xemacs-beta: etc/NEWS comparison

comparison etc/NEWS @ 428:3ecd8885ac67 r21-2-22

Import from CVS: tag r21-2-22

author	cvs
date	Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:28:15 +0200
parents
children	a5df635868b2

comparison

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-:0a0253eac470
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+-*- mode:outline -*-
+* Introduction
+==============
+This file presents some general information about XEmacs.  It is
+primarily about the changes in recent XEmacs versions and its release
+history.
+Use `C-c C-f' to move to the next equal level of outline, and
+`C-c C-b' to move to previous equal level.  `C-h m' will give more
+info about the Outline mode.  Many commands are also available through
+the menubar.
+Users who would like to know which capabilities have been introduced
+in each release should look at the appropriate section of this file.
+Starting with version 20.0, XEmacs includes ChangeLogs, which can be
+consulted for a more detailed list of changes.
+Users interested in some of the details of how XEmacs differs from GNU
+Emacs should read the section "What's Different?" near the end of this
+file.
+N.B.  The term "GNU Emacs" refers to any release of Emacs Version
+19 from the Free Software Foundation's GNU Project.  (We do not
+say just "Emacs" as Richard M. Stallman ["RMS"] prefers, because
+it is clearly a more generic term.)  The term "XEmacs" refers to
+this program or to its predecessors "Era" and "Lucid Emacs".  The
+predecessor of all these program is called "Emacs 18".  When no
+particular version is implied, "Emacs" will be used.
+* Changes in XEmacs 21.2
+========================
+** `delete-key-deletes-forward' now defaults to t.
+`delete-key-deletes-forward' is the variable that regulates the
+behaviour of the delete key on the systems that offer both a backspace
+and a delete key.  If set to nil, the key labeled "Delete" will delete
+backward.  If set to non-nil, the "Delete" key will delete forward,
+except on keyboards where a "Backspace" key is not provided.
+Unless our implementation has bugs, the only reason why you would want
+to set `delete-key-deletes-forward' to nil is if you want to use the
+Delete key to delete backwards, despite the presence (according to
+Xlib) of a BackSpace key on the keyboard.
+** Interactive searching and matching case improvements.
+Case sensitiveness in searching operations is normally controlled by
+the variable `case-fold-search' (if non-nil, case is ignored while
+searching).  This mechanism has now been slightly improved for
+interactive searches: if the search string (or regexp) contains
+uppercase characters, the searching is forced to be case-sensitive,
+`case-fold-search'.
+The new behavior affects all functions performing interactive
+searches, like `zap-to-char', `list-matching-lines', `tags-search'
+etc.  The incremental search facility has always behaved that way.
+** The rectangle functions have been almost completely rewritten in
+order to avoid inserting undesirable spaces, notably at the end of
+lines.  Two typical examples of the old behavior were
+`string-rectangle', which filled all lines up to the right side of the
+rectangle, and `clear-rectangle', which filled even empty lines up to
+the left side.  All functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting
+unwanted spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the
+old way.
+As a side effect, the FORCE argument to `move-to-column' now
+understands the special value `coerce', which means that the line
+should not be filled if it is too short to reach the desired column.
+** Incremental search will now highlight all visible matches, making
+it easier to anticipate where consecutive C-s or C-r will place the
+point.  If you want to disable the feature, set
+`isearch-highlight-all-matches' to nil.
+** You can now customize and save comments for faces and variables.
+In Custom buffers, a new menu entry allows you to add and edit a
+comment.  Comments for variables can also be assigned by calling
+`customize-set-(value|variable)' with a prefix argument.
+** XEmacs now locates the early package hierarchies at
+~/.xemacs/mule-packages/ and ~/.xemacs/xemacs-packages/.  Previously,
+the early packages were located in ~/.xemacs/.
+** You can now create "indirect buffers", like in GNU Emacs.  An
+indirect buffer shares its text with another buffer ("base buffer"),
+but has its own major mode, local variables, extents, and narrowing.
