1 GNUS NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Gnus bug reports to bugs@gnus.org.
6 For older news, see Gnus info node "New Features".
11 ** `gnus-group-read-ephemeral-group' can be called interactively, using `G M'.
13 ** In draft groups, `e' is now bound to `gnus-draft-edit-message'.
14 Use `B w' for `gnus-summary-edit-article' instead.
16 ** The revised Gnus FAQ is included in the manual.
17 See the info node "Frequently Asked Questions".
19 ** Upgrading from previous (stable) version if you have used Oort.
21 If you have tried Oort (the unstable Gnus branch leading to this
22 release) but went back to a stable version, be careful when upgrading
23 to this version. In particular, you will probably want to remove all
24 .marks (nnml) and .mrk (nnfolder) files, so that flags are read from
25 your ~/.newsrc.eld instead of from the .marks/.mrk file where this
26 release store flags. See a later entry for more information about
27 marks. Note that downgrading isn't safe in general.
31 More buttons for URLs, mail addresses, Message-IDs, Info links, man pages and
32 Emacs or Gnus related references, see the info node "Article Buttons". The
33 variables `gnus-button-*-level' can be used to control the appearance of all
34 article buttons, see the info node "Article Button Levels".
38 `gnus-dired-minor-mode' installs key bindings in dired buffers to send a file
39 as an attachment (`C-c C-m C-a'), open a file using the approriate mailcap
40 entry (`C-c C-m C-l'), and print a file using the mailcap entry (`C-c C-m
41 C-p'). See the info node "Other modes".
44 ** Gnus can display RSS newsfeeds as a newsgroup. To get started do `B
45 nnrss RET RET' in the Group buffer.
47 ** Single-part yenc encoded attachments can be decoded.
50 The picons code has been reimplemented to work in Emacs 21 -- some of
51 the previous options have been removed or renamed.
53 Picons are small "personal icons" representing users, domain and
54 newsgroups, which can be displayed in the Article buffer. To enable
55 picons, install the picons database from
57 http://www.cs.indiana.edu/picons/ftp/index.html
59 and point `gnus-picon-databases' to that location.
61 ** If the new option `gnus-treat-body-boundary' is `head', a boundary
62 line is drawn at the end of the headers.
64 ** Retrieval of charters and control messages
65 There are new commands for fetching newsgroup charters (`H c') and
66 control messages (`H C').
69 You can delay the sending of a message with `C-c C-j' in the Message
70 buffer. The messages are delivered at specified time. This is useful
71 for sending yourself reminders. Setup with (gnus-delay-initialize).
73 ** If `auto-compression-mode' is enabled, attachments are automatically
74 decompressed when activated.
76 ** If the new option `nnml-use-compressed-files' is non-nil,
77 the nnml back end allows compressed message files.
79 ** Signed article headers (X-PGP-Sig) can be verified with `W p'.
81 ** The Summary Buffer uses an arrow in the fringe to indicate the
82 current article in Emacs 21 running on a graphical display. Customize
83 `gnus-summary-display-arrow' to disable it.
85 ** Warn about email replies to news
86 Do you often find yourself replying to news by email by mistake? Then
87 the new option `gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news' is just the thing for
90 ** If the new option `gnus-summary-display-while-building' is non-nil,
91 the summary buffer is shown and updated as it's being built.
93 ** The new `recent' mark "." indicates newly arrived messages (as
94 opposed to old but unread messages).
96 ** The new option `gnus-gcc-mark-as-read' automatically marks
99 ** The nndoc back end now supports mailman digests and exim bounces.
101 ** Gnus supports RFC 2369 mailing list headers, and adds a number of
102 related commands in mailing list groups.
104 ** The Date header can be displayed in a format that can be read aloud
105 in English, see `gnus-treat-date-english'.
107 ** The envelope sender address can be customized when using Sendmail, see
108 `message-sendmail-envelope-from'.
110 ** diffs are automatically highlighted in groups matching
111 `mm-uu-diff-groups-regexp'
113 ** TLS wrapper shipped with Gnus
115 TLS/SSL is now supported in IMAP and NNTP via tls.el and GNUTLS. The
116 old TLS/SSL support via (external third party) ssl.el and OpenSSL
119 ** New make.bat for compiling and installing Gnus under MS Windows
121 Use make.bat if you want to install Gnus under MS Windows, the first
122 argument to the batch-program should be the directory where xemacs.exe
123 respectively emacs.exe is located, iff you want to install Gnus after
124 compiling it, give make.bat /copy as the second parameter.
