* Introduction
==============
-This file presents some general information about XEmacs. It is
-primarily about the changes in recent XEmacs versions and its release
-history.
+This file presents the changes in recent XEmacs versions. It
+primarily documents user-visible (interface) changes, but also
+includes internal changes of possible interest to the users. When
+describing new features, we try to also document ways of reverting to
+the old behavior, where applicable. If you dislike a recent change in
+how XEmacs behaves, this file might contain a remedy.
Use `C-c C-f' to move to the next equal level of outline, and
`C-c C-b' to move to previous equal level. `C-h m' will give more
-info about the Outline mode. Many commands are also available through
+info about the Outline mode. Many commands are also available through
the menubar.
Users who would like to know which capabilities have been introduced
Starting with version 20.0, XEmacs includes ChangeLogs, which can be
consulted for a more detailed list of changes.
-Users interested in some of the details of how XEmacs differs from GNU
-Emacs should read the section "What's Different?" near the end of this
-file.
-
N.B. The term "GNU Emacs" refers to any release of Emacs Version
19 from the Free Software Foundation's GNU Project. (We do not
say just "Emacs" as Richard M. Stallman ["RMS"] prefers, because
it is clearly a more generic term.) The term "XEmacs" refers to
- this program or to its predecessors "Era" and "Lucid Emacs". The
- predecessor of all these program is called "Emacs 18". When no
- particular version is implied, "Emacs" will be used.
+ this program or sometimes to its predecessors "Era" and "Lucid
+ Emacs". The predecessor of all these program is called "Emacs
+ 18". When no particular version is implied, "Emacs" will be used.
\f
-* Changes in XEmacs 21.2
+* Changes in XEmacs 21.4
========================
-None yet.
+** Summary of user-visible changes:
+ -- Motif is now deprecated on linux and cygwin.
+ -- On UNIX and linux, '--with-widgets=no' is now the default. If
+ you want buffer tabs or the progress bar, you must run configure
+ with the option '--with-widgets=lucid' or a different toolkit.
+ -- PUI related changes (Package User Interface)
+ - A minor rearrangement of the "Tools -> Packages" menu.
+ - Only a single package download site can be selected.
+ - Managing packages via the `customize' interface is no longer
+ supported.
+ - Non-Mule XEmacsen can not install Mule packages.
+ - The "mule-base" package is not needed to "bootstrap" PUI for
+ Mule enabled XEmacsen.
+ - The default for PGP verifying the package-index file is "off" in
+ 21.4.
+ - The default package-index filename has changed to
+ `package-index.LATEST.gpg'.
+ - The location of the local index file is customisable. See
+ `package-get-package-index-file-location'.
+ - `pui-add-install-directory' has been obsoleted and replaced by
+ `pui-set-local-package-get-directory'.
+ -- The delete key now deletes forward by default.
+ -- Shifted motion keys now select text by default.
+ -- You can now build XEmacs with support for GTK+ widget set.
+ -- ~/.xemacs/init.el is now the preferred location for the init file.
+ - XEmacs now supports a `~/.xemacs/init.el' startup file.
+ - Custom file will move to ~/.xemacs/custom.el.
+ -- Much-improved sample init.el, showing how to use many useful features.
+ -- XEmacs support for menu accelerators has been much improved.
+ -- Default menubar improvements.
+ - Default menubar has many new commands and better organization.
+ - The font-menu is now available under MS Windows.
+ -- Dialog box improvements, including a real file dialog box.
+ - XEmacs now has a proper file dialog box under MS Windows (and GTK)!
+ - The old clunky file dialog box is improved.
+ - Keyboard traversal now works correctly in MS Windows dialog boxes.
+ - There is a Search dialog box available from Edit->Find...
+ -- New buffer tabs.
+ -- There is a new MS Windows installer, netinstall, ported from Cygwin.
+ -- The subprocess quote-handling mechanism under Windows is much improved.
+ -- Printing support now available under MS Windows.
+ -- Selection improvements.
+ - Kill and yank now interact with the clipboard under Windows.
+ - MS Windows support for selection is now much more robust.
+ - Motif selection support is now more correct (but slower).
+ -- Mail spool locking now works correctly.
+ -- International support changes.
+ - The default coding-priority-list is now safer.
+ - International keysyms are now supported under X.
+ - MS Windows 1251 code page now supported.
+ - Czech, Thai, Cyrillic-KOI8, Vietnamese, Ethiopic now supported.
+ - Proper support for words in Latin 3 and Latin 4.
+ -- Help buffers contain hyperlinks, and other changes.
+ -- The modeline's text is now scrollable.
+ -- The mouse wheel under MS Windows now functions correctly.
+ -- Interactive searching and matching case improvements.
+ - Incremental search will now highlight all visible matches.
+ - Interactive searches always respect uppercase characters.
+ -- Rectangle functions rewritten to avoid inserting extra spaces.
+ -- New command `kill-entire-line' that always kills the entire line.
+ -- Default values correctly stored in minibuffer histories.
+ -- You can now create "indirect buffers", like in GNU Emacs.
+ -- Pixel-based scrolling has been implemented.