+An indirect buffer has a name of its own, distinct from those of the
+base buffer and all other buffers.  An indirect buffer cannot itself
+be visiting a file (though its base buffer can be).  The base buffer
+cannot itself be indirect.
+Use (make-indirect-buffer BASE-BUFFER NAME) to make an indirect buffer
+named NAME whose base is BASE-BUFFER.  If BASE-BUFFER is itself an
+indirect buffer, its base buffer is used as the base for the new
+buffer.
+You can make an indirect buffer current, or switch to it in a window,
+just as you would a non-indirect buffer.
+The function `buffer-base-buffer' returns a buffer's base buffer or
+nil, if given an ordinary (non-indirect) buffer.  The function
+`buffer-indirect-children' returns a list of the indirect children of
+a base buffer.
+** User names following the tilde character can now be completed at
+file name prompts; e.g. `C-x C-f ~hni<TAB>' will complete to
+`~hniksic/'.  To make this operation faster, a cache of user names is
+maintained internally.
+The new primitives available for this purpose are functions named
+`user-name-completion' and `user-name-all-completions'.
+** Native widgets can be displayed in buffers.
+The glyph system has been extended to allow the display of glyphs that
+are implemented as native window-system widgets.  Thus you can embed
+buttons, scrollbars, combo boxes, edit fields and progress gauges in a
+buffer.  As a side effect subwindow support now works once again.
+This support is currently only available under MS-Windows.
+** XEmacs can now play sound using Enlightenment Sound Daemon (ESD).
+It will try NAS first, then ESD, then playing native sound directly.
+** X-Face support is now available under MS-Windows.
+If an X-Face libary built under MS-Windows is available then XEmacs
+will use this at build time.
+** The font-menu is now available under MS-Windows.
+** MS-Windows support for selection is now much more robust.
+Generally selection should now do what you would expect under
+MS-Windows: the middle mouse button will paste your current selection
+or the clipboard; conversions from different types of selection to the
+clipboard can be made; the kill-ring and friends will be updated as
+per X.
+The only thing selection doesn't do is set the clipboard automatically
+as this would break the MS-Windows model.  If you want this behaviour
+then set `selection-sets-clipboard' to t
+** New command-line switches -user-init-file and -user-init-directory.
+These can be used to specify alternate locations for what is normally
+~/.emacs and ~/.xemacs.
+Moreover, -user <user> (which used to only work in unpredictable ways)
+is now equivalent to
+-user-init-file ~<user>/.emacs -user-init-directory ~<user>/.xemacs.
+** Etags changes.
+*** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
+*** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex.  It is now
+possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
+{lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
+This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
+a regular expression.  The manual contains details.
+*** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
+declarations when given the --declarations option.
+*** In C++, tags are created for "operator".  The tags have the form
+"operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
+*** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
+types.
+*** In Fortran, procedure is no more tagged.
+*** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
+*** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
+are now tagged.
+*** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables.  my and local
+variables are tagged.
+*** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
+*** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
+for PSWrap.
+* Lisp and internal changes in XEmacs 21.2
+==========================================
+** Much effort has been invested to make XEmacs Lisp faster:
+*** Many basic lisp operations are now faster.
+This is especially the case when running a Mule-enabled XEmacs.
+A general overhaul of the lisp engine should produce a speedup of 1.4
+in a Latin-1 XEmacs, and 2.1 in a Mule XEmacs.  These numbers were
+obtained running `(byte-compile "simple.el")', which should be a
+pretty typical test of "pure" Lisp.
+*** Lisp hash tables have been re-implemented.  The Common Lisp style
+hash table interface has been made standard, and moved from cl.el into
+fast C code (See the section on hash tables in the XEmacs Lisp
+Reference).  A speedup factor of 3 can be expected with code that
+makes intensive use of hash tables.
+*** The garbage collector has been tuned, leading to a speedup of
+1.16.
