6 This file presents the changes in recent XEmacs versions. It
7 primarily documents user-visible (interface) changes, but also
8 includes internal changes of possible interest to the users. When
9 describing new features, we try to also document ways of reverting to
10 the old behavior, where applicable. If you dislike a recent change in
11 how XEmacs behaves, this file might contain a remedy.
13 Use `C-c C-f' to move to the next equal level of outline, and
14 `C-c C-b' to move to previous equal level. `C-h m' will give more
15 info about the Outline mode. Many commands are also available through
18 Users who would like to know which capabilities have been introduced
19 in each release should look at the appropriate section of this file.
20 Starting with version 20.0, XEmacs includes ChangeLogs, which can be
21 consulted for a more detailed list of changes.
23 N.B. The term "GNU Emacs" refers to any release of Emacs Version
24 19 from the Free Software Foundation's GNU Project. (We do not
25 say just "Emacs" as Richard M. Stallman ["RMS"] prefers, because
26 it is clearly a more generic term.) The term "XEmacs" refers to
27 this program or sometimes to its predecessors "Era" and "Lucid
28 Emacs". The predecessor of all these program is called "Emacs
29 18". When no particular version is implied, "Emacs" will be used.
32 * Changes in XEmacs 21.4
33 ========================
35 ** Summary of user-visible changes:
37 -- PUI related changes (Package User Interface)
38 - A minor rearrangement of the "Tools -> Packages" menu.
39 - Only a single package download site can be selected.
40 - Managing packages via the `customize' interface is no longer
42 - Non-Mule XEmacsen can not install Mule packages.
43 - The "mule-base" package is not needed to "bootstrap" PUI for
44 Mule enabled XEmacsen.
45 - The default for PGP verifying the package-index file is "off" in
47 - The default package-index filename has changed to
48 `package-index.LATEST.gpg'.
49 - The location of the local index file is customisable. See
50 `package-get-package-index-file-location'.
51 - `pui-add-install-directory' has been obsoleted and replaced by
52 `pui-set-local-package-get-directory'.
53 -- The delete key now deletes forward by default.
54 -- Shifted motion keys now select text by default.
55 -- You can now build XEmacs with support for GTK+ widget set.
56 -- ~/.xemacs/init.el is now the preferred location for the init file.
57 - XEmacs now supports a `~/.xemacs/init.el' startup file.
58 - Custom file will move to ~/.xemacs/custom.el.
59 -- Much-improved sample init.el, showing how to use many useful features.
60 -- XEmacs support for menu accelerators has been much improved.
61 -- Default menubar improvements.
62 - Default menubar has many new commands and better organization.
63 - The font-menu is now available under MS Windows.
64 -- Dialog box improvements, including a real file dialog box.
65 - XEmacs now has a proper file dialog box under MS Windows (and GTK)!
66 - The old clunky file dialog box is improved.
67 - Keyboard traversal now works correctly in MS Windows dialog boxes.
68 - There is a Search dialog box available from Edit->Find...
70 -- There is a new MS Windows installer, netinstall, ported from Cygwin.
71 -- The subprocess quote-handling mechanism under Windows is much improved.
72 -- Printing support now available under MS Windows.
73 -- Selection improvements.
74 - Kill and yank now interact with the clipboard under Windows.
75 - MS Windows support for selection is now much more robust.
76 - Motif selection support is now more correct (but slower).
77 -- Mail spool locking now works correctly.
78 -- International support changes.
79 - The default coding-priority-list is now safer.
80 - International keysyms are now supported under X.
81 - MS Windows 1251 code page now supported.
82 - Czech, Thai, Cyrillic-KOI8, Vietnamese, Ethiopic now supported.
83 - Proper support for words in Latin 3 and Latin 4.
84 -- Help buffers contain hyperlinks, and other changes.
85 -- The modeline's text is now scrollable.
86 -- The mouse wheel under MS Windows now functions correctly.
87 -- Interactive searching and matching case improvements.
88 - Incremental search will now highlight all visible matches.
89 - Interactive searches always respect uppercase characters.
90 -- Rectangle functions rewritten to avoid inserting extra spaces.
91 -- New command `kill-entire-line' that always kills the entire line.
92 -- Default values correctly stored in minibuffer histories.
93 -- You can now create "indirect buffers", like in GNU Emacs.
94 -- Pixel-based scrolling has been implemented.
95 -- Operation progress can be displayed using graphical widgets.
96 -- User names following a tilde can now be completed at file name prompts.
97 -- XEmacs can now play sound using Enlightenment Sound Daemon (ESD).
98 -- X-Face support is now available under MS Windows.
99 -- The PostgreSQL Relational Database Management System is now supported.
100 -- Indentation no longer indents comments that begin at column zero.
101 -- Face and variable settings can have comments in Customize.
102 -- New locations for early package hierarchies.
103 -- The `auto-save' library has been greatly improved.
104 -- New variable `mswindows-alt-by-itself-activates-menu'.
105 -- Other init-file-related changes.
106 - Init file in your home directory may be called `.emacs.el'.
107 - New command-line switches -user-init-file and -user-init-directory.
109 - In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
110 - New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex.
111 - New option --declarations, for C-type languages.
112 - In C++, tags are created for "operator".
114 - In Fortran, procedure is no longer tagged.
115 - In Java, tags are created for "interface".
116 - In Lisp, def-type constructs are now tagged.
117 - In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables.
118 - Python now supported.
119 - New file extensions recognized: .ss, .pdb, .psw.
120 -- Fixed ldap libraries configuration.
122 ** The delete key now deletes forward by default.
124 This is regulated by the variable `delete-key-deletes-forward', which
125 now defaults to t. `delete-key-deletes-forward' takes effect only on
126 the systems that offer both a backspace and a delete key. If set to
127 nil, the key labeled "Delete" will always delete backward. If set to
128 non-nil, the "Delete" key will delete forward, except on keyboards
129 where a "Backspace" key is not provided (e.g. old DEC keyboards).
131 Unless our implementation has bugs, the only reason why you would want
132 to set `delete-key-deletes-forward' to nil is if you want to use the
133 Delete key to delete backwards, despite the presence (according to
134 Xlib) of a BackSpace key on the keyboard.
136 ** Shifted motion keys now select text by default.