+ -- Operation progress can be displayed using graphical widgets.
+ -- User names following a tilde can now be completed at file name prompts.
+ -- XEmacs can now play sound using Enlightenment Sound Daemon (ESD).
+ -- X-Face support is now available under MS Windows.
+ -- The PostgreSQL Relational Database Management System is now supported.
+ -- Indentation no longer indents comments that begin at column zero.
+ -- Face and variable settings can have comments in Customize.
+ -- New locations for early package hierarchies.
+ -- The `auto-save' library has been greatly improved.
+ -- New variable `mswindows-alt-by-itself-activates-menu'.
+ -- Other init-file-related changes.
+ - Init file in your home directory may be called `.emacs.el'.
+ - New command-line switches -user-init-file and -user-init-directory.
+ -- Etags changes.
+ - In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
+ - New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex.
+ - New option --declarations, for C-type languages.
+ - In C++, tags are created for "operator".
+ - Ada now supported.
+ - In Fortran, procedure is no longer tagged.
+ - In Java, tags are created for "interface".
+ - In Lisp, def-type constructs are now tagged.
+ - In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables.
+ - Python now supported.
+ - New file extensions recognized: .ss, .pdb, .psw.
+ -- Fixed ldap libraries configuration.
+ -- Fixed `LDAP_OPT_ON' libraries configuration.
+
+** The delete key now deletes forward by default.
+
+This is regulated by the variable `delete-key-deletes-forward', which
+now defaults to t. `delete-key-deletes-forward' takes effect only on
+the systems that offer both a backspace and a delete key. If set to
+nil, the key labeled "Delete" will always delete backward. If set to
+non-nil, the "Delete" key will delete forward, except on keyboards
+where a "Backspace" key is not provided (e.g. old DEC keyboards).
+
+Unless our implementation has bugs, the only reason why you would want
+to set `delete-key-deletes-forward' to nil is if you want to use the
+Delete key to delete backwards, despite the presence (according to
+Xlib) of a BackSpace key on the keyboard.
+
+** Shifted motion keys now select text by default.
+
+You can turn this off by setting `shifted-motion-keys-select-region'
+to nil. This works based off of particular keys, not particular
+commands: Thus, the arrow keys will normally trigger selection when
+the Shift key is held down regardless of their bindings, and non-arrow
+keys with the same bindings (e.g. C-f) will not work this way. You
+can control which keys trigger shifted motion using
+`motion-keys-for-shifted-motion'. See also
+`unshifted-motion-keys-deselect-region'.
+
+** You can now build XEmacs with support for GTK+ widget set.
+
+XEmacs built that way uses GTK+ to draw menubars, scrollbars, and
+other GUI components, as well GDK for drawing text, choosing fonts,
+allocating colors, etc. Additionally, GTK-XEmacs supports Lisp
+functions for writing your own GTK programs in Emacs Lisp!
+
+To use this, build XEmacs with the `--with-gtk' configure flag. (Of
+course, you'll need to have the GTK+ libraries and header files on the
+system.) Gnome widgets and functionality are supported where
+available, and can be turned off.
+
+** ~/.xemacs/init.el is now the preferred location for the init file.
+
+*** XEmacs now supports a `~/.xemacs/init.el' startup file.
+If it exists, XEmacs will prefer it over `.emacs' and `.emacs.el'.
+The file may be byte-compiled as `~/.xemacs/init.elc'.
+
+If present, the `~/.xemacs/' directory may contain startup files for
+XEmacs packages that support it.
+
+The first time you start up XEmacs, it will ask you if you would like
+to migrate your `.emacs' to the new location. (Your custom settings
+will also be moved, to `~/.xemacs/custom.el' -- see below.) If so, you
+will also be asked whether you would like to create a compatibility
+`.emacs' for backward compatibility with previous versions of XEmacs
+and with GNU Emacs. (This compatibility `.emacs' simply loads the new
+init and custom files.) Doing this is generally a good idea -- new
+versions of XEmacs will prefer `~/.xemacs/init.el' over `~/.emacs' in
+any case.
+
+You can manually migrate at any time with `migrate-user-init-file',
+and undo any migration with `unmigrate-user-init-file'. The function
+`create-compatibility-dot-emacs' also lets you manually create a
+compatibility `.emacs'.
+
+NOTE: Under MS Windows, your home directory (i.e. the directory named
+`~') is specified by the HOME environment variable, and defaults to
+C:\. To set this variable, modify AUTOEXEC.BAT under Windows 95/98,
+or select Control Panel->System->Advanced->Environment Variables...
+under Windows NT/2000.
+
+*** Custom file will move to ~/.xemacs/custom.el.
+
+Whereas customize settings were formerly stored in the regular init
+file, XEmacs now prefers them to be in a separate file
+`~/.xemacs/custom.el', completely under automatic control. This
+change goes with the migration of the init file, and XEmacs offers
+automatic migration upon startup.
+
+** Much-improved sample init.el, showing how to use many useful features.
+
+The sample init file, located in the `etc/' directory of the XEmacs
+installation, has been renamed from `sample.emacs' to `sample.init.el',
+and pretty much rewritten from scratch. (You can view it by selecting
+the menu item Help->Samples->Sample init.el.) Many of the most-useful
+optional features in XEmacs have been enabled, and other features that
+are useful but may be annoying to some are present but commented out.