+*** The family of functions that iterate over lists, like `memq', and
+`rassq', have been made a little faster (typically 1.3).
+*** Lisp function calls are faster, by approximately a factor of two.
+However, defining inline functions (via defsubst) still makes sense
+for tight loops.
+*** Finally, a few functions have had dramatic performance
+improvements.  For example, `(last long-list)' is now 30 times faster.
+Of course, your mileage will vary.
+Many operations do not see any improvement.  Surprisingly, running
+(font-lock-fontify-buffer) does not use the Lisp engine much at all.
+Speeding up your favorite slow operation is an excellent project to
+improve XEmacs.  Don't forget to profile!
+** XEmacs finally has an automated test suite!
+Although this is not yet very sophisticated, it is already responsible
+for several important bug fixes in XEmacs.  To try it out, simply use
+the makefile target `make check' after building XEmacs.
+** Hash tables have been reimplemented.
+As was pointed out above, the standard interface to hash tables is now
+the Common Lisp interface, as described in Common Lisp, the Language
+(CLtL2, by Steele).  The older interface (functions with names
+containing the phrase `hashtable') will continue to work, but the
+preferred interface now has names containing the phrase `hash-table'.
+Here's the executive overview: create hash tables using
+make-hash-table, and use gethash, puthash, remhash, maphash and
+clrhash to manipulate entries in the hash table.  See the (updated)
+Lisp Reference Manual for details.
+** Lisp code handles circular lists much more robustly.
+Many basic lisp functions used to loop forever when given a circular
+list, expecting you to C-g (quit) out of the loop.  Now this is more
+likely to trigger a `circular-list' error.  Printing a circular list
+now results in something like this:
+(let ((x (cons 'foo 'foo)))
+(setcdr x x)
+x)
+=> (foo ... <circular list>)
+An extra bonus is that checking for circularities is not just
+friendlier, but actually faster than checking for C-g.
+** The new form `ignore-file-errors', similar to `ignore-errors' may
+be used as a short-hand for condition-case when you wish to ignore
+file-related error.  For example:
+(ignore-file-errors (delete-file "foo"))
+** The arguments to `locate-file' are now much more "lispy".  As
+before, the usage is:
+(locate-file FILENAME PATH-LIST &optional SUFFIXES MODE)
+Except that SUFFIXES are now a list of strings instead of a single,
+colon-separated string.  MODE is now a symbol or a list of symbols
+(symbols `exists', `executable', `writable', and `readable' are
+supported) instead of an integer code.  See the documentation for
+details.  Of course, the old form is still accepted for backward
+compatibility.
+Several bugs in locate-file have been fixed, most notably its failure
+to call expand-file-name on elements of PATH-LIST.  Because of that
+elements of load-path of the form "~/..." used to not work.
+locate-file is now guaranteed to expand files during its course of
+operation.
+** `translate-region' has been improved in several ways.  Its TABLE
+argument used to be a 256-character string.  In addition to this, it
+can now also be a vector or a char-table, which makes the function
+useful for Mule, which it wasn't.  If TABLE a vector or a generic
+char-table, you can map characters to strings instead of to other
+characters.  For instance:
+(let ((table (make-char-table 'generic)))
+(put-char-table ?a "the letter a" table)
+(put-char-table ?b "" table)
+(put-char-table ?c ?\n table)
+(translate-region (point-min) (point-max) table))
+** The `keywordp' function now returns non-nil only on symbols
+interned in the global obarray.  For example:
+(keywordp (intern ":foo" [0]))
+=> nil
+(keywordp (intern ":foo"))       ; The same as (keywordp :foo)
+=> t
+This behaviour is compatible with other code which treats symbols
+beginning with colon as keywords only if they are interned in the
+global obarray.  `keywordp' used to wrongly return t in both cases
+above.
+** The first argument to `intern-soft' may now also be a symbol, like
+with `unintern'.  If given a symbol, `intern-soft' will look for that
+exact symbol rather than for any string.  This is useful when you want
+to check whether a specific symbol is interned in an obarray, e.g.:
+(intern "foo")
+(intern-soft "foo")
+=> foo
+(intern-soft (make-symbol "foo"))
+=> nil
+** Functions for decoding base64 encoding are now available; see
+`base64-encode-region', `base64-encode-string', `base64-decode-region'
+and `base64-decode-string'.
+** user-init-directory is now an absolute, unexpanded path.
+Previously, `user-init-directory' used to be relative to
+(concat "~" init-file-user).  This turned out to be too complicated
+for most packages (and some core Lisp files) to use correctly.
+Also, `init-file-user' has been obsoleted in the process.
+* Changes in XEmacs 21.0
+========================
+** XEmacs has been unbundled into constituent installable packages.
+See the Info documentation under "Packages" for more information.
+See the file `etc/PACKAGES' in the distribution for a partial list of
+packages available at the time of the 21.0 release.
+** XEmacs is now supported under Microsoft Windows 95/98 and Windows
+NT operating systems.  For starters, look at the XEmacs on Windows FAQ
+at <URL:http://jagor.srce.hr/~hniksic/xemacs-on-windows-faq.txt>.  To
+discuss Windows-specific issues, subscribe to the mailing list at
+<xemacs-nt-request@xemacs.org>.
+** XEmacs will now use `XEmacs' as its application class if it finds
+any `XEmacs' resources in the resource database.  Otherwise, it will
+continue to use the `Emacs' class.
+** The options menu has been ported to Custom.
+This means that each entry in the options menu acts as if you had customized
+the corresponding variable by hand.  ### WARNING: there is currently no
+upgrading function to help you port your old options settings to the new
+format. Consequently, if you want to modify the options for XEmacs 21, you
+will have to set them all again through the menu, and remove the code loading
+.xemacs-options from your .emacs.
+** When the Zmacs region is active, `M-x query-replace' and the other
+replace commands now operate on the region contents only.
+** XEmacs now is able to choose X visuals and use private colormaps.
+The '-visual <visualStr>' command line option or the '.EmacsVisual'
+Xresource controls which visual XEmacs will use, and
+'-privateColormap' or '.privateColormap' will force XEmacs to create a
+private colormap for use.  The syntax for the visual string is
+"<visual><bitdepth>" where <visual> is one of 'StaticColor',
+'TrueColor', 'GrayScale', 'PseudoColor' or 'DirectColor' and
+<bitdepth> is the appropriate number of bits per pixel.  If an invalid
+or non-supported combination is entered, XEmacs attempts to find a happy
+medium.  The X creation mechanism will then determine if it needs to
+create a colormap for use, or the presence of the private flags will
+force it to create it.
+** The `imenu' package has been ported to XEmacs and is available as a
+package.
+** `echo-keystrokes' can now be a floating-point number, so that you
+can set it to intervals shorter than one second.
+(setq echo-keystrokes 0.1)
+** The new command `center-to-window-line' works like `recenter'
+(bound to `C-l'), only it does not redisplay the whole display area.
+** The M-. command will now first search through exact tags matches,
+and then through inexact matches, as one would expect.
+** The new variable `user-full-name' can be used to customize one's
+name when using the Emacs mail and news reading facilities.
+Normally, `user-full-name' is a function that returns the full name of
+a user or UID, as specified by the system -- for instance,
+(user-full-name "root") returns something like "Super-User".  However,
+when the function is called without arguments, it will return the
+value of the `user-full-name' variable.  The `user-full-name' variable
+is initialized using the environment variable NAME and (failing that)
+the user's system name.
+The behavior of the `user-full-name' function with an argument
+specified is unchanged.
+** The new command `M-x customize-changed-options' lets you customize
+all the options whose default values have changed in recent Emacs
+versions.  You specify a previous Emacs version number as argument,
+and the command creates a customization buffer showing all the
+customizable options whose default values were changed since that
+version.
+If you don't specify a particular version number argument, then the
+customization buffer shows all the customizable options for which
+Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
+** The new command `add-log-convert' can be used to convert the
+old-style (pre-20.3) ChangeLog buffers to new style, for
+consistency.  A reminder: if you wish to revert to old-style
+ChangeLogs instead, customize the value of `add-log-time-format'
+variable.
+** The new command `zap-up-to-char' is now available.  It is similar
+to `zap-to-char', except that it does not delete the searched-for
+character.  It is not bound to a key by default.
+** You can now store a number into a register with `C-u NUMBER C-x r n'
+REG, increment it by INC with `C-u INC C-x r + REG' (to increment by
+one, omit C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with `C-x r g REG'.
+This is useful for writing keyboard macros.
+** The M-: command, when given a prefix argument, will now insert its
+result to the current buffer.
+** The `C-h c' command, when given a prefix argument, will now insert
+the message into the current buffer.
+** Horizontally split windows may now be dragged using the mouse.
+Because of this, the dividers between vertical windows are always
+visible.  To turn it off, set `vertical-divider-always-visible-p' to
+nil.
+** XEmacs/Mule (internationalization) changes.
+*** Mule support now works on TTY's.  Use `set-terminal-coding-system'
+and `set-keyboard-coding-system' to specify the coding system of your
+display and keyboard.
+*** Egg/SJ3 input method is now officially supported.  Quail and
+Egg/Skk have been available through the generalized Leim since 20.3.
+*** Localized Japanese menubars are available if XEmacs is built with
+XFONTSET and either the X11 libraries are built with X_LOCALE defined
+or the native C libraries support Japanese localization.  This has
+been available since 20.3, only it hasn't been announced before.
+** Jamie Zawinski's `gdb-highlight' extension is now distributed with
+the `debug' package.  gdb-highlight makes most objects printed in a
+gdb buffer be mouse-sensitive: as text shows up in the buffer, it is
+parsed, and objects which are recognized have context-sensitive
+commands attached to them.  To use it, add the following to `.emacs':
+(add-hook 'gdb-mode-hook (lambda () (require 'gdb-highlight)))
+** The package popper.el is now included in the edit-utils package.
+It has been greatly enhanced with respect to the one once included
+with the ilisp package and should work well under XEmacs 21.0.
+** Gnuserv changes
+*** Like the old 'gnudoit' program. Gnuclient -batch now can read from stdin.
+*** Gnuclient -batch no longer breaks off the output at the first LF.
+** C mode changes
+*** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
+and as recognized syntax.  New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
+assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
+definition.
+*** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
+(i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable setings and customizations.
+Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated.  "gnu" style
+is still the default however.
+*** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
+*** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
+are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
+them.  They do not have key bindings by default.
+*** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
+and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
+*** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
+namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
+*** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
+makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
+*** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
+c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
+*** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded.  You
+should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
+package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file.  A new
+variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
+** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
+This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
+in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
+TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this makes a
+practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
+As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
+and is an alias for it.
+If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
+use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
+** Changes to Gnus, the XEmacs newsreader.
+*** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
+added.  A plethora of new commands and modes have been added.  See the
+Gnus manual for the full story.
+*** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
+before.  All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
+group, which is created automatically.
+*** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
+values.
+*** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
+*** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
+outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
+*** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
+`C-u C-c C-c'.
+*** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
+*** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
+re-highlighting of the article buffer.
+*** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
+*** `M-i' symbolic prefix command.  See the section "Symbolic
+Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
+*** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
+`a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
+*** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
+control over simplification.
+*** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
+*** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
+limit.
+*** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
+*** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
+*** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
+If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
+rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
+*** Cancelling now uses the current select method.  Symbolic prefix
+`a' forces normal posting method.
+*** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
+-- `W d'.
+*** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
+to a non-nil value.
+*** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
+where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
+*** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
+has been added.
+*** A history of where mails have been split is available.
+*** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
+*** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
+`gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
+*** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
+`message-cite-original-without-signature'.
+*** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
+*** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
+been added.