138 You can turn this off by setting `shifted-motion-keys-select-region'
139 to nil. This works based off of particular keys, not particular
140 commands: Thus, the arrow keys will normally trigger selection when
141 the Shift key is held down regardless of their bindings, and non-arrow
142 keys with the same bindings (e.g. C-f) will not work this way. You
143 can control which keys trigger shifted motion using
144 `motion-keys-for-shifted-motion'. See also
145 `unshifted-motion-keys-deselect-region'.
147 ** You can now build XEmacs with support for GTK+ widget set.
149 XEmacs built that way uses GTK+ to draw menubars, scrollbars, and
150 other GUI components, as well GDK for drawing text, choosing fonts,
151 allocating colors, etc. Additionally, GTK-XEmacs supports Lisp
152 functions for writing your own GTK programs in Emacs Lisp!
154 To use this, build XEmacs with the `--with-gtk' configure flag. (Of
155 course, you'll need to have the GTK+ libraries and header files on the
156 system.) Gnome widgets and functionality are supported where
157 available, and can be turned off.
159 ** ~/.xemacs/init.el is now the preferred location for the init file.
161 *** XEmacs now supports a `~/.xemacs/init.el' startup file.
162 If it exists, XEmacs will prefer it over `.emacs' and `.emacs.el'.
163 The file may be byte-compiled as `~/.xemacs/init.elc'.
165 If present, the `~/.xemacs/' directory may contain startup files for
166 XEmacs packages that support it.
168 The first time you start up XEmacs, it will ask you if you would like
169 to migrate your `.emacs' to the new location. (Your custom settings
170 will also be moved, to `~/.xemacs/custom.el' -- see below.) If so, you
171 will also be asked whether you would like to create a compatibility
172 `.emacs' for backward compatibility with previous versions of XEmacs
173 and with GNU Emacs. (This compatibility `.emacs' simply loads the new
174 init and custom files.) Doing this is generally a good idea -- new
175 versions of XEmacs will prefer `~/.xemacs/init.el' over `~/.emacs' in
178 You can manually migrate at any time with `migrate-user-init-file',
179 and undo any migration with `unmigrate-user-init-file'. The function
180 `create-compatibility-dot-emacs' also lets you manually create a
181 compatibility `.emacs'.
183 NOTE: Under MS Windows, your home directory (i.e. the directory named
184 `~') is specified by the HOME environment variable, and defaults to
185 C:\. To set this variable, modify AUTOEXEC.BAT under Windows 95/98,
186 or select Control Panel->System->Advanced->Environment Variables...
187 under Windows NT/2000.
189 *** Custom file will move to ~/.xemacs/custom.el.
191 Whereas customize settings were formerly stored in the regular init
192 file, XEmacs now prefers them to be in a separate file
193 `~/.xemacs/custom.el', completely under automatic control. This
194 change goes with the migration of the init file, and XEmacs offers
195 automatic migration upon startup.
197 ** Much-improved sample init.el, showing how to use many useful features.
199 The sample init file, located in the `etc/' directory of the XEmacs
200 installation, has been renamed from `sample.emacs' to `sample.init.el',
201 and pretty much rewritten from scratch. (You can view it by selecting
202 the menu item Help->Samples->Sample init.el.) Many of the most-useful
203 optional features in XEmacs have been enabled, and other features that
204 are useful but may be annoying to some are present but commented out.
205 There is also extensive documentation on how to add your own
206 improvements to the init file and where to find more documentation
207 elsewhere in XEmacs. The file has been specifically designed so that
208 most people can simply make it their own init file by copying it to
209 ~/.xemacs/init.el, and they will be satisfied with the results.
211 ** XEmacs support for menu accelerators has been much improved.
213 It now works properly under MS Windows, for example. To enable
214 accelerators, set `menu-accelerator-enabled' to `menu-force'. Menus
215 now have accelerators by default, currently on the first letter of the
216 menu item unless another letter was indicated as the accelerator using
217 %_ in the menu string. These %_ specifications are automatically
218 removed when displaying the menu item, and are handled correctly in
219 functions such as `normalize-menu-item-name'. Some auto-generated
220 menus will have accelerators added dynamically, using numbers 1-9 and
221 letters; to add this feature yourself, use the Lisp command
222 `submenu-generate-accelerator-spec' in a menu filter. The feature
223 `menu-accelerator-support' has been added so that packages can check
224 whether this support exists.
226 ** Default menubar improvements.
228 *** Default menubar has many new commands and better organization.
230 The default menubar has been extensively reorganized. Many more
231 commands are available, and they are more logically organized. The
232 Options menu, in particular, has been significantly expanded, and almost
233 everything on the new Cmds menu is new. (Much of the useful
234 functionality from the `big-menubar' package has been imported.)
236 *** The font-menu is now available under MS Windows.
238 ** Dialog box improvements, including a real file dialog box.
240 *** XEmacs now has a proper file dialog box under MS Windows (and GTK)!
241 This will appear whenever you select a menu item that requires a file
244 *** The old clunky file dialog box is improved.
245 The in-buffer file dialog box (visible on non-MS-Windows, non-GTK
246 systems) is still clunky but has had many improvements to make it work
247 significantly better.
249 *** Keyboard traversal now works correctly in MS Windows dialog boxes.
251 *** There is a Search dialog box available from Edit->Find...
252 However, it's very experimental and needs a lot of work.
256 You can now use buffer tabs to switch between buffers.
258 The tabs are located between the toolbar and the uppermost window, in
259 a location called the "gutter". If you dislike the buffer tabs, you can
260 disable them using the menu item `Options->Display->Buffers Tab Visible'
261 by customizing `gutter-buffers-tab-visible-p', or by placing this in
262 your .xemacs/init.el:
264 (custom-set-variables '(gutter-buffers-tab-visible-p nil))
266 You can change the location of the gutter using the menu item
267 `Options->Display->Default Gutter Location' or with (e.g.)
269 (custom-set-variables '(default-gutter-position 'left))
271 However, currently only MS Windows supports tab widgets with
272 orientations other than vertical, and it doesn't currently support
273 gutters on the bottom of the frame.
275 ** There is a new MS Windows installer, netinstall, ported from Cygwin.
277 Nearly complete automation of the XEmacs install process from
278 ftp.xemacs.org. Includes selection of Lisp packages to install, etc.
280 ** The subprocess quote-handling mechanism under Windows is much improved.