+There is also extensive documentation on how to add your own
+improvements to the init file and where to find more documentation
+elsewhere in XEmacs. The file has been specifically designed so that
+most people can simply make it their own init file by copying it to
+~/.xemacs/init.el, and they will be satisfied with the results.
+
+** XEmacs support for menu accelerators has been much improved.
+
+It now works properly under MS Windows, for example. To enable
+accelerators, set `menu-accelerator-enabled' to `menu-force'. Menus
+now have accelerators by default, currently on the first letter of the
+menu item unless another letter was indicated as the accelerator using
+%_ in the menu string. These %_ specifications are automatically
+removed when displaying the menu item, and are handled correctly in
+functions such as `normalize-menu-item-name'. Some auto-generated
+menus will have accelerators added dynamically, using numbers 1-9 and
+letters; to add this feature yourself, use the Lisp command
+`submenu-generate-accelerator-spec' in a menu filter. The feature
+`menu-accelerator-support' has been added so that packages can check
+whether this support exists.
+
+** Default menubar improvements.
+
+*** Default menubar has many new commands and better organization.
+
+The default menubar has been extensively reorganized. Many more
+commands are available, and they are more logically organized. The
+Options menu, in particular, has been significantly expanded, and almost
+everything on the new Cmds menu is new. (Much of the useful
+functionality from the `big-menubar' package has been imported.)
+
+*** The font-menu is now available under MS Windows.
+
+** Dialog box improvements, including a real file dialog box.
+
+*** XEmacs now has a proper file dialog box under MS Windows (and GTK)!
+This will appear whenever you select a menu item that requires a file
+as an argument.
+
+*** The old clunky file dialog box is improved.
+The in-buffer file dialog box (visible on non-MS-Windows, non-GTK
+systems) is still clunky but has had many improvements to make it work
+significantly better.
+
+*** Keyboard traversal now works correctly in MS Windows dialog boxes.
+
+*** There is a Search dialog box available from Edit->Find...
+However, it's very experimental and needs a lot of work.
+
+** New buffer tabs.
+
+You can now use buffer tabs to switch between buffers.
+
+The tabs are located between the toolbar and the uppermost window, in
+a location called the "gutter". If you dislike the buffer tabs, you can
+disable them using the menu item `Options->Display->Buffers Tab Visible'
+by customizing `gutter-buffers-tab-visible-p', or by placing this in
+your .xemacs/init.el:
+
+ (custom-set-variables '(gutter-buffers-tab-visible-p nil))
+
+You can change the location of the gutter using the menu item
+`Options->Display->Default Gutter Location' or with (e.g.)
+
+ (custom-set-variables '(default-gutter-position 'left))
+
+However, currently only MS Windows supports tab widgets with
+orientations other than vertical, and it doesn't currently support
+gutters on the bottom of the frame.
+
+** There is a new MS Windows installer, netinstall, ported from Cygwin.
+
+Nearly complete automation of the XEmacs install process from
+ftp.xemacs.org. Includes selection of Lisp packages to install, etc.
+
+** The subprocess quote-handling mechanism under Windows is much improved.
+
+Specifically, the quote-handling mechanism has been completely rewritten,
+and you should now be able to use single or double quotes to quote arguments
+just like under Unix, and expect to get correct results regardless of the
+shell you are using (e.g. CMD.EXE, bash from Cygwin, etc.). For example,
+the following command:
+
+M-x grep '<<<<<<<' *.c
+
+should work as intended.
+
+** Printing support now available under MS Windows.
+
+The File->Print... menu item pretty-prints using the standard MS
+Windows printing facilities. Unfortunately it's still rather
+experimental. There is a separate `msprinter' device tag for MS
+Windows printers, and so you can control the way that faces appear on
+the printer by using this tag to specify device-specific face
+settings.
+
+** Selection improvements.
+
+*** Kill and yank now interact with the clipboard under Windows.
+
+This was done by changing the default value of `interprogram-cut-function'
+and `interprogram-paste-function'. You can get the old behavior by
+setting these to nil, and there is an option on the options menu to do
+this.
+
+*** MS Windows support for selection is now much more robust.
+
+Generally selection should now do what you would expect under
+MS Windows: the middle mouse button will paste your current selection
+or the clipboard; conversions from different types of selection to the
+clipboard can be made; the kill-ring and friends will be updated as
+per X.
+
+The only thing selection doesn't do is set the clipboard automatically
+as this would break the MS Windows model. If you want this behavior
+then set `selection-sets-clipboard' to t.
+
+*** Motif selection support is now more correct (but slower).
+
+Changes have been made to allow correct operation of cut/copy/paste
+operations between native widgets and XEmacs buffers. However, this
+can lead to a lot of X traffic which slows down the performance of
+`C-k'. If you want the old behaviour then set
+`x-selection-strict-motif-ownership' to nil.
+
+** Mail spool locking now works correctly.