+*** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
+`gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
+*** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
+updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
+*** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
+*** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
+*** Byte-compilation of user-specs now works under XEmacs.
+** The `dir' files are no longer essential for functioning of the Info
+subsystem.  If the `dir' file does not exist in an Info directory, the
+relevant information will be generated on-the-fly.
+This behavior can be customized, look for `Info-auto-generate-directory'
+and `Info-save-auto-generated-dir' in the `info' customization group.
+* Lisp and internal changes in XEmacs 21.0
+==========================================
+** It is now possible to build XEmacs with support for 31-bit Lisp
+integers (normally, Lisp integers are only 28 bits wide on 32-bit
+machines.)  Configure with --use-minimal-tagbits to test.  With this
+change, the maximum buffer size on 32-bit machines is increased from
+128M to 1G.  This setting will be made default in a future XEmacs
+version.
+** Specifier changes.
+*** When instantiating a specifier, the window locale now has a higher
+precedence than the buffer locale.  This is because the window locale
+is more specific than the buffer locale.
+*** The new macro `let-specifier' can be used to temporarily add
+specifications to specifiers.  See the documentation for details.
+*** The new specifiers `vertical-scrollbar-visible-p' and
+`horizontal-scrollbar-visible-p' may be used to control scrollbar
+visibility.  Previously, the only way to remove a scrollbar was to set
+its size to 0.  This method is still supported for backward
+compatibility.
+*** The new specifiers `scrollbar-on-left-p' and `scrollbar-on-top-p'
+may be used to control the position of the vertical and horizontal
+toolbar.  Previously, their position could be changed only through the
+use of X resources.
+*** The new draggable vertical dividers between windows may be turned
+off using the `vertical-divider-always-visible-p' specifier.  When
+this is set to nil, the vertical dividers between windows are shown
+only when needed, and they are not draggable.
+Other properties of the vertical dividers may be controlled using
+`vertical-divider-shadow-thickness', `vertical-divider-line-width' and
+`vertical-divider-spacing' specifiers, which see.
+** Frame focus management changes.
+*** When the variable focus-follows-mouse is non-nil, `select-frame'
+no longer permanently selects a different frame.  The frame selection
+is temporary and is reverted when the current command terminates, much
+like the buffer selected by `set-buffer'.  This is the same as in FSF
+Emacs.
+*** The new function `focus-frame' sets the window system focus to
+FRAME (and selects it), regardless of the value of
+`focus-follows-mouse'.  Doing this is not well behaved, so be
+absolutely sure that you want this.
+The code that uses `select-frame' only to get the window manager focus
+should be changed to use `set-frame-focus' instead, so that they keep
+working when `focus-follows-mouse' is non-nil.
+*** The special forms `save-selected-frame' and `with-selected-frame'
+can now be used to temporarily change selected frame.
+*** The behavior of `other-frame' command (`C-x 5 o') is unaffected by
+these changes.
+** The function `select-window' now has an optional second argument
+NORECORD which if non-nil inhibits the recording of a buffer change.
+** The function `vertical-motion' now correctly handles the second,
+optional WINDOW argument.  A new third argument PIXELS, if non-nil,
+indicates that the returned motion should be in pixels.
+** The new function `vertical-motion-pixels' is similar to
+vertical-motion but takes as input a vertical motion in pixels.
+** The new functions window-text-area-pixel-{width,height,edges} can
+be used to obtain information about the text-displaying area of a
+window.
+** The new functions `shrink-window-pixels' and `enlarge-window-pixels'
+can be used to adjust the size of a window by a pixel amount.
+** The new function `window-displayed-text-pixel-height' can be used
+to determine the height of the text actually displayed in a window.
+** The arithmetic comparison functions <, >, =, /= now accept a
+variable number of arguments.
+This means that if you want to test whether A < B < C, you can write
+it as (< A B C) instead of (and (< A B) (< B C)).  Likewise,
+(apply #'> LIST) now tests if LIST is monotonously increasing -- and
+so on.
