6 This file presents some general information about XEmacs. It is
7 primarily about the changes in recent XEmacs versions and its release
10 Use `C-c C-f' to move to the next equal level of outline, and
11 `C-c C-b' to move to previous equal level. `C-h m' will give more
12 info about the Outline mode. Many commands are also available through
15 Users who would like to know which capabilities have been introduced
16 in each release should look at the appropriate section of this file.
17 Starting with version 20.0, XEmacs includes ChangeLogs, which can be
18 consulted for a more detailed list of changes.
20 Users interested in some of the details of how XEmacs differs from GNU
21 Emacs should read the section "What's Different?" near the end of this
24 N.B. The term "GNU Emacs" refers to any release of Emacs Version
25 19 from the Free Software Foundation's GNU Project. (We do not
26 say just "Emacs" as Richard M. Stallman ["RMS"] prefers, because
27 it is clearly a more generic term.) The term "XEmacs" refers to
28 this program or to its predecessors "Era" and "Lucid Emacs". The
29 predecessor of all these program is called "Emacs 18". When no
30 particular version is implied, "Emacs" will be used.
33 * Changes in XEmacs 21.2
34 ========================
36 ** `delete-key-deletes-forward' now defaults to t.
38 `delete-key-deletes-forward' is the variable that regulates the
39 behaviour of the delete key on the systems that offer both a backspace
40 and a delete key. If set to nil, the key labeled "Delete" will delete
41 backward. If set to non-nil, the "Delete" key will delete forward,
42 except on keyboards where a "Backspace" key is not provided.
44 Unless our implementation has bugs, the only reason why you would want
45 to set `delete-key-deletes-forward' to nil is if you want to use the
46 Delete key to delete backwards, despite the presence (according to
47 Xlib) of a BackSpace key on the keyboard.
49 ** Interactive searching and matching case improvements.
51 Case sensitiveness in searching operations is normally controlled by
52 the variable `case-fold-search' (if non-nil, case is ignored while
53 searching). This mechanism has now been slightly improved for
54 interactive searches: if the search string (or regexp) contains
55 uppercase characters, the searching is forced to be case-sensitive,
58 The new behavior affects all functions performing interactive
59 searches, like `zap-to-char', `list-matching-lines', `tags-search'
60 etc. The incremental search facility has always behaved that way.
62 ** The rectangle functions have been almost completely rewritten in
63 order to avoid inserting undesirable spaces, notably at the end of
64 lines. Two typical examples of the old behavior were
65 `string-rectangle', which filled all lines up to the right side of the
66 rectangle, and `clear-rectangle', which filled even empty lines up to
67 the left side. All functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting
68 unwanted spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the
71 As a side effect, the FORCE argument to `move-to-column' now
72 understands the special value `coerce', which means that the line
73 should not be filled if it is too short to reach the desired column.
75 ** Incremental search will now highlight all visible matches, making
76 it easier to anticipate where consecutive C-s or C-r will place the
77 point. If you want to disable the feature, set
78 `isearch-highlight-all-matches' to nil.
80 ** You can now customize and save comments for faces and variables.
81 In Custom buffers, a new menu entry allows you to add and edit a
82 comment. Comments for variables can also be assigned by calling
83 `customize-set-(value|variable)' with a prefix argument.
85 ** XEmacs now locates the early package hierarchies at
86 ~/.xemacs/mule-packages/ and ~/.xemacs/xemacs-packages/. Previously,
87 the early packages were located in ~/.xemacs/.
89 ** You can now create "indirect buffers", like in GNU Emacs. An
90 indirect buffer shares its text with another buffer ("base buffer"),
91 but has its own major mode, local variables, extents, and narrowing.
92 An indirect buffer has a name of its own, distinct from those of the
93 base buffer and all other buffers. An indirect buffer cannot itself
94 be visiting a file (though its base buffer can be). The base buffer
95 cannot itself be indirect.
97 Use (make-indirect-buffer BASE-BUFFER NAME) to make an indirect buffer
98 named NAME whose base is BASE-BUFFER. If BASE-BUFFER is itself an
99 indirect buffer, its base buffer is used as the base for the new
102 You can make an indirect buffer current, or switch to it in a window,
103 just as you would a non-indirect buffer.
