* Changes in XEmacs 21.2
========================
-** `delete-key-deletes-forward' now defaults to t.
+** The delete key now deletes forward by default.
-`delete-key-deletes-forward' is the variable that regulates the
-behaviour of the delete key on the systems that offer both a backspace
-and a delete key. If set to nil, the key labeled "Delete" will delete
-backward. If set to non-nil, the "Delete" key will delete forward,
-except on keyboards where a "Backspace" key is not provided.
+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
searches, like `zap-to-char', `list-matching-lines', `tags-search'
etc. The incremental search facility has always behaved that way.
+** Incremental search will now highlight all visible matches, making
+it easier to anticipate where consecutive C-s or C-r will place the
+point. If you want to disable the feature, set
+`isearch-highlight-all-matches' to nil.
+
+** You can now use the buffer tabs to switch between buffers. The
+tabs are located between the toolbar and the uppermost window, in a
+location called "gutter". If you dislike the buffer tabs, you can
+disable them by specifying:
+
+ (set-specifier default-gutter-visible-p nil)
+
+in your `.emacs'. You can change the location of the gutter with
+`set-default-gutter-position', however currently only MS-Windows
+supports tab widgets with orientations other than vertical..
+
+** 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.
+
** 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
understands the special value `coerce', which means that the line
should not be filled if it is too short to reach the desired column.
-** Incremental search will now highlight all visible matches, making
-it easier to anticipate where consecutive C-s or C-r will place the
-point. If you want to disable the feature, set
-`isearch-highlight-all-matches' to nil.
-
-** You can now customize and save comments for faces and variables.
-In Custom buffers, a new menu entry allows you to add and edit a
-comment. Comments for variables can also be assigned by calling
-`customize-set-(value|variable)' with a prefix argument.
+** 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.
** XEmacs now locates the early package hierarchies at
~/.xemacs/mule-packages/ and ~/.xemacs/xemacs-packages/. Previously,
If you set this variable to nil then pressing the Alt key under
MS-Windows will no longer activate the menubar. The default is t.
+** 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 behaviour.
+
** 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.
+{lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints
+out. This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each
+line contains a regular expression. The manual contains details.
*** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
declarations when given the --declarations option.
* Lisp and internal changes in XEmacs 21.2
==========================================
-** A new portable dumper is available.
+** A new portable dumper is available for beta testing.
Olivier Galibert has written a portable dumper for XEmacs, based on
initial work by Kyle Jones. Normally, XEmacs C sources link into an
can try it out by simply running `src/temacs'. If it starts without
failure, the portable dumping worked.
+#### NOTE: the portable dumper is not really usable yet, because the
+state of built-in variables is not yet saved. Olivier promised to fix
+it. Nag, nag.
+
** Much effort has been invested to make XEmacs Lisp faster:
*** Many basic lisp operations are now faster.
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 very experimental. This feature is currently
-more complete under MS-Windows.
+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.
-** user-init-directory is now an absolute, unexpanded path.
-Previously, `user-init-directory' used to be relative to
-(concat "~" init-file-user). This turned out to be too complicated
-for most packages (and some core Lisp files) to use correctly.
+The buffers-tab functionality and progress gauge have been implemented
+using this feature.
-Also, `init-file-user' has been obsoleted in the process.
+** `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 behaviour.
** XEmacs finally has an automated test suite!
Although this is not yet very sophisticated, it is already responsible
`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 through the history command M-n.
+
+** 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: