, XEmacs attempts to find a happy
|
|
677 medium. The X creation mechanism will then determine if it needs to
|
|
678 create a colormap for use, or the presence of the private flags will
|
|
679 force it to create it.
|
|
680
|
|
681 ** The `imenu' package has been ported to XEmacs and is available as a
|
|
682 package.
|
|
683
|
|
684 ** `echo-keystrokes' can now be a floating-point number, so that you
|
|
685 can set it to intervals shorter than one second.
|
|
686
|
|
687 (setq echo-keystrokes 0.1)
|
|
688
|
|
689 ** The new command `center-to-window-line' works like `recenter'
|
|
690 (bound to `C-l'), only it does not redisplay the whole display area.
|
|
691
|
|
692 ** The M-. command will now first search through exact tags matches,
|
|
693 and then through inexact matches, as one would expect.
|
|
694
|
|
695 ** The new variable `user-full-name' can be used to customize one's
|
|
696 name when using the Emacs mail and news reading facilities.
|
|
697
|
|
698 Normally, `user-full-name' is a function that returns the full name of
|
|
699 a user or UID, as specified by the system -- for instance,
|
|
700 (user-full-name "root") returns something like "Super-User". However,
|
|
701 when the function is called without arguments, it will return the
|
|
702 value of the `user-full-name' variable. The `user-full-name' variable
|
|
703 is initialized using the environment variable NAME and (failing that)
|
|
704 the user's system name.
|
|
705
|
|
706 The behavior of the `user-full-name' function with an argument
|
|
707 specified is unchanged.
|
|
708
|
|
709 ** The new command `M-x customize-changed-options' lets you customize
|
|
710 all the options whose default values have changed in recent Emacs
|
|
711 versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as argument,
|
|
712 and the command creates a customization buffer showing all the
|
|
713 customizable options whose default values were changed since that
|
|
714 version.
|
|
715
|
|
716 If you don't specify a particular version number argument, then the
|
|
717 customization buffer shows all the customizable options for which
|
|
718 Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
|
|
719
|
|
720 ** The new command `add-log-convert' can be used to convert the
|
|
721 old-style (pre-20.3) ChangeLog buffers to new style, for
|
|
722 consistency. A reminder: if you wish to revert to old-style
|
|
723 ChangeLogs instead, customize the value of `add-log-time-format'
|
|
724 variable.
|
|
725
|
|
726 ** The new command `zap-up-to-char' is now available. It is similar
|
|
727 to `zap-to-char', except that it does not delete the searched-for
|
|
728 character. It is not bound to a key by default.
|
|
729
|
|
730 ** You can now store a number into a register with `C-u NUMBER C-x r n'
|
|
731 REG, increment it by INC with `C-u INC C-x r + REG' (to increment by
|
|
732 one, omit C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with `C-x r g REG'.
|
|
733 This is useful for writing keyboard macros.
|
|
734
|
|
735 ** The M-: command, when given a prefix argument, will now insert its
|
|
736 result to the current buffer.
|
|
737
|
|
738 ** The `C-h c' command, when given a prefix argument, will now insert
|
|
739 the message into the current buffer.
|
|
740
|
|
741 ** Horizontally split windows may now be dragged using the mouse.
|
|
742 Because of this, the dividers between vertical windows are always
|
|
743 visible. To turn it off, set `vertical-divider-always-visible-p' to
|
|
744 nil.
|
|
745
|
|
746 ** XEmacs/Mule (internationalization) changes.
|
|
747
|
|
748 *** Mule support now works on TTY's. Use `set-terminal-coding-system'
|
|
749 and `set-keyboard-coding-system' to specify the coding system of your
|
|
750 display and keyboard.
|
|
751
|
|
752 *** Egg/SJ3 input method is now officially supported. Quail and
|
|
753 Egg/Skk have been available through the generalized Leim since 20.3.
|
|
754
|
|
755 *** Localized Japanese menubars are available if XEmacs is built with
|
|
756 XFONTSET and either the X11 libraries are built with X_LOCALE defined
|
|
757 or the native C libraries support Japanese localization. This has
|
|
758 been available since 20.3, only it hasn't been announced before.
|
|
759
|
|
760 ** Jamie Zawinski's `gdb-highlight' extension is now distributed with
|
|
761 the `debug' package. gdb-highlight makes most objects printed in a
|
|
762 gdb buffer be mouse-sensitive: as text shows up in the buffer, it is
|
|
763 parsed, and objects which are recognized have context-sensitive
|
|
764 commands attached to them. To use it, add the following to `.emacs':
|
|
765
|
|
766 (add-hook 'gdb-mode-hook (lambda () (require 'gdb-highlight)))
|
|
767
|
|
768 ** The package popper.el is now included in the edit-utils package.