105 The function `buffer-base-buffer' returns a buffer's base buffer or
106 nil, if given an ordinary (non-indirect) buffer. The function
107 `buffer-indirect-children' returns a list of the indirect children of
110 ** User names following the tilde character can now be completed at
111 file name prompts; e.g. `C-x C-f ~hni<TAB>' will complete to
112 `~hniksic/'. To make this operation faster, a cache of user names is
113 maintained internally.
115 The new primitives available for this purpose are functions named
116 `user-name-completion' and `user-name-all-completions'.
118 ** Native widgets can be displayed in buffers.
120 The glyph system has been extended to allow the display of glyphs that
121 are implemented as native window-system widgets. Thus you can embed
122 buttons, scrollbars, combo boxes, edit fields and progress gauges in a
123 buffer. As a side effect subwindow support now works once again.
125 This support is currently only available under MS-Windows.
127 ** X-Face support is now available under MS-Windows.
128 If an X-Face libary built under MS-Windows is available then XEmacs
129 will use this at build time.
131 ** The font-menu is now available under MS-Windows.
133 ** MS-Windows support for selection is now much more robust.
135 Generally selection should now do what you would expect under
136 MS-Windows: the middle mouse button will paste your current selection
137 or the clipboard; conversions from different types of selection to the
138 clipboard can be made; the kill-ring and friends will be updated as
141 The only thing selection doesn't do is set the clipboard automatically
142 as this would break the MS-Windows model. If you want this behaviour
143 then set `selection-sets-clipboard' to t
145 ** New command-line switches -user-init-file and -user-init-directory.
146 These can be used to specify alternate locations for what is normally
147 ~/.emacs and ~/.xemacs.
149 Moreover, -user <user> (which used to only work in unpredictable ways)
151 -user-init-file ~<user>/.emacs -user-init-directory ~<user>/.xemacs.
154 * Lisp and internal changes in XEmacs 21.2
155 ==========================================
157 ** Much effort has been invested to make XEmacs Lisp faster:
159 *** Many basic lisp operations are now faster.
160 This is especially the case when running a Mule-enabled XEmacs.
162 A general overhaul of the lisp engine should produce a speedup of 1.4
163 in a Latin-1 XEmacs, and 2.1 in a Mule XEmacs. These numbers were
164 obtained running `(byte-compile "simple.el")', which should be a
165 pretty typical test of "pure" Lisp.
167 *** Lisp hash tables have been re-implemented. The Common Lisp style
168 hash table interface has been made standard, and moved from cl.el into
169 fast C code (See the section on hash tables in the XEmacs Lisp
170 Reference). A speedup factor of 3 can be expected with code that
171 makes intensive use of hash tables.
173 *** The garbage collector has been tuned, leading to a speedup of
176 *** The family of functions that iterate over lists, like `memq', and
177 `rassq', have been made a little faster (typically 1.3).
179 *** Lisp function calls are faster, by approximately a factor of two.
180 However, defining inline functions (via defsubst) still makes sense
183 *** Finally, a few functions have had dramatic performance
184 improvements. For example, `(last long-list)' is now 30 times faster.
186 Of course, your mileage will vary.
188 Many operations do not see any improvement. Surprisingly, running
189 (font-lock-fontify-buffer) does not use the Lisp engine much at all.
190 Speeding up your favorite slow operation is an excellent project to
191 improve XEmacs. Don't forget to profile!
193 ** XEmacs finally has an automated test suite!
194 Although this is not yet very sophisticated, it is already responsible
195 for several important bug fixes in XEmacs. To try it out, simply use
196 the makefile target `make check' after building XEmacs.
198 ** Hash tables have been reimplemented.
199 As was pointed out above, the standard interface to hash tables is now
200 the Common Lisp interface, as described in Common Lisp, the Language
201 (CLtL2, by Steele). The older interface (functions with names
202 containing the phrase `hashtable') will continue to work, but the
203 preferred interface now has names containing the phrase `hash-table'.
205 Here's the executive overview: create hash tables using
206 make-hash-table, and use gethash, puthash, remhash, maphash and
207 clrhash to manipulate entries in the hash table. See the (updated)
208 Lisp Reference Manual for details.
210 ** Lisp code handles circular lists much more robustly.