282 Specifically, the quote-handling mechanism has been completely rewritten,
283 and you should now be able to use single or double quotes to quote arguments
284 just like under Unix, and expect to get correct results regardless of the
285 shell you are using (e.g. CMD.EXE, bash from Cygwin, etc.). For example,
286 the following command:
288 M-x grep '<<<<<<<' *.c
290 should work as intended.
292 ** Printing support now available under MS Windows.
294 The File->Print... menu item pretty-prints using the standard MS
295 Windows printing facilities. Unfortunately it's still rather
296 experimental. There is a separate `msprinter' device tag for MS
297 Windows printers, and so you can control the way that faces appear on
298 the printer by using this tag to specify device-specific face
301 ** Selection improvements.
303 *** Kill and yank now interact with the clipboard under Windows.
305 This was done by changing the default value of `interprogram-cut-function'
306 and `interprogram-paste-function'. You can get the old behavior by
307 setting these to nil, and there is an option on the options menu to do
310 *** MS Windows support for selection is now much more robust.
312 Generally selection should now do what you would expect under
313 MS Windows: the middle mouse button will paste your current selection
314 or the clipboard; conversions from different types of selection to the
315 clipboard can be made; the kill-ring and friends will be updated as
318 The only thing selection doesn't do is set the clipboard automatically
319 as this would break the MS Windows model. If you want this behavior
320 then set `selection-sets-clipboard' to t.
322 *** Motif selection support is now more correct (but slower).
324 Changes have been made to allow correct operation of cut/copy/paste
325 operations between native widgets and XEmacs buffers. However, this
326 can lead to a lot of X traffic which slows down the performance of
327 `C-k'. If you want the old behaviour then set
328 `x-selection-strict-motif-ownership' to nil.
330 ** Mail spool locking now works correctly.
332 XEmacs has always come with a little auxiliary program, movemail,
333 which moves mail out of the system's spool area into user storage. To
334 coordinate between XEmacs, the mail delivery agent, and other mail
335 user agents, movemail needs to properly lock the spool file before
336 moving it. Movemail now correctly respects the --mail-locking option
337 to configure. Moreover, movemail's locking behavior can be specified
338 at run-time, via a new command-line option -m to movemail, or through
339 the environment variable EMACSLOCKMETHOD.
341 When installing XEmacs, make sure you configure it according to your
342 environment's mail spool locking conventions. When you're using a
343 binary kit, set the `mail-lock-method' variable at startup, or the
344 EMACSLOCKMETHOD environment variable.
346 ** International support changes.
348 *** The default coding-priority-list is now safer.
350 This means that if you have no language environment set, Mule no
351 longer automatically recognizes ISO 2022 escapes in your files. This
352 makes editing binary files safe.
354 *** International keysyms are now supported under X.
356 This means that XEmacs running under Mule will automatically recognize
357 the keysym `scaron' to be the lower-case `s' with caron in the Latin 2
358 character set. (Specifically, it will bind the keysym to
359 `self-insert' and augment its `ascii-character' property.) This is
360 very useful with XFree under European locales as shipped by recent
361 Linux distributions. If XEmacs is compiled without Mule support, the
362 feature still works, but it is unaware of different character sets --
363 it unconditionally sets the `ascii-character' property to values in
364 the [160, 256) range.
366 *** MS Windows 1251 code page now supported.
368 It's available as coding system `windows-1251'.
370 *** Czech, Thai, Cyrillic-KOI8, Vietnamese, Ethiopic now supported.
372 *** Proper support for words in Latin 3 and Latin 4.
374 The appropriate characters in Latin 3 and Latin 4 character sets are
375 correctly defined as words.
377 ** Help buffers contain hyperlinks, and other changes.
379 The help buffers created by C-h commands now contain hyperlinks to
380 other commands, functions and variables mentioned in the documentation.
381 Use button2 to follow a link. Use button3 to bring up a context menu
382 that lets you follow the link, find the source for the item, do a tag
383 search, etc. The buffers are also syntax-highlighted.
385 Help functions (e.g. `C-h f') now know how to print macro argument
386 lists. If your macro definition included an argument list for the sake
387 of help output, you no longer need to do that.
389 ** The modeline's text is now scrollable.
391 This is controlled by the variable `modeline-scrolling-method', which
392 you need to set to a non-nil value. You can also choose scrolling
393 types; see the docstring of `modeline-scrolling-method' for more
396 ** The mouse wheel under MS Windows now functions correctly.
398 It scrolls the XEmacs window under the pointer, not the selected
401 ** Interactive searching and matching case improvements.
403 *** Incremental search will now highlight all visible matches.
405 This makes it easier to anticipate where consecutive C-s or C-r will
406 place the point. If you want to disable the feature, set
407 `isearch-highlight-all-matches' to nil.
409 *** Interactive searches always respect uppercase characters.
411 Case sensitiveness in searching operations is normally controlled
412 by the variable `case-fold-search' (if non-nil, case is ignored while
413 searching). This mechanism has now been slightly improved for
414 interactive searches: if the search string (or regexp) contains
415 uppercase characters, the searching is forced to be case-sensitive,
418 The new behavior affects all functions performing interactive
419 searches, like `zap-to-char', `list-matching-lines', `tags-search'
420 etc. The incremental search facility has always behaved that way.
422 ** Rectangle functions rewritten to avoid inserting extra spaces.
424 The rectangle functions have been almost completely rewritten in
425 order to avoid inserting undesirable spaces, notably at the end of
426 lines. Two typical examples of the old behavior were
427 `string-rectangle', which filled all lines up to the right side of the
428 rectangle, and `clear-rectangle', which filled even empty lines up to
429 the left side. All functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting
430 unwanted spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the
433 Also, the behavior of `string-rectangle' is now compliant with
434 `pending-delete-mode': if this mode is active, then the string
435 replaces the region rectangle. Otherwise, the command does not delete
436 or overwrite any existing text. For those who want that feature but do
437 not use pending-delete-mode, a new function, `replace-rectangle', is
440 As a side effect, the FORCE argument to `move-to-column' now
441 understands the special value `coerce', which means that the line
442 should not be filled if it is too short to reach the desired column.
444 ** New command `kill-entire-line' that always kills the entire line.