|
|
769 It has been greatly enhanced with respect to the one once included
|
|
770 with the ilisp package and should work well under XEmacs 21.0.
|
|
771
|
|
772 ** Gnuserv changes
|
|
773
|
|
774 *** Like the old 'gnudoit' program. Gnuclient -batch now can read from stdin.
|
|
775
|
|
776 *** Gnuclient -batch no longer breaks off the output at the first LF.
|
|
777
|
|
778 ** C mode changes
|
|
779
|
|
780 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
|
|
781 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
|
|
782 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
|
|
783 definition.
|
|
784
|
|
785 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
|
|
786 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable setings and customizations.
|
|
787 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu" style
|
|
788 is still the default however.
|
|
789
|
|
790 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
|
|
791
|
|
792 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
|
|
793 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
|
|
794 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
|
|
795
|
|
796 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
|
|
797 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
|
|
798
|
|
799 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
|
|
800 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
|
|
801
|
|
802 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
|
|
803 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
|
|
804
|
|
805 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
|
|
806 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
|
|
807
|
|
808 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
|
|
809 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
|
|
810 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
|
|
811 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
|
|
812
|
|
813 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
|
|
814 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
|
|
815 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
|
|
816 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this makes a
|
|
817 practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
|
|
818
|
|
819 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
|
|
820 and is an alias for it.
|
|
821
|
|
822 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
|
|
823 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
|
|
824
|
|
825 ** Changes to Gnus, the XEmacs newsreader.
|
|
826
|
|
827 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
|
|
828 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
|
|
829 Gnus manual for the full story.
|
|
830
|
|
831 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
|
|
832 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
|
|
833 group, which is created automatically.
|
|
834
|
|
835 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
|
|
836 values.
|
|
837
|
|
838 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
|
|
839
|
|
840 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
|
|
841 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
|
|
842
|
|
843 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
|
|
844 `C-u C-c C-c'.
|
|
845
|
|
846 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
|
|
847
|
|
848 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
|
|
849 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
|
|
850
|
|
851 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
|
|
852
|
|
853 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
|
|
854 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
|
|
855
|
|
856 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
|
|
857 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
|
|
858
|
|
859 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
|
|
860 control over simplification.
|
|
861
|
|
862 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
|
|
863
|
|
864 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
|
|
865 limit.
|
|
866
|
|
867 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
|
|
868
|
|
869 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
|
|
870
|
|
871 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
|
|
872 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
|
|
873 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
|
|
874
|
|
875 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
|
|
876 `a' forces normal posting method.
|
|
877
|
|
878 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
|
|
879 -- `W d'.
|
|
880
|
|
881 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
|
|
882 to a non-nil value.
|
|
883
|
|
884 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
|
|
885 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
|
|
886
|
|
887 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
|
|
888 has been added.
|
|
889
|
|
890 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
|
|
891
|
|
892 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
|
|
893
|
|
894 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
|
|
895 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
|
|
896
|
|
897 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
|
|
898 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
|
|
899
|
|
900 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
|
|
901
|
|
902 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
|
|
903 been added.
|
|
904
|
|
905 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
|
|
906 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
|
|
907
|
|
908 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
|
|
909 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
|
|
910
|
|
911 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
|
|
912
|
|
913 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
|
|
914
|
|
915 *** Byte-compilation of user-specs now works under XEmacs.
|
|
916
|
|
917 ** The `dir' files are no longer essential for functioning of the Info
|
|
918 subsystem. If the `dir' file does not exist in an Info directory, the
|
|
919 relevant information will be generated on-the-fly.
|
|
920
|
|
921 This behavior can be customized, look for `Info-auto-generate-directory'
|
|
922 and `Info-save-auto-generated-dir' in the `info' customization group.
|
|
923
|
|
924
|
|
925 * Lisp and internal changes in XEmacs 21.0
|
|
926 ==========================================
|
|
927
|
|
928 ** It is now possible to build XEmacs with support for 31-bit Lisp
|
|
929 integers (normally, Lisp integers are only 28 bits wide on 32-bit
|
|
930 machines.) Configure with --use-minimal-tagbits to test. With this
|
|
931 change, the maximum buffer size on 32-bit machines is increased from
|
|
932 128M to 1G. This setting will be made default in a future XEmacs
|
|
933 version.
|
|
934
|
|
935 ** Specifier changes.
|
|
936
|
|
937 *** When instantiating a specifier, the window locale now has a higher
|
|
938 precedence than the buffer locale. This is because the window locale
|
|
939 is more specific than the buffer locale.
|
|
940
|
|
941 *** The new macro `let-specifier' can be used to temporarily add
|
|
942 specifications to specifiers. See the documentation for details.