211 Many basic lisp functions used to loop forever when given a circular
212 list, expecting you to C-g (quit) out of the loop. Now this is more
213 likely to trigger a `circular-list' error. Printing a circular list
214 now results in something like this:
216 (let ((x (cons 'foo 'foo)))
219 => (foo ... <circular list>)
221 An extra bonus is that checking for circularities is not just
222 friendlier, but actually faster than checking for C-g.
224 ** The new form `ignore-file-errors', similar to `ignore-errors' may
225 be used as a short-hand for condition-case when you wish to ignore
226 file-related error. For example:
228 (ignore-file-errors (delete-file "foo"))
230 ** The arguments to `locate-file' are now much more "lispy". As
231 before, the usage is:
233 (locate-file FILENAME PATH-LIST &optional SUFFIXES MODE)
235 Except that SUFFIXES are now a list of strings instead of a single,
236 colon-separated string. MODE is now a symbol or a list of symbols
237 (symbols `exists', `executable', `writable', and `readable' are
238 supported) instead of an integer code. See the documentation for
241 Of course, the old form is still accepted for backward compatibility.
243 ** `translate-region' has been improved in several ways. Its TABLE
244 argument used to be a 256-character string. In addition to this, it
245 can now also be a vector or a char-table (which is useful for Mule.)
246 If TABLE a vector or a generic char-table, you can map characters to
247 strings instead of to other characters. For instance:
249 (let ((table (make-char-table 'generic)))
250 (put-char-table ?a "the letter a" table)
251 (put-char-table ?b "" table)
252 (put-char-table ?c ?\n table)
253 (translate-region (point-min) (point-max) table))
255 ** The `keywordp' function now returns non-nil only on symbols
256 interned in the global obarray. For example:
258 (keywordp (intern ":foo" [0]))
260 (keywordp (intern ":foo")) ; The same as (keywordp :foo)
263 This behaviour is compatible with other code which treats symbols
264 beginning with colon as keywords only if they are interned in the
265 global obarray. `keywordp' used to wrongly return t in both cases
268 ** The first argument to `intern-soft' may now also be a symbol, like
269 with `unintern'. If given a symbol, `intern-soft' will look for that
270 exact symbol rather than for any string. This is useful when you want
271 to check whether a specific symbol is interned in an obarray, e.g.:
276 (intern-soft (make-symbol "foo"))
279 ** Functions for decoding base64 encoding are now available; see
280 `base64-encode-region', `base64-encode-string', `base64-decode-region'
281 and `base64-decode-string'.
283 ** user-init-directory is now an absolute, unexpanded path.
284 Previously, `user-init-directory' used to be relative to
285 (concat "~" init-file-user). This turned out to be too complicated
286 for most packages (and some core Lisp files) to use correctly.
288 Also, `init-file-user' has been obsoleted in the process.
291 * Changes in XEmacs 21.0
292 ========================
294 ** XEmacs has been unbundled into constituent installable packages.
295 See the Info documentation under "Packages" for more information.
296 See the file `etc/PACKAGES' in the distribution for a partial list of
297 packages available at the time of the 21.0 release.
299 ** XEmacs is now supported under Microsoft Windows 95/98 and Windows
300 NT operating systems. For starters, look at the XEmacs on Windows FAQ
301 at <URL:http://jagor.srce.hr/~hniksic/xemacs-on-windows-faq.txt>. To
302 discuss Windows-specific issues, subscribe to the mailing list at
303 <xemacs-nt-request@xemacs.org>.
305 ** XEmacs will now use `XEmacs' as its application class if it finds
306 any `XEmacs' resources in the resource database. Otherwise, it will
307 continue to use the `Emacs' class.
309 ** The options menu has been ported to Custom.
310 This means that each entry in the options menu acts as if you had customized
311 the corresponding variable by hand. ### WARNING: there is currently no
312 upgrading function to help you port your old options settings to the new
313 format. Consequently, if you want to modify the options for XEmacs 21, you
314 will have to set them all again through the menu, and remove the code loading
315 .xemacs-options from your .emacs.
317 ** When the Zmacs region is active, `M-x query-replace' and the other
318 replace commands now operate on the region contents only.
320 ** XEmacs now is able to choose X visuals and use private colormaps.