+
+XEmacs has always come with a little auxiliary program, movemail,
+which moves mail out of the system's spool area into user storage. To
+coordinate between XEmacs, the mail delivery agent, and other mail
+user agents, movemail needs to properly lock the spool file before
+moving it. Movemail now correctly respects the --mail-locking option
+to configure. Moreover, movemail's locking behavior can be specified
+at run-time, via a new command-line option -m to movemail, or through
+the environment variable EMACSLOCKMETHOD.
+
+When installing XEmacs, make sure you configure it according to your
+environment's mail spool locking conventions. When you're using a
+binary kit, set the `mail-lock-method' variable at startup, or the
+EMACSLOCKMETHOD environment variable.
+
+** International support changes.
+
+*** The default coding-priority-list is now safer.
+
+This means that if you have no language environment set, Mule no
+longer automatically recognizes ISO 2022 escapes in your files. This
+makes editing binary files safe.
+
+*** International keysyms are now supported under X.
+
+This means that XEmacs running under Mule will automatically recognize
+the keysym `scaron' to be the lower-case `s' with caron in the Latin 2
+character set. (Specifically, it will bind the keysym to
+`self-insert' and augment its `ascii-character' property.) This is
+very useful with XFree under European locales as shipped by recent
+Linux distributions. If XEmacs is compiled without Mule support, the
+feature still works, but it is unaware of different character sets --
+it unconditionally sets the `ascii-character' property to values in
+the [160, 256) range.
+
+*** MS Windows 1251 code page now supported.
+
+It's available as coding system `windows-1251'.
+
+*** Czech, Thai, Cyrillic-KOI8, Vietnamese, Ethiopic now supported.
+
+*** Proper support for words in Latin 3 and Latin 4.
+
+The appropriate characters in Latin 3 and Latin 4 character sets are
+correctly defined as words.
+
+** Help buffers contain hyperlinks, and other changes.
+
+The help buffers created by C-h commands now contain hyperlinks to
+other commands, functions and variables mentioned in the documentation.
+Use button2 to follow a link. Use button3 to bring up a context menu
+that lets you follow the link, find the source for the item, do a tag
+search, etc. The buffers are also syntax-highlighted.
+
+Help functions (e.g. `C-h f') now know how to print macro argument
+lists. If your macro definition included an argument list for the sake
+of help output, you no longer need to do that.
+
+** The modeline's text is now scrollable.
+
+This is controlled by the variable `modeline-scrolling-method', which
+you need to set to a non-nil value. You can also choose scrolling
+types; see the docstring of `modeline-scrolling-method' for more
+information.
+
+** The mouse wheel under MS Windows now functions correctly.
+
+It scrolls the XEmacs window under the pointer, not the selected
+window.
+
+** Interactive searching and matching case improvements.
+
+*** Incremental search will now highlight all visible matches.
+
+This makes it easier to anticipate where consecutive C-s or C-r will
+place the point. If you want to disable the feature, set
+`isearch-highlight-all-matches' to nil.
+
+*** Interactive searches always respect uppercase characters.
+
+Case sensitiveness in searching operations is normally controlled
+by the variable `case-fold-search' (if non-nil, case is ignored while
+searching). This mechanism has now been slightly improved for
+interactive searches: if the search string (or regexp) contains
+uppercase characters, the searching is forced to be case-sensitive,
+`case-fold-search'.
+
+The new behavior affects all functions performing interactive
+searches, like `zap-to-char', `list-matching-lines', `tags-search'
+etc. The incremental search facility has always behaved that way.
+
+** Rectangle functions rewritten to avoid inserting extra spaces.
+
+The rectangle functions have been almost completely rewritten in
+order to avoid inserting undesirable spaces, notably at the end of
+lines. Two typical examples of the old behavior were
+`string-rectangle', which filled all lines up to the right side of the
+rectangle, and `clear-rectangle', which filled even empty lines up to
+the left side. All functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting
+unwanted spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the
+old way.
+
+Also, the behavior of `string-rectangle' is now compliant with
+`pending-delete-mode': if this mode is active, then the string
+replaces the region rectangle. Otherwise, the command does not delete
+or overwrite any existing text. For those who want that feature but do
+not use pending-delete-mode, a new function, `replace-rectangle', is
+available.
+
+As a side effect, the FORCE argument to `move-to-column' now
+understands the special value `coerce', which means that the line
+should not be filled if it is too short to reach the desired column.
+
+** New command `kill-entire-line' that always kills the entire line.
+
+This kills the entire line at point, regardless of whether the point
+is at the beginning of line, and regardless of the setting of
+`kill-whole-line'.
+
+** Default values correctly stored in minibuffer histories.
+
+When you press RET at a minibuffer prompt that provides a default
+value, the value is stored in history instead of an empty line. Also,
+you can now edit the default value by pressing the down arrow,
+accessing the logical "future" value. Not all minibuffer prompts have
+yet been converted to support this feature.
+
+** You can now create "indirect buffers", like in GNU Emacs.
+
+An indirect buffer shares its text with another buffer ("base
+buffer"), but has its own major mode, local variables, extents, and
+narrowing. An indirect buffer has a name of its own, distinct from
+those of the base buffer and all other buffers. An indirect buffer
+cannot itself be visiting a file (though its base buffer can be).