446 This kills the entire line at point, regardless of whether the point
447 is at the beginning of line, and regardless of the setting of
450 ** Default values correctly stored in minibuffer histories.
452 When you press RET at a minibuffer prompt that provides a default
453 value, the value is stored in history instead of an empty line. Also,
454 you can now edit the default value by pressing the down arrow,
455 accessing the logical "future" value. Not all minibuffer prompts have
456 yet been converted to support this feature.
458 ** You can now create "indirect buffers", like in GNU Emacs.
460 An indirect buffer shares its text with another buffer ("base
461 buffer"), but has its own major mode, local variables, extents, and
462 narrowing. An indirect buffer has a name of its own, distinct from
463 those of the base buffer and all other buffers. An indirect buffer
464 cannot itself be visiting a file (though its base buffer can be).
465 The base buffer cannot itself be indirect.
467 Use (make-indirect-buffer BASE-BUFFER NAME) to make an indirect buffer
468 named NAME whose base is BASE-BUFFER. If BASE-BUFFER is itself an
469 indirect buffer, its base buffer is used as the base for the new
472 You can make an indirect buffer current, or switch to it in a window,
473 just as you would a non-indirect buffer.
475 The function `buffer-base-buffer' returns a buffer's base buffer or
476 nil, if given an ordinary (non-indirect) buffer. The function
477 `buffer-indirect-children' returns a list of the indirect children of
480 ** Pixel-based scrolling has been implemented.
481 By default this will attempt to scroll in increments equal to the
482 height of the default face. Set `window-pixel-scroll-increment' to
483 modify this behavior.
485 ** Operation progress can be displayed using graphical widgets.
486 See `progress-feedback' for details. This support has been switched
487 on by default for font-lock and some web browsing functions. If you
488 do not like this behavior, set `progress-feedback-use-echo-area' to
491 ** User names following a tilde can now be completed at file name prompts.
492 e.g. `C-x C-f ~hni<TAB>' will complete to `~hniksic/'. To make this
493 operation faster, a cache of user names is maintained internally.
495 The new primitives available for this purpose are functions named
496 `user-name-completion' and `user-name-all-completions'.
498 ** XEmacs can now play sound using Enlightenment Sound Daemon (ESD).
499 It will try NAS first, then ESD, then playing native sound directly.
501 ** X-Face support is now available under MS Windows.
502 If an X-Face library built under MS Windows is available then XEmacs
503 will use this at build time.
505 ** The PostgreSQL Relational Database Management System is now supported.
506 It is now possible to build XEmacs so that the programming interface
507 to the PostgreSQL RDBMS (libpq) is available in XEmacs Lisp.
508 Supported versions of PostgreSQL are 6.5.3 (earlier versions may work,
509 but have not been tested) and 7.0-beta1.
511 ** Indentation no longer indents comments that begin at column zero.
512 This makes it easy to deal with commented out regions of code.
514 ** Face and variable settings can have comments in Customize.
515 Customize now supports adding comments about your face and variable
516 settings using a new menu entry. Comments for variables can also be
517 assigned by calling `customize-set-(value|variable)' with a prefix
520 ** New locations for early package hierarchies.
521 XEmacs now locates the early package hierarchies at
522 ~/.xemacs/mule-packages/ and ~/.xemacs/xemacs-packages/. Previously,
523 the early packages were located in ~/.xemacs/.
525 ** The `auto-save' library has been greatly improved.
526 (This lets you group all your auto-save files into one directory, and
527 is provided standardly with XEmacs. See `etc/sample.init.el',
528 available on the Help menu, for more info on how to set it up.)
529 Specifically, it now works under MS Windows, and it uses a completely
530 reversible encoding (basically quoted-printable), so that all
531 filenames (as well as non-filename buffers) are successfully handled
532 regardless of any special characters in their names.
534 ** New variable `mswindows-alt-by-itself-activates-menu'.
535 If you set this variable to nil then pressing and releasing the Alt
536 key under MS Windows will no longer activate the menubar. The default
537 is t. This is not to be confused with `menu-accelerator-enabled',
538 which enables the use of Alt+<Letter> accelerators to invoke the
541 ** Other init-file-related changes.
543 *** Init file in your home directory may be called `.emacs.el'.
545 Like in GNU Emacs 20.4 and on, you can now name the XEmacs init file
546 located in your home directory `.emacs.el'. Formerly the name had to
547 be `.emacs'. If you use the name `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile
548 the file in the usual way.
550 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file is the one
553 *** New command-line switches -user-init-file and -user-init-directory.
555 These can be used to specify alternate locations for what is normally
556 ~/.emacs and ~/.xemacs.
558 Moreover, the `-user <user>' command-line option (which used to only
559 work in unpredictable ways) is now equivalent to `-user-init-file
560 ~<user>/.xemacs/init.el -user-init-directory ~<user>/.xemacs', or
561 `-user-init-file ~<user>/.emacs -user-init-directory ~<user>/.xemacs',
562 whichever init file comes first.
566 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
568 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex.
569 It is now possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the
570 regexp with {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags
571 --help' prints out. This feature is useful especially for regex
572 files, where each line contains a regular expression. The manual
575 *** New option --declarations, for C-type languages.
576 In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
577 declarations when given the --declarations option.
579 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator".
580 The tags have the form "operator+", without spaces between the
581 keyword and the operator.
583 *** Ada now supported.
584 Tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and types.
586 *** In Fortran, procedure is no longer tagged.
588 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
590 *** In Lisp, def-type constructs are now tagged.
591 This includes "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs.
593 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables.
594 my and local variables are tagged.
596 *** Python now supported.
597 def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
599 *** New file extensions recognized: .ss, .pdb, .psw.
600 .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
603 ** Fixed ldap libraries configuration.
605 It used to fail when `-lldap' requires `-llber'. Introduced in
606 upstream `configure.in' revision 1.151.2.31 (2005/01/31 02:54:47 +0).
609 * Lisp and internal changes in XEmacs 21.4
610 ==========================================
612 ** A new portable dumper is available for beta testing.
614 Olivier Galibert has written a portable dumper for XEmacs, based on
615 initial work by Kyle Jones. To perform even the most basic editor,
616 XEmacs requires some amount of Lisp code to be loaded. To avoid
617 repeating the expensive loading process at every startup, XEmacs is
618 built in a special way. Its C sources link into an executable called
619 `temacs', which loads the bootstrap Lisp code and uses a special
620 "unexec" call to dump the resulting memory image into a proper
621 `xemacs' executable on disk. The unexec() process is hard to
622 implement correctly and makes XEmacs very hard to port to new
623 operating systems, or even to new releases of old systems.
625 The new portable dumper uses a different approach to dumping: instead
626 of dumping full-fledged executable, it only dumps out the initialized
627 data structures (both Lisp and C) into an external file. A normally
628 running XEmacs only needs to mmap that file and relocate a bit to get
629 to the initialized data. In that scheme, there is no difference
630 between `temacs' and `xemacs'.
632 Unfortunately, the portable dumper has not been completely finished
633 for this release, and will not be used by default. However, if you
634 wish to experiment with it, or if you need to compile XEmacs on a new
635 and unsupported platform, you can test it by configuring XEmacs with
638 ** Much effort has been invested to make XEmacs Lisp faster:
640 *** Many basic lisp operations are now faster.
641 This is especially the case when running a Mule-enabled XEmacs.
643 A general overhaul of the lisp engine should produce a speedup of 1.4
644 in a non-Mule XEmacs, and 2.1 in a Mule XEmacs. These numbers were
645 obtained running `(byte-compile "simple.el")', which should be a
646 pretty typical test of "pure" Lisp.
648 *** Lisp hash tables have been re-implemented. The Common Lisp style
649 hash table interface has been made standard, and moved from cl.el into
650 fast C code (See the section on hash tables in the XEmacs Lisp
651 Reference). A speedup factor of 3 can be expected with code that
652 makes intensive use of hash tables.
654 *** The garbage collector has been tuned, leading to a speedup of
657 *** The byte-compiler and the byte-optimizer have been tuned to
658 produce better code in many small ways.
660 *** The family of functions that iterate over lists, like `memq', and
661 `rassq', have been made a little faster (typically 1.3).
663 *** Lisp function calls are faster, by approximately a factor of two.
664 However, defining inline functions (via defsubst) still makes sense
667 *** Finally, a few functions have had dramatic performance
668 improvements. For example, `(last long-list)' is now 30 times faster.
670 Of course, your mileage will vary.
672 Many operations do not see any improvement. Surprisingly, running
673 (font-lock-fontify-buffer) does not use the Lisp engine much at all.
674 Speeding up your favorite slow operation is an excellent project to
675 improve XEmacs. Don't forget to profile!
677 ** Native widgets can be displayed in buffers.
679 The glyph system has been extended to allow the display of glyphs that
680 are implemented as native window-system widgets. Thus you can embed
681 buttons, scrollbars, combo boxes, edit fields and progress gauges in a
682 buffer. As a side effect subwindow support now works once again.
684 All of this is still fairly experimental and there is no
685 documentation. The current APIs might change in a future version of
686 XEmacs. Some widgets are only available under MS Windows. See the
687 file glyphs-test.el in the XEmacs src distribution for examples of
690 The buffers-tab functionality and progress gauge have been implemented
693 ** Case translation now supports international characters.
695 *** Instead of being lists of 256-character strings, case tables are
696 now opaque objects. The interface to access them is almost the same,
697 except it now works for international characters, and you can set the
698 case pairs using `put-case-table-pair'. `set-case-table' and friends
699 still support the old list/string based interface for backward
702 *** As a consequence of this change, functions `downcase' and `upcase'
703 as well as all the case-transformation commands now work with
704 non-ASCII characters. Built-in tables cover all the Latin character
705 sets that we support. If your language has a distinction between
706 upper and lower case that is not handled by XEmacs/Mule, please let us
709 *** The code that implements case-insensitive search has been modified
710 to respect the case table settings. This also applies to regexp
713 ** Syntax tables may now be specified for a part of a buffer by
714 attaching the `syntax-table' property to an extent. For compatibility
715 with GNU Emacs, you may use the text-property interface to achieve the
718 ** Values of variables `user-init-file' and `user-init-directory' are
719 now absolute file/directory names. Previously, both variables used to
720 be relative to `(concat "~" init-file-user)'. This turned out to be
721 too complicated for most packages (and some core Lisp files) to use
722 correctly. Also, the `init-file-user' variable has been obsoleted in
725 The user-visible options like `-u' have not changed their behavior.
727 ** XEmacs finally has an automated test suite!
728 Although this is not yet very sophisticated, it is already responsible
729 for several important bug fixes in XEmacs. To try it out, simply use
730 the makefile target `make check' after building XEmacs.
732 ** Hash tables have been reimplemented.
733 As was pointed out above, the standard interface to hash tables is now
734 the Common Lisp interface, as described in Common Lisp, the Language
735 (CLtL2, by Steele). The older interface (functions with names
736 containing the phrase `hashtable') will continue to work, but the
737 preferred interface now has names containing the phrase `hash-table'.
739 Here's the executive overview: create hash tables using
740 make-hash-table, and use gethash, puthash, remhash, maphash and
741 clrhash to manipulate entries in the hash table. See the (updated)
742 Lisp Reference Manual for details.
744 ** Lisp code handles circular lists much more robustly.
745 Many basic lisp functions used to loop forever when given a circular
746 list, expecting you to C-g (quit) out of the loop. Now this is more
747 likely to trigger a `circular-list' error. Printing a circular list
748 now results in something like this:
750 (let ((x (cons 'foo 'foo)))
753 => (foo ... <circular list>)
755 An extra bonus is that checking for circularities is not just
756 friendlier, but actually faster than checking for C-g.
758 ** Functions for decoding base64 encoding are now available; see
759 `base64-encode-region', `base64-encode-string', `base64-decode-region'
760 and `base64-decode-string'.
762 ** The functions `read-string', `read-expression', `eval-minibuffer',
763 `read-variable', `read-command', `read-function', `read-number',
764 `read-shell-command', `read-from-minibuffer', and `completing-read'
765 now take an additional argument which specifies the default value. If
766 this argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used
769 * It is returned if the user enters empty input.
770 * It is available as the logical "future" entry, by pressing the down
775 *** The LDAP interface now consists of two layers, a low-level layer
776 that closely matches the LDAP C API, and a more convenient
777 higher-level set of functions.