321 The '-visual <visualStr>' command line option or the '.EmacsVisual'
322 Xresource controls which visual XEmacs will use, and
323 '-privateColormap' or '.privateColormap' will force XEmacs to create a
324 private colormap for use. The syntax for the visual string is
325 "<visual><bitdepth>" where <visual> is one of 'StaticColor',
326 'TrueColor', 'GrayScale', 'PseudoColor' or 'DirectColor' and
327 <bitdepth> is the appropriate number of bits per pixel. If an invalid
328 or non-supported combination is entered, XEmacs attempts to find a happy
329 medium. The X creation mechanism will then determine if it needs to
330 create a colormap for use, or the presence of the private flags will
331 force it to create it.
333 ** The `imenu' package has been ported to XEmacs and is available as a
336 ** `echo-keystrokes' can now be a floating-point number, so that you
337 can set it to intervals shorter than one second.
339 (setq echo-keystrokes 0.1)
341 ** The new command `center-to-window-line' works like `recenter'
342 (bound to `C-l'), only it does not redisplay the whole display area.
344 ** The M-. command will now first search through exact tags matches,
345 and then through inexact matches, as one would expect.
347 ** The new variable `user-full-name' can be used to customize one's
348 name when using the Emacs mail and news reading facilities.
350 Normally, `user-full-name' is a function that returns the full name of
351 a user or UID, as specified by the system -- for instance,
352 (user-full-name "root") returns something like "Super-User". However,
353 when the function is called without arguments, it will return the
354 value of the `user-full-name' variable. The `user-full-name' variable
355 is initialized using the environment variable NAME and (failing that)
356 the user's system name.
358 The behavior of the `user-full-name' function with an argument
359 specified is unchanged.
361 ** The new command `M-x customize-changed-options' lets you customize
362 all the options whose default values have changed in recent Emacs
363 versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as argument,
364 and the command creates a customization buffer showing all the
365 customizable options whose default values were changed since that
368 If you don't specify a particular version number argument, then the
369 customization buffer shows all the customizable options for which
370 Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
372 ** The new command `add-log-convert' can be used to convert the
373 old-style (pre-20.3) ChangeLog buffers to new style, for
374 consistency. A reminder: if you wish to revert to old-style
375 ChangeLogs instead, customize the value of `add-log-time-format'
378 ** The new command `zap-up-to-char' is now available. It is similar
379 to `zap-to-char', except that it does not delete the searched-for
380 character. It is not bound to a key by default.
382 ** You can now store a number into a register with `C-u NUMBER C-x r n'
383 REG, increment it by INC with `C-u INC C-x r + REG' (to increment by
384 one, omit C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with `C-x r g REG'.
385 This is useful for writing keyboard macros.
387 ** The M-: command, when given a prefix argument, will now insert its
388 result to the current buffer.
390 ** The `C-h c' command, when given a prefix argument, will now insert
391 the message into the current buffer.
393 ** Horizontally split windows may now be dragged using the mouse.
394 Because of this, the dividers between vertical windows are always
395 visible. To turn it off, set `vertical-divider-always-visible-p' to
398 ** XEmacs/Mule (internationalization) changes.
400 *** Mule support now works on TTY's. Use `set-terminal-coding-system'
401 and `set-keyboard-coding-system' to specify the coding system of your
402 display and keyboard.
404 *** Egg/SJ3 input method is now officially supported. Quail and
405 Egg/Skk have been available through the generalized Leim since 20.3.
407 *** Localized Japanese menubars are available if XEmacs is built with
408 XFONTSET and either the X11 libraries are built with X_LOCALE defined
409 or the native C libraries support Japanese localization. This has
410 been available since 20.3, only it hasn't been announced before.
412 ** Jamie Zawinski's `gdb-highlight' extension is now distributed with
413 the `debug' package. gdb-highlight makes most objects printed in a
414 gdb buffer be mouse-sensitive: as text shows up in the buffer, it is
415 parsed, and objects which are recognized have context-sensitive
416 commands attached to them. To use it, add the following to `.emacs':
418 (add-hook 'gdb-mode-hook (lambda () (require 'gdb-highlight)))
420 ** The package popper.el is now included in the edit-utils package.
421 It has been greatly enhanced with respect to the one once included
422 with the ilisp package and should work well under XEmacs 21.0.
426 *** Like the old 'gnudoit' program. Gnuclient -batch now can read from stdin.
428 *** Gnuclient -batch no longer breaks off the output at the first LF.
432 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
433 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
434 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
437 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
438 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable setings and customizations.
439 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu" style
440 is still the default however.
442 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
444 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
445 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
446 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
448 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
449 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
451 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
452 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
454 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
455 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
457 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
458 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
460 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
461 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
462 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
463 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
465 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
466 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
467 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
468 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this makes a
469 practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
471 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
472 and is an alias for it.
474 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
475 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
477 ** Changes to Gnus, the XEmacs newsreader.
479 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
480 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
481 Gnus manual for the full story.
483 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
484 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
485 group, which is created automatically.
487 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
490 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
492 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
493 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
495 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
498 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
500 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
501 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
503 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
505 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
506 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
508 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
509 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
511 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
512 control over simplification.
514 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
516 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
519 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
521 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
523 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
524 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
525 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
527 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
528 `a' forces normal posting method.
530 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
533 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
536 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
537 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
539 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
542 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
544 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
546 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
547 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
549 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
550 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
552 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
554 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
557 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
558 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
560 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
561 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
563 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
565 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
567 *** Byte-compilation of user-specs now works under XEmacs.
569 ** The `dir' files are no longer essential for functioning of the Info
570 subsystem. If the `dir' file does not exist in an Info directory, the
571 relevant information will be generated on-the-fly.
573 This behavior can be customized, look for `Info-auto-generate-directory'
574 and `Info-save-auto-generated-dir' in the `info' customization group.
577 * Lisp and internal changes in XEmacs 21.0
578 ==========================================
580 ** It is now possible to build XEmacs with support for 31-bit Lisp
581 integers (normally, Lisp integers are only 28 bits wide on 32-bit
582 machines.) Configure with --use-minimal-tagbits to test. With this
583 change, the maximum buffer size on 32-bit machines is increased from
584 128M to 1G. This setting will be made default in a future XEmacs
587 ** Specifier changes.
589 *** When instantiating a specifier, the window locale now has a higher
590 precedence than the buffer locale. This is because the window locale
591 is more specific than the buffer locale.
593 *** The new macro `let-specifier' can be used to temporarily add
594 specifications to specifiers. See the documentation for details.
596 *** The new specifiers `vertical-scrollbar-visible-p' and
597 `horizontal-scrollbar-visible-p' may be used to control scrollbar
598 visibility. Previously, the only way to remove a scrollbar was to set
599 its size to 0. This method is still supported for backward
602 *** The new specifiers `scrollbar-on-left-p' and `scrollbar-on-top-p'
603 may be used to control the position of the vertical and horizontal
604 toolbar. Previously, their position could be changed only through the
607 *** The new draggable vertical dividers between windows may be turned
608 off using the `vertical-divider-always-visible-p' specifier. When
609 this is set to nil, the vertical dividers between windows are shown
610 only when needed, and they are not draggable.
612 Other properties of the vertical dividers may be controlled using
613 `vertical-divider-shadow-thickness', `vertical-divider-line-width' and
614 `vertical-divider-spacing' specifiers, which see.
616 ** Frame focus management changes.
618 *** When the variable focus-follows-mouse is non-nil, `select-frame'
619 no longer permanently selects a different frame. The frame selection
620 is temporary and is reverted when the current command terminates, much
621 like the buffer selected by `set-buffer'. This is the same as in FSF
624 *** The new function `focus-frame' sets the window system focus to
625 FRAME (and selects it), regardless of the value of
626 `focus-follows-mouse'. Doing this is not well behaved, so be
627 absolutely sure that you want this.
629 The code that uses `select-frame' only to get the window manager focus
630 should be changed to use `set-frame-focus' instead, so that they keep
631 working when `focus-follows-mouse' is non-nil.
633 *** The special forms `save-selected-frame' and `with-selected-frame'
634 can now be used to temporarily change selected frame.
636 *** The behavior of `other-frame' command (`C-x 5 o') is unaffected by
639 ** The function `select-window' now has an optional second argument
640 NORECORD which if non-nil inhibits the recording of a buffer change.
642 ** The function `vertical-motion' now correctly handles the second,
643 optional WINDOW argument. A new third argument PIXELS, if non-nil,
644 indicates that the returned motion should be in pixels.
646 ** The new function `vertical-motion-pixels' is similar to
647 vertical-motion but takes as input a vertical motion in pixels.