+The base buffer cannot itself be indirect.
+
+Use (make-indirect-buffer BASE-BUFFER NAME) to make an indirect buffer
+named NAME whose base is BASE-BUFFER. If BASE-BUFFER is itself an
+indirect buffer, its base buffer is used as the base for the new
+buffer.
+
+You can make an indirect buffer current, or switch to it in a window,
+just as you would a non-indirect buffer.
+
+The function `buffer-base-buffer' returns a buffer's base buffer or
+nil, if given an ordinary (non-indirect) buffer. The function
+`buffer-indirect-children' returns a list of the indirect children of
+a base buffer.
+
+** Pixel-based scrolling has been implemented.
+By default this will attempt to scroll in increments equal to the
+height of the default face. Set `window-pixel-scroll-increment' to
+modify this behavior.
+
+** Operation progress can be displayed using graphical widgets.
+See `progress-feedback' for details. This support has been switched
+on by default for font-lock and some web browsing functions. If you
+do not like this behavior, set `progress-feedback-use-echo-area' to
+nil.
+
+** User names following a tilde can now be completed at file name prompts.
+e.g. `C-x C-f ~hni<TAB>' will complete to `~hniksic/'. To make this
+operation faster, a cache of user names is maintained internally.
+
+The new primitives available for this purpose are functions named
+`user-name-completion' and `user-name-all-completions'.
+
+** XEmacs can now play sound using Enlightenment Sound Daemon (ESD).
+It will try NAS first, then ESD, then playing native sound directly.
+
+** X-Face support is now available under MS Windows.
+If an X-Face library built under MS Windows is available then XEmacs
+will use this at build time.
+
+** The PostgreSQL Relational Database Management System is now supported.
+It is now possible to build XEmacs so that the programming interface
+to the PostgreSQL RDBMS (libpq) is available in XEmacs Lisp.
+Supported versions of PostgreSQL are 6.5.3 (earlier versions may work,
+but have not been tested) and 7.0-beta1.
+
+** Indentation no longer indents comments that begin at column zero.
+This makes it easy to deal with commented out regions of code.
+
+** Face and variable settings can have comments in Customize.
+Customize now supports adding comments about your face and variable
+settings using a new menu entry. Comments for variables can also be
+assigned by calling `customize-set-(value|variable)' with a prefix
+argument.
+
+** New locations for early package hierarchies.
+XEmacs now locates the early package hierarchies at
+~/.xemacs/mule-packages/ and ~/.xemacs/xemacs-packages/. Previously,
+the early packages were located in ~/.xemacs/.
+
+** The `auto-save' library has been greatly improved.
+(This lets you group all your auto-save files into one directory, and
+is provided standardly with XEmacs. See `etc/sample.init.el',
+available on the Help menu, for more info on how to set it up.)
+Specifically, it now works under MS Windows, and it uses a completely
+reversible encoding (basically quoted-printable), so that all
+filenames (as well as non-filename buffers) are successfully handled
+regardless of any special characters in their names.
+
+** New variable `mswindows-alt-by-itself-activates-menu'.
+If you set this variable to nil then pressing and releasing the Alt
+key under MS Windows will no longer activate the menubar. The default
+is t. This is not to be confused with `menu-accelerator-enabled',
+which enables the use of Alt+<Letter> accelerators to invoke the
+menus.
+
+** Other init-file-related changes.
+
+*** Init file in your home directory may be called `.emacs.el'.
+
+Like in GNU Emacs 20.4 and on, you can now name the XEmacs init file
+located in your home directory `.emacs.el'. Formerly the name had to
+be `.emacs'. If you use the name `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile
+the file in the usual way.
+
+If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file is the one
+that is used.
+
+*** New command-line switches -user-init-file and -user-init-directory.
+
+These can be used to specify alternate locations for what is normally
+~/.emacs and ~/.xemacs.
+
+Moreover, the `-user <user>' command-line option (which used to only
+work in unpredictable ways) is now equivalent to `-user-init-file
+~<user>/.xemacs/init.el -user-init-directory ~<user>/.xemacs', or
+`-user-init-file ~<user>/.emacs -user-init-directory ~<user>/.xemacs',
+whichever init file comes first.
+
+** Etags changes.
+
+*** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
+
+*** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex.
+It is now possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the
+regexp with {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags
+--help' prints out. This feature is useful especially for regex
+files, where each line contains a regular expression. The manual
+contains details.
+
+*** New option --declarations, for C-type languages.
+In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
+declarations when given the --declarations option.
+
+*** In C++, tags are created for "operator".
+The tags have the form "operator+", without spaces between the
+keyword and the operator.
+
+*** Ada now supported.
+Tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and types.
+
+*** In Fortran, procedure is no longer tagged.
+
+*** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
+
+*** In Lisp, def-type constructs are now tagged.
+This includes "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs.
+
+*** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables.
+my and local variables are tagged.
+
+*** Python now supported.
+def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
+
+*** New file extensions recognized: .ss, .pdb, .psw.
+.ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
+for PSWrap.
+
+** Fixed ldap libraries configuration.