+** The XEmacs hashtables now have a consistent read/print syntax.
+This means that a hashtable will be readably printed in a
+structure-like form:
+#s(hashtable size 2 data (key1 value1 key2 value2))
+When XEmacs reads this form, it will create a new hashtable according
+to description.  This allows you to easily dump hashtables to files
+using `prin1', and read them back in using `read'.
+If `print-readably' is non-nil, a more relaxed syntax is used; for
+instance:
+#<hashtable size 2/13 data (key1 value1 key2 value2) 0x874d>
+** It is now possible to build XEmacs with LDAP support.
+You will need to install a LDAP library first.  The following have
+been tested:
+- LDAP 3.3 from the University of Michigan
+(get it from <URL:http://www.umich.edu/~dirsvcs/ldap/>)
+- OpenLDAP 1.0.3 from the OpenLDAP Foundation
+(get it from <URL:http://www.openldap.org/>)
+- LDAP SDK 1.0 from Netscape Corp.
+(get it from <URL:http://developer.netscape.com/>)
+** When profiling is in effect, a call-count of all recorded functions
+is now calculated.  This information is stored in
+`call-count-profile-table', and is utilized by `profile-results' as
+well as the new command `profile-call-count-results'.
+** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
+starts with a colon, if it is interned in the standard obarray.
+However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
+symbol itself, is not an error.  This is for the sake of programs that
+support pre-19.12 XEmacs and pre-20 GNU Emacs by explicitly setting
+these variables to themselves.
+** The `concat' function no longer accepts integer arguments.
+** The new function `string' concatenates all its argument characters
+and returns the resulting string.  This is consistent with other
+functions, like `list', `vector', etc.
+** The function `temp-directory' is now available to return the
+directory to store temporary files.  On Unix this will be obtained
+from TMPDIR, defaulting to `/tmp'.
+** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
+USE-FLOATS.  If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
+floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
+** The `make-event' function now supports the TYPE and PLIST
+arguments, which can be used to create various events from Lisp.  See
+the documentation for details.
+** `function-interactive' is a new function that returns the
+interactive specification of a funcallable object.
+** The new `lmessage' function allows printing of a formatted message
+with a particular label.
+(lmessage 'progress "Processing... %d" counter)
+This function is more convenient than `display-message' because it
+automatically applies `format' to its arguments.
+** The new `lwarn' function, analogous to `lmessage', allows printing
+a formatted warning, with a non-default CLASS or LABEL.
+** The new function `split-path' can now be used to explode the
+components of a colon-separated search path into a list.
+(split-path "foo:bar")
+=> ("foo" "bar")
+** Specifiers and symbols whose value is a specifier are now allowed
+as modeline specifications.
+** defcustom now accepts the keyword `:version'.  Use this to specify
+in which version of Emacs a certain variable's default value changed.
+For example,
+(defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
+:type 'integer
+:group 'foo
+:version "21.0")
+This information is used to control the customize-changed-options
+command.
+** The line number tracking in modeline is now efficient, even for
+very large buffers.  This is achieved by caching the line numbers of
+recent buffer positions, and reusing them.  This cache is used only in
+the buffers where `line-number-mode' is in effect.
+** When the new GNU Malloc aka Doug Lea Malloc is available, it will
+be used.  This should result in better performance on Linux systems
+with libc6.
+** The code XEmacs uses to assemble its various paths into the
+directory hierarchy has been rewritten to support the package system.
+Look under "Startup Paths" in the Info documentation for more
+information.
+*** site-lisp is no longer part of the load-path by default.
+Its use is deprecated, but you can specify --with-site-lisp=yes at the
+configure command line to get it back.
+*** `Info-default-directory-list' is now obsolete.  If you want to
+change the path which XEmacs uses to search for info files, set
+`Info-directory-list' instead.

Mercurial > hg > xemacs-beta

comparison etc/NEWS @ 428:3ecd8885ac67 r21-2-22