779 *** The low-level functions that used to be named *-internal are now
780 named more simply: `ldap-open', `ldap-close', `ldap-search-basic',
781 `ldap-add', and `ldap-modify'. They should be used directly for very
782 specific purposes (such as multiple operations on a connection) only.
784 *** The higher-level functions provide a more convenient way to access
785 LDAP directories hiding the subtleties of handling the connection,
786 translating arguments and ensuring compliance with LDAP
787 internationalization rules and formats (currently partly implemented
788 only.) This layer provides atomic operations for searches,
789 modification, addition and deletion of multiple entries at once:
790 `ldap-search-entries', `ldap-add-entries', `ldap-delete-entries', and
791 `ldap-modify-entries'.
793 *** To maintain compatibility with previous code, the now obsolete
794 function `ldap-search' is now merely a wrapper that calls either
795 `ldap-search-basic' or `ldap-search-entries'. Please don't use the
796 `ldap-search' function in your new programs -- a direct call to one of
797 the two replacements is more efficient and unambiguous.
799 ** The arguments to `locate-file' are now more Lisp-like. As before,
802 (locate-file FILENAME PATH-LIST &optional SUFFIXES MODE)
804 Except that SUFFIXES are now a list of strings instead of a single,
805 colon-separated string. MODE is now a symbol or a list of symbols
806 (symbols `exists', `executable', `writable', and `readable' are
807 supported) instead of an integer code. See the documentation for
808 details. Of course, the old form is still accepted for backward
811 Several bugs in locate-file have been fixed, most notably its failure
812 to call expand-file-name on elements of PATH-LIST. Because of that
813 elements of load-path of the form "~/..." used to not work.
814 locate-file is now guaranteed to expand files during its course of
817 ** `translate-region' has been improved in several ways. Its TABLE
818 argument used to be a 256-character string. In addition to this, it
819 can now also be a vector or a char-table, which makes the function
820 useful for Mule, which it wasn't. If TABLE is a vector or a generic
821 char-table, you can map characters to strings instead of to other
822 characters. For instance:
824 (let ((table (make-char-table 'generic)))
825 (put-char-table ?a "the letter a" table)
826 (put-char-table ?b "" table)
827 (put-char-table ?c ?\n table)
828 (translate-region (point-min) (point-max) table))
830 ** The new form `ignore-file-errors', similar to `ignore-errors' may
831 be used as a short-hand for condition-case when you wish to ignore
832 file-related error. For example:
834 (ignore-file-errors (delete-file "foo"))
836 ** The first argument to `intern-soft' may now also be a symbol, like
837 with `unintern'. If given a symbol, `intern-soft' will look for that
838 exact symbol rather than for any string. This is useful when you want
839 to check whether a specific symbol is interned in an obarray, e.g.:
844 (intern-soft (make-symbol "foo"))
847 ** The `keywordp' function now returns non-nil only on symbols
848 interned in the global obarray. For example:
850 (keywordp (intern ":foo" [0]))
852 (keywordp (intern ":foo")) ; The same as (keywordp :foo)
855 This behavior is compatible with other code which treats symbols
856 beginning with colon as keywords only if they are interned in the
857 global obarray. `keywordp' used to wrongly return t in both above
860 ** The function `replace-in-string' has been rewritten to use
861 `replace-match'. This not only makes it much faster, but adds all the
862 features of `replace-match'.
864 ** New variables `this-command-properties' and
865 `last-command-properties' are now available for communication between
866 consecutive commands. Commands should use these to communicate with
867 the pre/post-command hooks, subsequent commands, wrapping commands,
868 etc. in preference to looking at and/or setting `this-command'.
870 ** New functions `add-one-shot-hook' and `add-local-one-shot-hook' make
871 it possible to add a "one-shot" hook, which is to say a hook that runs
872 only once, and automatically removes itself after the first time it
875 ** The descriptor that specifies the text of a menu item can now be an
876 evaluated expression. This makes it parallel with other descriptors,
877 which can also be expressions.
880 * Changes in XEmacs 21.0
881 ========================
883 ** XEmacs has been unbundled into constituent installable packages.
884 See the Info documentation under "Packages" for more information.
885 See the file `etc/PACKAGES' in the distribution for a partial list of
886 packages available at the time of the 21.0 release.
888 ** XEmacs is now supported under Microsoft Windows 95/98 and Windows
889 NT operating systems. For starters, look at the XEmacs on Windows FAQ
890 at <URL:http://jagor.srce.hr/~hniksic/xemacs-on-windows-faq.txt>. To
891 discuss Windows-specific issues, subscribe to the mailing list at
892 <xemacs-nt-request@xemacs.org>.
894 ** XEmacs will now use `XEmacs' as its application class if it finds
895 any `XEmacs' resources in the resource database. Otherwise, it will
896 continue to use the `Emacs' class.
898 ** The options menu has been ported to Custom.
899 This means that each entry in the options menu acts as if you had customized
900 the corresponding variable by hand. ### WARNING: there is currently no
901 upgrading function to help you port your old options settings to the new
902 format. Consequently, if you want to modify the options for XEmacs 21, you
903 will have to set them all again through the menu, and remove the code loading
904 .xemacs-options from your .emacs.
906 ** When the Zmacs region is active, `M-x query-replace' and the other
907 replace commands now operate on the region contents only.
909 ** XEmacs now is able to choose X visuals and use private colormaps.
910 The '-visual <visualStr>' command line option or the '.EmacsVisual'
911 Xresource controls which visual XEmacs will use, and
912 '-privateColormap' or '.privateColormap' will force XEmacs to create a
913 private colormap for use. The syntax for the visual string is
914 "<visual><bitdepth>" where <visual> is one of 'StaticColor',
915 'TrueColor', 'GrayScale', 'PseudoColor' or 'DirectColor' and
916 <bitdepth> is the appropriate number of bits per pixel. If an invalid
917 or non-supported combination is entered, XEmacs attempts to find a happy
918 medium. The X creation mechanism will then determine if it needs to
919 create a colormap for use, or the presence of the private flags will
920 force it to create it.
922 ** The `imenu' package has been ported to XEmacs and is available as a
925 ** `echo-keystrokes' can now be a floating-point number, so that you
926 can set it to intervals shorter than one second.
928 (setq echo-keystrokes 0.1)
930 ** The new command `center-to-window-line' works like `recenter'
931 (bound to `C-l'), only it does not redisplay the whole display area.
933 ** The M-. command will now first search through exact tags matches,
934 and then through inexact matches, as one would expect.
936 ** The new variable `user-full-name' can be used to customize one's
937 name when using the Emacs mail and news reading facilities.
939 Normally, `user-full-name' is a function that returns the full name of
940 a user or UID, as specified by the system -- for instance,
941 (user-full-name "root") returns something like "Super-User". However,
942 when the function is called without arguments, it will return the
943 value of the `user-full-name' variable. The `user-full-name' variable
944 is initialized using the environment variable NAME and (failing that)
945 the user's system name.
947 The behavior of the `user-full-name' function with an argument
948 specified is unchanged.
950 ** The new command `M-x customize-changed-options' lets you customize
951 all the options whose default values have changed in recent Emacs
952 versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as argument,
953 and the command creates a customization buffer showing all the
954 customizable options whose default values were changed since that
957 If you don't specify a particular version number argument, then the
958 customization buffer shows all the customizable options for which
959 Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
961 ** The new command `add-log-convert' can be used to convert the
962 old-style (pre-20.3) ChangeLog buffers to new style, for
963 consistency. A reminder: if you wish to revert to old-style
964 ChangeLogs instead, customize the value of `add-log-time-format'
967 ** The new command `zap-up-to-char' is now available. It is similar
968 to `zap-to-char', except that it does not delete the searched-for
969 character. It is not bound to a key by default.
971 ** You can now store a number into a register with `C-u NUMBER C-x r n'
972 REG, increment it by INC with `C-u INC C-x r + REG' (to increment by
973 one, omit C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with `C-x r g REG'.
974 This is useful for writing keyboard macros.
976 ** The M-: command, when given a prefix argument, will now insert its
977 result to the current buffer.
979 ** The `C-h c' command, when given a prefix argument, will now insert
980 the message into the current buffer.
982 ** Horizontally split windows may now be dragged using the mouse.
983 Because of this, the dividers between vertical windows are always
984 visible. To turn it off, set `vertical-divider-always-visible-p' to
987 ** XEmacs/Mule (internationalization) changes.
989 *** Mule support now works on TTY's. Use `set-terminal-coding-system'
990 and `set-keyboard-coding-system' to specify the coding system of your
991 display and keyboard.
993 *** Egg/SJ3 input method is now officially supported. Quail and
994 Egg/Skk have been available through the generalized Leim since 20.3.
996 *** Localized Japanese menubars are available if XEmacs is built with
997 XFONTSET and either the X11 libraries are built with X_LOCALE defined
998 or the native C libraries support Japanese localization. This has
999 been available since 20.3, only it hasn't been announced before.
1001 ** Jamie Zawinski's `gdb-highlight' extension is now distributed with
1002 the `debug' package. gdb-highlight makes most objects printed in a
1003 gdb buffer be mouse-sensitive: as text shows up in the buffer, it is
1004 parsed, and objects which are recognized have context-sensitive
1005 commands attached to them. To use it, add the following to `.emacs':
1007 (add-hook 'gdb-mode-hook (lambda () (require 'gdb-highlight)))
1009 ** The package popper.el is now included in the edit-utils package.
1010 It has been greatly enhanced with respect to the one once included
1011 with the ilisp package and should work well under XEmacs 21.0.
1015 *** Like the old 'gnudoit' program. Gnuclient -batch now can read from stdin.
1017 *** Gnuclient -batch no longer breaks off the output at the first LF.
1021 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
1022 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
1023 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
1026 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
1027 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable setings and customizations.
1028 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu" style
1029 is still the default however.
1031 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
1033 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
1034 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
1035 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
1037 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
1038 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
1040 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
1041 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
1043 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
1044 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
1046 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
1047 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
1049 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
1050 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
1051 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
1052 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
1054 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
1055 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
1056 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
1057 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this makes a
1058 practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
1060 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
1061 and is an alias for it.
1063 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
1064 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
1066 ** Changes to Gnus, the XEmacs newsreader.
1068 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
1069 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
1070 Gnus manual for the full story.
1072 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
1073 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
1074 group, which is created automatically.
1076 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
1079 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
1081 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
1082 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
1084 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
1087 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
1089 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
1090 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
1092 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
1094 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
1095 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
1097 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
1098 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
1100 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
1101 control over simplification.
1103 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
1105 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
1108 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
1110 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
1112 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
1113 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
1114 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
1116 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
1117 `a' forces normal posting method.
1119 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
1122 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
1125 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
1126 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
1128 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
1131 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
1133 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
1135 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
1136 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
1138 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
1139 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
1141 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
1143 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
1146 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
1147 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
1149 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
1150 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
1152 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
1154 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
1156 *** Byte-compilation of user-specs now works under XEmacs.
1158 ** The `dir' files are no longer essential for functioning of the Info
1159 subsystem. If the `dir' file does not exist in an Info directory, the
1160 relevant information will be generated on-the-fly.
1162 This behavior can be customized, look for `Info-auto-generate-directory'
1163 and `Info-save-auto-generated-dir' in the `info' customization group.
1166 * Lisp and internal changes in XEmacs 21.0
1167 ==========================================
1169 ** It is now possible to build XEmacs with support for 31-bit Lisp
1170 integers (normally, Lisp integers are only 28 bits wide on 32-bit
1171 machines.) Configure with --use-minimal-tagbits to test. With this
1172 change, the maximum buffer size on 32-bit machines is increased from
1173 128M to 1G. This setting will be made default in a future XEmacs
1176 ** Specifier changes.
1178 *** When instantiating a specifier, the window locale now has a higher
1179 precedence than the buffer locale. This is because the window locale
1180 is more specific than the buffer locale.
1182 *** The new macro `let-specifier' can be used to temporarily add
1183 specifications to specifiers. See the documentation for details.
1185 *** The new specifiers `vertical-scrollbar-visible-p' and
1186 `horizontal-scrollbar-visible-p' may be used to control scrollbar
1187 visibility. Previously, the only way to remove a scrollbar was to set
1188 its size to 0. This method is still supported for backward
1191 *** The new specifiers `scrollbar-on-left-p' and `scrollbar-on-top-p'
1192 may be used to control the position of the vertical and horizontal
1193 toolbar. Previously, their position could be changed only through the
1196 *** The new draggable vertical dividers between windows may be turned
1197 off using the `vertical-divider-always-visible-p' specifier. When
1198 this is set to nil, the vertical dividers between windows are shown
1199 only when needed, and they are not draggable.
1201 Other properties of the vertical dividers may be controlled using
1202 `vertical-divider-shadow-thickness', `vertical-divider-line-width' and
1203 `vertical-divider-spacing' specifiers, which see.
1205 ** Frame focus management changes.
1207 *** When the variable focus-follows-mouse is non-nil, `select-frame'
1208 no longer permanently selects a different frame. The frame selection
1209 is temporary and is reverted when the current command terminates, much
1210 like the buffer selected by `set-buffer'. This is the same as in FSF
1213 *** The new function `focus-frame' sets the window system focus to
1214 FRAME (and selects it), regardless of the value of
1215 `focus-follows-mouse'. Doing this is not well behaved, so be
1216 absolutely sure that you want this.
1218 The code that uses `select-frame' only to get the window manager focus
1219 should be changed to use `set-frame-focus' instead, so that they keep
1220 working when `focus-follows-mouse' is non-nil.
1222 *** The special forms `save-selected-frame' and `with-selected-frame'
1223 can now be used to temporarily change selected frame.
1225 *** The behavior of `other-frame' command (`C-x 5 o') is unaffected by
1228 ** The function `select-window' now has an optional second argument
1229 NORECORD which if non-nil inhibits the recording of a buffer change.
1231 ** The function `vertical-motion' now correctly handles the second,
1232 optional WINDOW argument. A new third argument PIXELS, if non-nil,
1233 indicates that the returned motion should be in pixels.
1235 ** The new function `vertical-motion-pixels' is similar to
1236 vertical-motion but takes as input a vertical motion in pixels.
1238 ** The new functions window-text-area-pixel-{width,height,edges} can
1239 be used to obtain information about the text-displaying area of a
1242 ** The new functions `shrink-window-pixels' and `enlarge-window-pixels'
1243 can be used to adjust the size of a window by a pixel amount.
1245 ** The new function `window-displayed-text-pixel-height' can be used
1246 to determine the height of the text actually displayed in a window.
1248 ** The arithmetic comparison functions <, >, =, /= now accept a
1249 variable number of arguments.
1251 This means that if you want to test whether A < B < C, you can write
1252 it as (< A B C) instead of (and (< A B) (< B C)). Likewise,
1253 (apply #'> LIST) now tests if LIST is monotonously increasing -- and
1256 ** The XEmacs hashtables now have a consistent read/print syntax.
1257 This means that a hashtable will be readably printed in a
1258 structure-like form:
1260 #s(hashtable size 2 data (key1 value1 key2 value2))
1262 When XEmacs reads this form, it will create a new hashtable according
1263 to description. This allows you to easily dump hashtables to files
1264 using `prin1', and read them back in using `read'.
1266 If `print-readably' is non-nil, a more relaxed syntax is used; for
1269 #<hashtable size 2/13 data (key1 value1 key2 value2) 0x874d>
1271 ** It is now possible to build XEmacs with LDAP support.
1272 You will need to install a LDAP library first. The following have
1274 - LDAP 3.3 from the University of Michigan
1275 (get it from <URL:http://www.umich.edu/~dirsvcs/ldap/>)
1276 - OpenLDAP 1.0.3 from the OpenLDAP Foundation
1277 (get it from <URL:http://www.openldap.org/>)
1278 - LDAP SDK 1.0 from Netscape Corp.
1279 (get it from <URL:http://developer.netscape.com/>)
1281 ** When profiling is in effect, a call-count of all recorded functions
1282 is now calculated. This information is stored in
1283 `call-count-profile-table', and is utilized by `profile-results' as
1284 well as the new command `profile-call-count-results'.
1286 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
1287 starts with a colon, if it is interned in the standard obarray.
1289 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
1290 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
1291 support pre-19.12 XEmacs and pre-20 GNU Emacs by explicitly setting
1292 these variables to themselves.
1294 ** The `concat' function no longer accepts integer arguments.
1296 ** The new function `string' concatenates all its argument characters
1297 and returns the resulting string. This is consistent with other
1298 functions, like `list', `vector', etc.
1300 ** The function `temp-directory' is now available to return the
1301 directory to store temporary files. On Unix this will be obtained
1302 from TMPDIR, defaulting to `/tmp'.
1304 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
1305 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
1306 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
1308 ** The `make-event' function now supports the TYPE and PLIST
1309 arguments, which can be used to create various events from Lisp. See
1310 the documentation for details.
1312 ** `function-interactive' is a new function that returns the
1313 interactive specification of a funcallable object.
1315 ** The new `lmessage' function allows printing of a formatted message
1316 with a particular label.
1318 (lmessage 'progress "Processing... %d" counter)
1320 This function is more convenient than `display-message' because it
1321 automatically applies `format' to its arguments.
1323 ** The new `lwarn' function, analogous to `lmessage', allows printing
1324 a formatted warning, with a non-default CLASS or LABEL.
1326 ** The new function `split-path' can now be used to explode the
1327 components of a colon-separated search path into a list.
1329 (split-path "foo:bar")
1332 ** Specifiers and symbols whose value is a specifier are now allowed
1333 as modeline specifications.
1335 ** defcustom now accepts the keyword `:version'. Use this to specify
1336 in which version of Emacs a certain variable's default value changed.
1339 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
1344 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options
1347 ** The line number tracking in modeline is now efficient, even for
1348 very large buffers. This is achieved by caching the line numbers of
1349 recent buffer positions, and reusing them. This cache is used only in
1350 the buffers where `line-number-mode' is in effect.
1352 ** When the new GNU Malloc aka Doug Lea Malloc is available, it will
1353 be used. This should result in better performance on Linux systems
1356 ** The code XEmacs uses to assemble its various paths into the
1357 directory hierarchy has been rewritten to support the package system.
1358 Look under "Startup Paths" in the Info documentation for more
1361 *** site-lisp is no longer part of the load-path by default.
1362 Its use is deprecated, but you can specify --with-site-lisp=yes at the
1363 configure command line to get it back.
1365 *** `Info-default-directory-list' is now obsolete. If you want to
1366 change the path which XEmacs uses to search for info files, set
1367 `Info-directory-list' instead.
1370 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.