+
+It used to fail when `-lldap' requires `-llber'. Introduced in
+upstream `configure.in' revision 1.151.2.31 (2005/01/31 02:54:47 +0).
+
+*** Fixed `LDAP_OPT_ON' libraries configuration.
+
+The original fix of local `configure.in' revision 1.19 (2004/12/19
+21:10:02 +0) introduced lossage on another class of systems. In some
+openldap versions `ldap_*' functions may link successfully without
+`-lber', but compiling and linking program with `LDAP_OPT_ON' may
+require `-lber'. When configuring ldap libraries, check for such
+systems, and in a cleaner way than in upstream.
+
+\f
+* Lisp and internal changes in XEmacs 21.4
+==========================================
+
+** A new portable dumper is available.
+
+Olivier Galibert has written a portable dumper for XEmacs, based on
+initial work by Kyle Jones. To perform even the most basic editor
+functions, XEmacs requires some amount of Lisp code to be loaded. To
+avoid repeating the expensive loading process at every startup, XEmacs
+is built in a special way. Its C sources link into an executable
+called `temacs', which loads the bootstrap Lisp code and uses a
+special "unexec" call to dump the resulting memory image into a proper
+`xemacs' executable on disk. The unexec() process is hard to
+implement correctly and makes XEmacs very hard to port to new
+operating systems, or even to new releases of old systems.
+
+The new portable dumper uses a different approach to dumping: instead
+of dumping full-fledged executable, it only dumps out the initialized
+data structures (both Lisp and C) into an external file. A normally
+running XEmacs only needs to mmap that file and relocate a bit to get
+to the initialized data. In that scheme, there is no difference
+between `temacs' and `xemacs'.
+
+The portable dumper will not be used by default in this release,
+however, if you wish to experiment with it, or if you need to compile
+XEmacs on a new and unsupported platform, you can test it by
+configuring XEmacs using the `--pdump' flag.
+
+** Much effort has been invested to make XEmacs Lisp faster:
+
+*** Many basic lisp operations are now faster.
+This is especially the case when running a Mule-enabled XEmacs.
+
+A general overhaul of the lisp engine should produce a speedup of 1.4
+in a non-Mule XEmacs, and 2.1 in a Mule XEmacs. These numbers were
+obtained running `(byte-compile "simple.el")', which should be a
+pretty typical test of "pure" Lisp.
+
+*** Lisp hash tables have been re-implemented. The Common Lisp style
+hash table interface has been made standard, and moved from cl.el into
+fast C code (See the section on hash tables in the XEmacs Lisp
+Reference). A speedup factor of 3 can be expected with code that
+makes intensive use of hash tables.
+
+*** The garbage collector has been tuned, leading to a speedup of
+1.16.
+
+*** The byte-compiler and the byte-optimizer have been tuned to
+produce better code in many small ways.
+
+*** The family of functions that iterate over lists, like `memq', and
+`rassq', have been made a little faster (typically 1.3).
+
+*** Lisp function calls are faster, by approximately a factor of two.
+However, defining inline functions (via defsubst) still makes sense
+for tight loops.
+
+*** Finally, a few functions have had dramatic performance
+improvements. For example, `(last long-list)' is now 30 times faster.
+
+Of course, your mileage will vary.
+
+Many operations do not see any improvement. Surprisingly, running
+(font-lock-fontify-buffer) does not use the Lisp engine much at all.
+Speeding up your favorite slow operation is an excellent project to
+improve XEmacs. Don't forget to profile!
+
+** Native widgets can be displayed in buffers.
+
+The glyph system has been extended to allow the display of glyphs that
+are implemented as native window-system widgets. Thus you can embed
+buttons, scrollbars, combo boxes, edit fields and progress gauges in a
+buffer. As a side effect subwindow support now works once again.
+
+All of this is still fairly experimental and there is no
+documentation. The current APIs might change in a future version of
+XEmacs. Some widgets are only available under MS Windows. See the
+file glyphs-test.el in the XEmacs src distribution for examples of
+usage.
+
+The buffers-tab functionality and progress gauge have been implemented
+using this feature.
+
+** Case translation now supports international characters.
+
+*** Instead of being lists of 256-character strings, case tables are
+now opaque objects. The interface to access them is almost the same,
+except it now works for international characters, and you can set the
+case pairs using `put-case-table-pair'. `set-case-table' and friends
+still support the old list/string based interface for backward
+compatibility.
+
+*** As a consequence of this change, functions `downcase' and `upcase'
+as well as all the case-transformation commands now work with
+non-ASCII characters. Built-in tables cover all the Latin character
+sets that we support. If your language has a distinction between
+upper and lower case that is not handled by XEmacs/Mule, please let us
+know.
+
+*** The code that implements case-insensitive search has been modified
+to respect the case table settings. This also applies to regexp
+search.
+
+** Syntax tables may now be specified for a part of a buffer by
+attaching the `syntax-table' property to an extent. For compatibility
+with GNU Emacs, you may use the text-property interface to achieve the
+same result.
+
+** Values of variables `user-init-file' and `user-init-directory' are
+now absolute file/directory names. Previously, both variables used to
+be relative to `(concat "~" init-file-user)'. This turned out to be
+too complicated for most packages (and some core Lisp files) to use
+correctly. Also, the `init-file-user' variable has been obsoleted in
+the process.
+
+The user-visible options like `-u' have not changed their behavior.
+
+** XEmacs finally has an automated test suite!
+Although this is not yet very sophisticated, it is already responsible
+for several important bug fixes in XEmacs. To try it out, simply use
+the makefile target `make check' after building XEmacs.
+
+** Hash tables have been reimplemented.
+As was pointed out above, the standard interface to hash tables is now
+the Common Lisp interface, as described in Common Lisp, the Language
+(CLtL2, by Steele). The older interface (functions with names
+containing the phrase `hashtable') will continue to work, but the
+preferred interface now has names containing the phrase `hash-table'.
+
+Here's the executive overview: create hash tables using
+make-hash-table, and use gethash, puthash, remhash, maphash and
+clrhash to manipulate entries in the hash table. See the (updated)
+Lisp Reference Manual for details.
+
+** Lisp code handles circular lists much more robustly.
+Many basic lisp functions used to loop forever when given a circular
+list, expecting you to C-g (quit) out of the loop. Now this is more
+likely to trigger a `circular-list' error. Printing a circular list
+now results in something like this:
+
+ (let ((x (cons 'foo 'foo)))
+ (setcdr x x)
+ x)
+ => (foo ... <circular list>)
+
+An extra bonus is that checking for circularities is not just
+friendlier, but actually faster than checking for C-g.
+
+** Functions for decoding base64 encoding are now available; see
+`base64-encode-region', `base64-encode-string', `base64-decode-region'
+and `base64-decode-string'.
+
+** The functions `read-string', `read-expression', `eval-minibuffer',
+`read-variable', `read-command', `read-function', `read-number',
+`read-shell-command', `read-from-minibuffer', and `completing-read'
+now take an additional argument which specifies the default value. If
+this argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used
+in two ways:
+
+ * It is returned if the user enters empty input.
+ * It is available as the logical "future" entry, by pressing the down
+ arrow.
+
+** LDAP changes.
+
+*** The LDAP interface now consists of two layers, a low-level layer
+that closely matches the LDAP C API, and a more convenient
+higher-level set of functions.
+
+*** The low-level functions that used to be named *-internal are now
+named more simply: `ldap-open', `ldap-close', `ldap-search-basic',
+`ldap-add', and `ldap-modify'. They should be used directly for very
+specific purposes (such as multiple operations on a connection) only.
+
+*** The higher-level functions provide a more convenient way to access
+LDAP directories hiding the subtleties of handling the connection,
+translating arguments and ensuring compliance with LDAP
+internationalization rules and formats (currently partly implemented
+only.) This layer provides atomic operations for searches,
+modification, addition and deletion of multiple entries at once:
+`ldap-search-entries', `ldap-add-entries', `ldap-delete-entries', and
+`ldap-modify-entries'.
+
+*** To maintain compatibility with previous code, the now obsolete
+function `ldap-search' is now merely a wrapper that calls either
+`ldap-search-basic' or `ldap-search-entries'. Please don't use the
+`ldap-search' function in your new programs -- a direct call to one of
+the two replacements is more efficient and unambiguous.
+
+** The arguments to `locate-file' are now more Lisp-like. As before,
+the usage is:
+
+ (locate-file FILENAME PATH-LIST &optional SUFFIXES MODE)
+
+Except that SUFFIXES are now a list of strings instead of a single,
+colon-separated string. MODE is now a symbol or a list of symbols
+(symbols `exists', `executable', `writable', and `readable' are
+supported) instead of an integer code. See the documentation for
+details. Of course, the old form is still accepted for backward
+compatibility.
+
+Several bugs in locate-file have been fixed, most notably its failure
+to call expand-file-name on elements of PATH-LIST. Because of that
+elements of load-path of the form "~/..." used to not work.
+locate-file is now guaranteed to expand files during its course of
+operation.
+
+** `translate-region' has been improved in several ways. Its TABLE
+argument used to be a 256-character string. In addition to this, it
+can now also be a vector or a char-table, which makes the function
+useful for Mule, which it wasn't. If TABLE is a vector or a generic
+char-table, you can map characters to strings instead of to other
+characters. For instance:
+
+ (let ((table (make-char-table 'generic)))
+ (put-char-table ?a "the letter a" table)
+ (put-char-table ?b "" table)
+ (put-char-table ?c ?\n table)
+ (translate-region (point-min) (point-max) table))
+
+** The new form `ignore-file-errors', similar to `ignore-errors' may
+be used as a short-hand for condition-case when you wish to ignore
+file-related error. For example:
+
+ (ignore-file-errors (delete-file "foo"))
+
+** The first argument to `intern-soft' may now also be a symbol, like
+with `unintern'. If given a symbol, `intern-soft' will look for that
+exact symbol rather than for any string. This is useful when you want
+to check whether a specific symbol is interned in an obarray, e.g.:
+
+ (intern "foo")
+ (intern-soft "foo")
+ => foo
+ (intern-soft (make-symbol "foo"))
+ => nil
+
+** The `keywordp' function now returns non-nil only on symbols
+interned in the global obarray. For example:
+
+ (keywordp (intern ":foo" [0]))
+ => nil
+ (keywordp (intern ":foo")) ; The same as (keywordp :foo)
+ => t
+
+This behavior is compatible with other code which treats symbols
+beginning with colon as keywords only if they are interned in the
+global obarray. `keywordp' used to wrongly return t in both above
+cases.