649 ** The new functions window-text-area-pixel-{width,height,edges} can
650 be used to obtain information about the text-displaying area of a
653 ** The new functions `shrink-window-pixels' and `enlarge-window-pixels'
654 can be used to adjust the size of a window by a pixel amount.
656 ** The new function `window-displayed-text-pixel-height' can be used
657 to determine the height of the text actually displayed in a window.
659 ** The arithmetic comparison functions <, >, =, /= now accept a
660 variable number of arguments.
662 This means that if you want to test whether A < B < C, you can write
663 it as (< A B C) instead of (and (< A B) (< B C)). Likewise,
664 (apply #'> LIST) now tests if LIST is monotonously increasing -- and
667 ** The XEmacs hashtables now have a consistent read/print syntax.
668 This means that a hashtable will be readably printed in a
671 #s(hashtable size 2 data (key1 value1 key2 value2))
673 When XEmacs reads this form, it will create a new hashtable according
674 to description. This allows you to easily dump hashtables to files
675 using `prin1', and read them back in using `read'.
677 If `print-readably' is non-nil, a more relaxed syntax is used; for
680 #<hashtable size 2/13 data (key1 value1 key2 value2) 0x874d>
682 ** It is now possible to build XEmacs with LDAP support.
683 You will need to install a LDAP library first. The following have
685 - LDAP 3.3 from the University of Michigan
686 (get it from <URL:http://www.umich.edu/~dirsvcs/ldap/>)
687 - OpenLDAP 1.0.3 from the OpenLDAP Foundation
688 (get it from <URL:http://www.openldap.org/>)
689 - LDAP SDK 1.0 from Netscape Corp.
690 (get it from <URL:http://developer.netscape.com/>)
692 ** When profiling is in effect, a call-count of all recorded functions
693 is now calculated. This information is stored in
694 `call-count-profile-table', and is utilized by `profile-results' as
695 well as the new command `profile-call-count-results'.
697 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
698 starts with a colon, if it is interned in the standard obarray.
700 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
701 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
702 support pre-19.12 XEmacs and pre-20 GNU Emacs by explicitly setting
703 these variables to themselves.
705 ** The `concat' function no longer accepts integer arguments.
707 ** The new function `string' concatenates all its argument characters
708 and returns the resulting string. This is consistent with other
709 functions, like `list', `vector', etc.
711 ** The function `temp-directory' is now available to return the
712 directory to store temporary files. On Unix this will be obtained
713 from TMPDIR, defaulting to `/tmp'.
715 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
716 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
717 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
719 ** The `make-event' function now supports the TYPE and PLIST
720 arguments, which can be used to create various events from Lisp. See
721 the documentation for details.
723 ** `function-interactive' is a new function that returns the
724 interactive specification of a funcallable object.
726 ** The new `lmessage' function allows printing of a formatted message
727 with a particular label.
729 (lmessage 'progress "Processing... %d" counter)
731 This function is more convenient than `display-message' because it
732 automatically applies `format' to its arguments.
734 ** The new `lwarn' function, analogous to `lmessage', allows printing
735 a formatted warning, with a non-default CLASS or LABEL.
737 ** The new function `split-path' can now be used to explode the
738 components of a colon-separated search path into a list.
740 (split-path "foo:bar")
743 ** Specifiers and symbols whose value is a specifier are now allowed
744 as modeline specifications.
746 ** defcustom now accepts the keyword `:version'. Use this to specify
747 in which version of Emacs a certain variable's default value changed.
750 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
755 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options
758 ** The line number tracking in modeline is now efficient, even for
759 very large buffers. This is achieved by caching the line numbers of
760 recent buffer positions, and reusing them. This cache is used only in
761 the buffers where `line-number-mode' is in effect.
763 ** When the new GNU Malloc aka Doug Lea Malloc is available, it will
764 be used. This should result in better performance on Linux systems
767 ** The code XEmacs uses to assemble its various paths into the
768 directory hierarchy has been rewritten to support the package system.
769 Look under "Startup Paths" in the Info documentation for more
772 *** site-lisp is no longer part of the load-path by default.
773 Its use is deprecated, but you can specify --with-site-lisp=yes at the
774 configure command line to get it back.
776 *** `Info-default-directory-list' is now obsolete. If you want to
777 change the path which XEmacs uses to search for info files, set
778 `Info-directory-list' instead.