|
|
943
|
|
944 *** The new specifiers `vertical-scrollbar-visible-p' and
|
|
945 `horizontal-scrollbar-visible-p' may be used to control scrollbar
|
|
946 visibility. Previously, the only way to remove a scrollbar was to set
|
|
947 its size to 0. This method is still supported for backward
|
|
948 compatibility.
|
|
949
|
|
950 *** The new specifiers `scrollbar-on-left-p' and `scrollbar-on-top-p'
|
|
951 may be used to control the position of the vertical and horizontal
|
|
952 toolbar. Previously, their position could be changed only through the
|
|
953 use of X resources.
|
|
954
|
|
955 *** The new draggable vertical dividers between windows may be turned
|
|
956 off using the `vertical-divider-always-visible-p' specifier. When
|
|
957 this is set to nil, the vertical dividers between windows are shown
|
|
958 only when needed, and they are not draggable.
|
|
959
|
|
960 Other properties of the vertical dividers may be controlled using
|
|
961 `vertical-divider-shadow-thickness', `vertical-divider-line-width' and
|
|
962 `vertical-divider-spacing' specifiers, which see.
|
|
963
|
|
964 ** Frame focus management changes.
|
|
965
|
|
966 *** When the variable focus-follows-mouse is non-nil, `select-frame'
|
|
967 no longer permanently selects a different frame. The frame selection
|
|
968 is temporary and is reverted when the current command terminates, much
|
|
969 like the buffer selected by `set-buffer'. This is the same as in FSF
|
|
970 Emacs.
|
|
971
|
|
972 *** The new function `focus-frame' sets the window system focus to
|
|
973 FRAME (and selects it), regardless of the value of
|
|
974 `focus-follows-mouse'. Doing this is not well behaved, so be
|
|
975 absolutely sure that you want this.
|
|
976
|
|
977 The code that uses `select-frame' only to get the window manager focus
|
|
978 should be changed to use `set-frame-focus' instead, so that they keep
|
|
979 working when `focus-follows-mouse' is non-nil.
|
|
980
|
|
981 *** The special forms `save-selected-frame' and `with-selected-frame'
|
|
982 can now be used to temporarily change selected frame.
|
|
983
|
|
984 *** The behavior of `other-frame' command (`C-x 5 o') is unaffected by
|
|
985 these changes.
|
|
986
|
|
987 ** The function `select-window' now has an optional second argument
|
|
988 NORECORD which if non-nil inhibits the recording of a buffer change.
|
|
989
|
|
990 ** The function `vertical-motion' now correctly handles the second,
|
|
991 optional WINDOW argument. A new third argument PIXELS, if non-nil,
|
|
992 indicates that the returned motion should be in pixels.
|
|
993
|
|
994 ** The new function `vertical-motion-pixels' is similar to
|
|
995 vertical-motion but takes as input a vertical motion in pixels.
|
|
996
|
|
997 ** The new functions window-text-area-pixel-{width,height,edges} can
|
|
998 be used to obtain information about the text-displaying area of a
|
|
999 window.
|
|
1000
|
|
1001 ** The new functions `shrink-window-pixels' and `enlarge-window-pixels'
|
|
1002 can be used to adjust the size of a window by a pixel amount.
|
|
1003
|
|
1004 ** The new function `window-displayed-text-pixel-height' can be used
|
|
1005 to determine the height of the text actually displayed in a window.
|
|
1006
|
|
1007 ** The arithmetic comparison functions <, >, =, /= now accept a
|
|
1008 variable number of arguments.
|
|
1009
|
|
1010 This means that if you want to test whether A < B < C, you can write
|
|
1011 it as (< A B C) instead of (and (< A B) (< B C)). Likewise,
|
|
1012 (apply #'> LIST) now tests if LIST is monotonously increasing -- and
|
|
1013 so on.
|
|
1014
|
|
1015 ** The XEmacs hashtables now have a consistent read/print syntax.
|
|
1016 This means that a hashtable will be readably printed in a
|
|
1017 structure-like form:
|
|
1018
|
|
1019 #s(hashtable size 2 data (key1 value1 key2 value2))
|
|
1020
|
|
1021 When XEmacs reads this form, it will create a new hashtable according
|
|
1022 to description. This allows you to easily dump hashtables to files
|
|
1023 using `prin1', and read them back in using `read'.
|
|
1024
|
|
1025 If `print-readably' is non-nil, a more relaxed syntax is used; for
|
|
1026 instance:
|
|
1027
|
|
1028 #<hashtable size 2/13 data (key1 value1 key2 value2) 0x874d>
|
|
1029
|
|
1030 ** It is now possible to build XEmacs with LDAP support.