+
+** The function `replace-in-string' has been rewritten to use
+`replace-match'. This not only makes it much faster, but adds all the
+features of `replace-match'.
+
+** New variables `this-command-properties' and
+`last-command-properties' are now available for communication between
+consecutive commands. Commands should use these to communicate with
+the pre/post-command hooks, subsequent commands, wrapping commands,
+etc. in preference to looking at and/or setting `this-command'.
+
+** New functions `add-one-shot-hook' and `add-local-one-shot-hook' make
+it possible to add a "one-shot" hook, which is to say a hook that runs
+only once, and automatically removes itself after the first time it
+has run.
+
+** The descriptor that specifies the text of a menu item can now be an
+evaluated expression. This makes it parallel with other descriptors,
+which can also be expressions.
+
+\f
* Changes in XEmacs 21.0
========================
** When the Zmacs region is active, `M-x query-replace' and the other
replace commands now operate on the region contents only.
-** Using the new `-private' option, you can make XEmacs use a private
-colormap.
+** XEmacs now is able to choose X visuals and use private colormaps.
+The '-visual <visualStr>' command line option or the '.EmacsVisual'
+Xresource controls which visual XEmacs will use, and
+'-privateColormap' or '.privateColormap' will force XEmacs to create a
+private colormap for use. The syntax for the visual string is
+"<visual><bitdepth>" where <visual> is one of 'StaticColor',
+'TrueColor', 'GrayScale', 'PseudoColor' or 'DirectColor' and
+<bitdepth> is the appropriate number of bits per pixel. If an invalid
+or non-supported combination is entered, XEmacs attempts to find a happy
+medium. The X creation mechanism will then determine if it needs to
+create a colormap for use, or the presence of the private flags will
+force it to create it.
** The `imenu' package has been ported to XEmacs and is available as a
package.
** The new variable `user-full-name' can be used to customize one's
name when using the Emacs mail and news reading facilities.
-Normally, `user-full-name' is a function that returns the full name of
+Normally, `user-full-name' is a function that returns the full name of
a user or UID, as specified by the system -- for instance,
-(user-full-name "root") returns something like "Super-User". However,
+(user-full-name "root") returns something like "Super-User". However,
when the function is called without arguments, it will return the
-value of the `user-full-name' variable. The `user-full-name' variable
+value of the `user-full-name' variable. The `user-full-name' variable
is initialized using the environment variable NAME and (failing that)
the user's system name.
-The behaviour of the `user-full-name' function with an argument
+The behavior of the `user-full-name' function with an argument
specified is unchanged.
** The new command `M-x customize-changed-options' lets you customize
It has been greatly enhanced with respect to the one once included
with the ilisp package and should work well under XEmacs 21.0.
+** Gnuserv changes
+
+*** Like the old 'gnudoit' program. Gnuclient -batch now can read from stdin.
+
+*** Gnuclient -batch no longer breaks off the output at the first LF.
+
** C mode changes
*** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
*** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
-*** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
+*** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
subsystem. If the `dir' file does not exist in an Info directory, the
relevant information will be generated on-the-fly.
-This behaviour can be customized, look for `Info-auto-generate-directory'
+This behavior can be customized, look for `Info-auto-generate-directory'
and `Info-save-auto-generated-dir' in the `info' customization group.
\f
only when needed, and they are not draggable.
Other properties of the vertical dividers may be controlled using
-`vertical-divider-shadow-thickness', `vertical-divider-line-width' and
+`vertical-divider-shadow-thickness', `vertical-divider-line-width' and
`vertical-divider-spacing' specifiers, which see.
** Frame focus management changes.
** It is now possible to build XEmacs with LDAP support.
You will need to install a LDAP library first. The following have
been tested:
- - LDAP 3.3 from the University of Michigan
+ - LDAP 3.3 from the University of Michigan
(get it from <URL:http://www.umich.edu/~dirsvcs/ldap/>)
+ - OpenLDAP 1.0.3 from the OpenLDAP Foundation
+ (get it from <URL:http://www.openldap.org/>)
- LDAP SDK 1.0 from Netscape Corp.
(get it from <URL:http://developer.netscape.com/>)
Look under "Startup Paths" in the Info documentation for more
information.
-*** site-lisp is now longer part of the load-path by default.
+*** site-lisp is no longer part of the load-path by default.
Its use is deprecated, but you can specify --with-site-lisp=yes at the
configure command line to get it back.
*** `Info-default-directory-list' is now obsolete. If you want to
change the path which XEmacs uses to search for info files, set
`Info-directory-list' instead.
+
+\f
+* For older news, see the file ONEWS.
projects / chise / xemacs-chise.git.1 / blobdiff