126 `make.bat' has been rewritten from scratch, it now features automatic
127 recognition of XEmacs and GNU Emacs, generates gnus-load.el, checks if
128 errors occur while compilation and generation of info files and reports
129 them at the end of the build process. It now uses makeinfo if it is
130 available and falls back to infohack.el otherwise. `make.bat' should now
131 install all files which are necessary to run Gnus and be generally a
132 complete replacement for the "configure; make; make install" cycle used
135 The new make.bat makes make-x.bat superfluous, so it has been removed.
137 ** Support for non-ASCII domain names
139 Message supports non-ASCII domain names in From:, To: and Cc: and will
140 query you whether to perform encoding when you try to send a message.
141 The variable `message-use-idna' controls this. Gnus will also decode
142 non-ASCII domain names in From:, To: and Cc: when you view a message.
143 The variable `gnus-use-idna' controls this.
145 ** Better handling of Microsoft citation styles
147 Gnus now tries to recognize the mangled header block that some Microsoft
148 mailers use to indicate that the rest of the message is a citation, even
149 though it is not quoted in any way. The variable
150 `gnus-cite-unsightly-citation-regexp' matches the start of these
153 ** gnus-article-skip-boring
155 If you set `gnus-article-skip-boring' to t, then Gnus will not scroll
156 down to show you a page that contains only boring text, which by
157 default means cited text and signature. You can customize what is
158 skippable using `gnus-article-boring-faces'.
160 This feature is especially useful if you read many articles that
161 consist of a little new content at the top with a long, untrimmed
164 ** The format spec %C for positioning point has changed to %*.
166 ** The new variable `gnus-parameters' can be used to set group parameters.
168 Earlier this was done only via `G p' (or `G c'), which stored the
169 parameters in ~/.newsrc.eld, but via this variable you can enjoy the
170 powers of customize, and simplified backups since you set the variable
171 in ~/.emacs instead of ~/.newsrc.eld. The variable maps regular
172 expressions matching group names to group parameters, a'la:
174 (setq gnus-parameters
176 (gnus-show-threads nil)
177 (gnus-use-scoring nil))
178 ("^nnimap:\\(foo.bar\\)$"
179 (to-group . "\\1"))))
181 ** Smileys (":-)", ";-)" etc) are now iconized for Emacs too.
183 Customize `gnus-treat-display-smileys' to disable it.
185 ** Gnus no longer generates the Sender: header automatically.
187 Earlier it was generated iff the user configurable email address was
188 different from the Gnus guessed default user address. As the guessing
189 algorithm is rarely correct these days, and (more controversially) the
190 only use of the Sender: header was to check if you are entitled to
191 cancel/supersede news (which is now solved by Cancel Locks instead,
192 see another entry), generation of the header has been disabled by
193 default. See the variables `message-required-headers',
194 `message-required-news-headers', and `message-required-mail-headers'.
196 ** Features from third party message-utils.el added to message.el.
198 Message now asks if you wish to remove "(was: <old subject>)" from
199 subject lines (see `message-subject-trailing-was-query'). C-c M-m and
200 C-c M-f inserts markers indicating included text. C-c C-f a adds a
201 X-No-Archive: header. C-c C-f x inserts appropriate headers and a
202 note in the body for cross-postings and followups (see the variables
203 `message-cross-post-*').
205 ** References and X-Draft-Headers are no longer generated when you
206 start composing messages and `message-generate-headers-first' is nil.
208 ** Improved anti-spam features.
210 Gnus is now able to take out spam from your mail and news streams
211 using a wide variety of programs and filter rules. Among the supported
212 methods are RBL blocklists, bogofilter and white/blacklists. Hooks
213 for easy use of external packages such as SpamAssassin and Hashcash
216 ** Easy inclusion of X-Faces headers.
218 ** In the summary buffer, the new command / N inserts new messages and
219 / o inserts old messages.
221 ** Gnus decodes morse encoded messages if you press W m.
223 ** Unread count correct in nnimap groups.
225 The estimated number of unread articles in the group buffer should now
226 be correct for nnimap groups. This is achieved by calling
227 `nnimap-fixup-unread-after-getting-new-news' from the
228 `gnus-setup-news-hook' (called on startup) and
229 `gnus-after-getting-new-news-hook' (called after getting new mail).
230 If you have modified those variables from the default, you may want to
231 add n-f-u-a-g-n-n again. If you were happy with the estimate and want
232 to save some (minimal) time when getting new mail, remove the
235 ** Group Carbon Copy (GCC) quoting
237 To support groups that contains SPC and other weird characters, groups
238 are quoted before they are placed in the Gcc: header. This means
239 variables such as `gnus-message-archive-group' should no longer
240 contain quote characters to make groups containing SPC work. Also, if
241 you are using the string "nnml:foo, nnml:bar" (indicating Gcc into two
242 groups) you must change it to return the list ("nnml:foo" "nnml:bar"),
243 otherwise the Gcc: line will be quoted incorrectly. Note that
244 returning the string "nnml:foo, nnml:bar" was incorrect earlier, it
245 just didn't generate any problems since it was inserted directly.