|
|
1031 You will need to install a LDAP library first. The following have
|
|
1032 been tested:
|
|
1033 - LDAP 3.3 from the University of Michigan
|
|
1034 (get it from <URL:http://www.umich.edu/~dirsvcs/ldap/>)
|
|
1035 - OpenLDAP 1.0.3 from the OpenLDAP Foundation
|
|
1036 (get it from <URL:http://www.openldap.org/>)
|
|
1037 - LDAP SDK 1.0 from Netscape Corp.
|
|
1038 (get it from <URL:http://developer.netscape.com/>)
|
|
1039
|
|
1040 ** When profiling is in effect, a call-count of all recorded functions
|
|
1041 is now calculated. This information is stored in
|
|
1042 `call-count-profile-table', and is utilized by `profile-results' as
|
|
1043 well as the new command `profile-call-count-results'.
|
|
1044
|
|
1045 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
|
|
1046 starts with a colon, if it is interned in the standard obarray.
|
|
1047
|
|
1048 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
|
|
1049 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
|
|
1050 support pre-19.12 XEmacs and pre-20 GNU Emacs by explicitly setting
|
|
1051 these variables to themselves.
|
|
1052
|
|
1053 ** The `concat' function no longer accepts integer arguments.
|
|
1054
|
|
1055 ** The new function `string' concatenates all its argument characters
|
|
1056 and returns the resulting string. This is consistent with other
|
|
1057 functions, like `list', `vector', etc.
|
|
1058
|
|
1059 ** The function `temp-directory' is now available to return the
|
|
1060 directory to store temporary files. On Unix this will be obtained
|
|
1061 from TMPDIR, defaulting to `/tmp'.
|
|
1062
|
|
1063 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
|
|
1064 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
|
|
1065 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
|
|
1066
|
|
1067 ** The `make-event' function now supports the TYPE and PLIST
|
|
1068 arguments, which can be used to create various events from Lisp. See
|
|
1069 the documentation for details.
|
|
1070
|
|
1071 ** `function-interactive' is a new function that returns the
|
|
1072 interactive specification of a funcallable object.
|
|
1073
|
|
1074 ** The new `lmessage' function allows printing of a formatted message
|
|
1075 with a particular label.
|
|
1076
|
|
1077 (lmessage 'progress "Processing... %d" counter)
|
|
1078
|
|
1079 This function is more convenient than `display-message' because it
|
|
1080 automatically applies `format' to its arguments.
|
|
1081
|
|
1082 ** The new `lwarn' function, analogous to `lmessage', allows printing
|
|
1083 a formatted warning, with a non-default CLASS or LABEL.
|
|
1084
|
|
1085 ** The new function `split-path' can now be used to explode the
|
|
1086 components of a colon-separated search path into a list.
|
|
1087
|
|
1088 (split-path "foo:bar")
|
|
1089 => ("foo" "bar")
|
|
1090
|
|
1091 ** Specifiers and symbols whose value is a specifier are now allowed
|
|
1092 as modeline specifications.
|
|
1093
|
|
1094 ** defcustom now accepts the keyword `:version'. Use this to specify
|
|
1095 in which version of Emacs a certain variable's default value changed.
|
|
1096 For example,
|
|
1097
|
|
1098 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
|
|
1099 :type 'integer
|
|
1100 :group 'foo
|
|
1101 :version "21.0")
|
|
1102
|
|
1103 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options
|
|
1104 command.
|
|
1105
|
|
1106 ** The line number tracking in modeline is now efficient, even for
|
|
1107 very large buffers. This is achieved by caching the line numbers of
|
|
1108 recent buffer positions, and reusing them. This cache is used only in
|
|
1109 the buffers where `line-number-mode' is in effect.
|
|
1110
|
|
1111 ** When the new GNU Malloc aka Doug Lea Malloc is available, it will
|
|
1112 be used. This should result in better performance on Linux systems
|
|
1113 with libc6.
|
|
1114
|
|
1115 ** The code XEmacs uses to assemble its various paths into the
|
|
1116 directory hierarchy has been rewritten to support the package system.
|
|
1117 Look under "Startup Paths" in the Info documentation for more
|
|
1118 information.
|
|
1119
|
|
1120 *** site-lisp is no longer part of the load-path by default.
|
|
1121 Its use is deprecated, but you can specify --with-site-lisp=yes at the
|
|
1122 configure command line to get it back.
|
|
1123
|
|
1124 *** `Info-default-directory-list' is now obsolete. If you want to
|
|
1125 change the path which XEmacs uses to search for info files, set
|
|
1126 `Info-directory-list' instead.
|
464
|
1127
|
|
1128
|
|
1129 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
|