247 ** ~/News/overview/ not used.
249 As a result of the following change, the ~/News/overview/ directory is
250 not used any more. You can safely delete the entire hierarchy.
254 The Gnus Agent has seen a major update. It is now enabled by default,
255 and all nntp and nnimap servers from `gnus-select-method' and
256 `gnus-secondary-select-method' are agentized by default. Earlier only
257 the server in `gnus-select-method' was agentized by the default, and the
258 agent was disabled by default. When the agent is enabled, headers are
259 now also retrieved from the Agent cache instead of the backends when
260 possible. Earlier this only happened in the unplugged state. You can
261 enroll or remove servers with `J a' and `J r' in the server buffer.
262 Gnus will not download articles into the Agent cache, unless you
263 instruct it to do so, though, by using `J u' or `J s' from the Group
264 buffer. You revert to the old behaviour of having the Agent disabled
265 by customizing `gnus-agent'. Note that putting `(gnus-agentize)' in
266 ~/.gnus is not needed any more.
268 ** gnus-summary-line-format
270 The default value changed to "%U%R%z%I%(%[%4L: %-23,23f%]%) %s\n".
271 Moreover `gnus-extra-headers', `nnmail-extra-headers' and
272 `gnus-ignored-from-addresses' changed their default so that the users
273 name will be replaced by the recipient's name or the group name
274 posting to for NNTP groups.
276 ** deuglify.el (gnus-article-outlook-deuglify-article)
278 A new file from Raymond Scholz <rscholz@zonix.de> for deuglifying
279 broken Outlook (Express) articles.
281 ** (require 'gnus-load)
283 If you use a stand-alone Gnus distribution, you'd better add
284 "(require 'gnus-load)" to your ~/.emacs after adding the Gnus
285 lisp directory into load-path.
287 File gnus-load.el contains autoload commands, functions and variables,
288 some of which may not be included in distributions of Emacsen.
290 ** gnus-slave-unplugged
292 A new command which starts gnus offline in slave mode.
294 ** message-insinuate-rmail
296 Adding (message-insinuate-rmail) in .emacs and customizing
297 `mail-user-agent' to `gnus-user-agent' convinces Rmail to compose,
298 reply and forward messages in Message mode, where you can enjoy the
301 ** message-minibuffer-local-map
303 The line below enables BBDB in resending a message:
305 (define-key message-minibuffer-local-map [?\t] 'bbdb-complete-name)
307 ** Externalizing and deleting of attachments.
309 If `gnus-gcc-externalize-attachments' (or
310 `message-fcc-externalize-attachments') is non-nil, attach local files
313 The command `gnus-mime-save-part-and-strip' (bound to `C-o' on MIME
314 buttons) saves a part and replaces the part with an external one.
315 `gnus-mime-delete-part' (bound to `d' on MIME buttons) removes a part.
316 It works only on back ends that support editing.
318 ** gnus-default-charset
320 The default value now guesses on the basis of your environment instead
321 of using Latin-1. Also the ".*" item in gnus-group-charset-alist is
324 ** gnus-posting-styles
326 Add a new format of match like
328 ((header "to" "larsi.*org")
329 (Organization "Somewhere, Inc."))
331 The old format like the lines below is obsolete, but still accepted.
333 (header "to" "larsi.*org"
334 (Organization "Somewhere, Inc."))
336 ** message-ignored-news-headers and message-ignored-mail-headers
338 X-Draft-From and X-Gnus-Agent-Meta-Information have been added into
339 these two variables. If you customized those, perhaps you need add
340 those two headers too.
342 ** Gnus reads the NOV and articles in the Agent if plugged.
344 If one reads an article while plugged, and the article already exists
345 in the Agent, it won't get downloaded once more. Customize
346 `gnus-agent-cache' to revert to the old behavior.
348 ** Gnus supports the "format=flowed" (RFC 2646) parameter.
350 On composing messages, it is enabled by `use-hard-newlines'. Decoding
351 format=flowed was present but not documented in earlier versions.
353 ** Gnus supports the generation of RFC 2298 Disposition Notification requests.
355 This is invoked with the C-c M-n key binding from message mode.
357 ** Gnus supports Maildir groups.
359 Gnus includes a new backend nnmaildir.el.
361 ** Printing capabilities are enhanced.
363 Gnus supports Muttprint natively with O P from the Summary and Article
364 buffers. Also, each individual MIME part can be printed using p on
367 ** Message supports the Importance: (RFC 2156) header.
369 In the message buffer, `C-c C-f C-i' or `C-c C-u' cycles through the
372 ** Gnus supports Cancel Locks in News.
374 This means a header "Cancel-Lock" is inserted in news posting. It is
375 used to determine if you wrote a article or not (for cancelling and
376 superseding). Gnus generates a random password string the first time
377 you post a message, and saves it using the Custom system. While the
378 variable is called `canlock-password', it is not security sensitive
379 data. Publishing your canlock string on the web will not allow anyone
380 to be able to anything she could not already do. The behaviour can be
381 changed by customizing `message-insert-canlock'.
383 ** Gnus supports server-side mail filtering using Sieve.
385 Sieve rules can be added as Group Parameters for groups, and the
386 complete Sieve script is generated using `D g' from the Group buffer,
387 and then uploaded to the server using `C-c C-l' in the generated Sieve
388 buffer. Search the online Gnus manual for "sieve", and see the new
389 Sieve manual, for more information.
391 ** Extended format specs.
393 Format spec "%&user-date;" is added into
394 `gnus-summary-line-format-alist'. Also, user defined extended format
395 specs are supported. The extended format specs look like "%u&foo;",
396 which invokes function `gnus-user-format-function-foo'. Because "&" is
397 used as the escape character, old user defined format "%u&" is no
400 ** `/ *' (gnus-summary-limit-include-cached) is rewritten.
402 It was aliased to `Y c' (gnus-summary-insert-cached-articles). The new
403 function filters out other articles.
405 ** Some limiting commands accept a C-u prefix to negate the match.
407 If C-u is used on subject, author or extra headers, i.e., `/ s', `/
408 a', and `/ x' (gnus-summary-limit-to-{subject,author,extra})
409 respectively, the result will be to display all articles that do not
410 match the expression.
412 ** Group names are treated as UTF-8 by default.
414 This is supposedly what USEFOR wanted to migrate to. See
415 `gnus-group-name-charset-group-alist' and
416 `gnus-group-name-charset-method-alist' for customization.
418 ** The nnml and nnfolder backends store marks for each group.
420 This makes it possible to take backup of nnml/nnfolder servers/groups
421 separately of ~/.newsrc.eld, while preserving marks. It also makes it
422 possible to share articles and marks between users (without sharing
423 the ~/.newsrc.eld file) within e.g. a department. It works by storing
424 the marks stored in ~/.newsrc.eld in a per-group file ".marks" (for
425 nnml) and "groupname.mrk" (for nnfolder, named "groupname"). If the
426 nnml/nnfolder is moved to another machine, Gnus will automatically use
427 the .marks or .mrk file instead of the information in ~/.newsrc.eld.
428 The new server variables `nnml-marks-is-evil' and
429 `nnfolder-marks-is-evil' can be used to disable this feature.
431 ** The menu bar item (in Group and Summary buffer) named "Misc" has
432 been renamed to "Gnus".
434 ** The menu bar item (in Message mode) named "MML" has been renamed to
435 "Attachments". Note that this menu also contains security related
436 stuff, like signing and encryption.
438 ** gnus-group-charset-alist and gnus-group-ignored-charsets-alist.
440 The regexps in these variables are compared with full group names
441 instead of real group names in 5.8. Users who customize these
442 variables should change those regexps accordingly. For example:
444 ("^han\\>" euc-kr) -> ("\\(^\\|:\\)han\\>" euc-kr)
446 ** Gnus supports PGP (RFC 1991/2440), PGP/MIME (RFC 2015/3156) and
447 S/MIME (RFC 2630-2633).
449 It needs an external S/MIME and OpenPGP implementation, but no
450 additional lisp libraries. This add several menu items to the
451 Attachments menu, and C-c RET key bindings, when composing messages.
452 This also obsoletes `gnus-article-hide-pgp-hook'.
454 ** Gnus inlines external parts (message/external).
456 ** MML (Mime compose) prefix changed from `M-m' to `C-c C-m'.
458 This change was made to avoid conflict with the standard binding of
459 `back-to-indentation', which is also useful in message mode.
461 ** The default for message-forward-show-mml changed to symbol best.
463 The behaviour for the `best' value is to show MML (i.e., convert MIME
464 to MML) when appropriate. MML will not be used when forwarding signed
465 or encrypted messages, as the conversion invalidate the digital
471 * Changes in Pterodactyl Gnus (5.8/5.9)
473 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
474 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
475 internationalization and mail-fetching.
477 ** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
478 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
480 If you used procmail like in
482 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
483 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
484 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
485 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
487 this now has changed to
490 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
493 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
494 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
496 ** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
497 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
499 ** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too
500 many parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables.
502 ** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
503 called to position point.
505 ** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
506 summary buffers and NOV files.
508 ** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
509 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
511 ** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now works in a
512 subtly different manner.
514 ** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
515 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
516 ever-changing layouts.
518 ** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
521 * For older news, see Gnus info node "New Features".
523 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
524 Copyright information:
526 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
528 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
529 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
530 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
531 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
533 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
534 of this document, or of portions of it,
535 under the above conditions, provided also that they
536 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
540 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"