NEWS

GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.

Copyright (C) 2010-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
See the end of the file for license conditions.

Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.

This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.

See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.

You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.

Temporary note:
+++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
--- means no change in the manuals is called for.
When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
so we will look at it and add it to the manual.


* Installation Changes in Emacs 24.2

** New configure option '--enable-gcc-warnings', intended for developers.
If building with GCC, this enables compile-time checks that warn about
possibly-questionable C code.  On a recent GNU system there should be
no warnings; on older and on non-GNU systems the generated warnings
may be useful.

** The configure option '--disable-maintainer-mode' has been removed,
as it was confusingly-named and rarely useful.

---
** Emacs uses libtinfo in preference to libncurses, if available.

---
** On FreeBSD and NetBSD, configure no longer adds /usr/local/lib and
/usr/pkg/lib to the linker search path.  You must add them yourself if
you want them.

---
** On Mac OS X, configure no longer automatically adds the Fink /sw
directories to the search path.  You must add them yourself if you want them.


* Startup Changes in Emacs 24.2

** Emacs no longer searches for `leim-list.el' files beneath the standard
lisp/ directory.  There should not be any there anyway.  If you have
been adding them there, put them somewhere else, eg site-lisp.


* Changes in Emacs 24.2

** New functions `system-users', `system-groups' return lists of the user
name, group names known to the system (where possible).

** If your Emacs was built from a bzr checkout, the new variable
`emacs-bzr-version' contains information about which bzr revision was used.

** ImageMagick support, if available, is automatically enabled.
It is no longer necessary to call `imagemagick-register-types'
explicitly to install ImageMagick image types; that function is called
automatically at startup, or when customizing a relevant imagemagick-
option.

*** Setting `imagemagick-types-inhibit' to t now disables the use of
ImageMagick to view images.  You must call imagemagick-register-types
afterwards if you do not use customize to change this.

*** The new variable `imagemagick-enabled-types' also affects which
ImageMagick types are treated as images.  The function
`imagemagick-filter-types' returns the list of types that will be
treated as images.

** String values for `initial-buffer-choice' also apply to emacsclient
frames, if emacsclient is only told to open a new frame without
specifying any file to visit or expression to evaluate.

+++
** You can prevent the creation of lock files by setting `create-lockfiles'
to nil.  Use with caution, and only if you really need to.

+++
** Using "unibyte: t" in Lisp source files is obsolete.
Use "coding: raw-text" instead.

** Mode line changes

*** New option `mode-line-default-help-echo' specifies the help text
(shown in a tooltip or in the echo area) for any part of the mode line
that does not have its own specialized help text.

*** You can now click mouse-3 in the coding system indicator to
invokes `set-buffer-file-coding-system'.


* Editing Changes in Emacs 24.2

** Search changes

*** Global `M-s _' starts a symbol (identifier) incremental search,
and `M-s _' in Isearch toggles symbol search mode.
`M-s c' in Isearch toggles search case-sensitivity.

** M-x move-to-column, if called interactively with no prefix arg, now
prompts for a column number.

** `mouse-avoidance-banish-position' can now be used to customize
`mouse-avoidance-mode' further.

** `C-M-f' and `C-M-b' will now move to the path name separator
character when doing minibuffer filename prompts.

** `goto-char' is now bound to `M-g c'.


* Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.2

** CL's main entry is now (require 'cl-lib).
`cl-lib' is like the old `cl' except that it uses the namespace cleanly,
i.e. all its definitions have the "cl-" prefix.

If `cl' provided a feature under the name `foo', then `cl-lib' provides it
under the name `cl-foo' instead, with the exceptions of the few definitions
that had to use `foo*' to avoid conflicts with pre-existing Elisp entities,
which have not been renamed to `cl-foo*' but just `cl-foo'.

The old `cl' is now deprecated and is nothing more than a bunch of aliases that
provide the old non-prefixed names.

** VHDL-mode
- Support for ghdl (free vhdl compiler).  Now default.
- Add/update support for VHDL-AMS packages.
- Update to VHDL'02 standard.
- Accept \r and \f as whitespace.

** Diff mode

Faces for changes now use the same diff color scheme as in modern VCSes
where deletions are displayed in red (new faces `diff-refine-removed'
and `smerge-refined-removed' and new definition of `diff-removed'),
insertions in green (new faces `diff-refine-added' and
`smerge-refined-added' and new definition of `diff-added').
The variable `diff-use-changed-face' defines whether to use
the face `diff-changed', or `diff-removed' and `diff-added'
to highlight changes in context diffs.

** Ediff now uses the same color scheme as Diff mode
on high color displays.

** `sh-script'
*** Pairing of parens/quotes uses electric-pair-mode instead of skeleton-pair.
*** `sh-electric-here-document-mode' now controls auto-insertion of here-docs.
*** `sh-use-smie' lets you choose a new indentation and navigation code.

** reStructuredText mode

*** Rebind nearly all keys making room for more keys and complying
better to usage in other modes.  Describe bindings with C-c C-h.

*** Major revision of indentation working very similar to other
modes.  TAB is your friend.

*** Major revision of filling working fine with most of
reStructuredText syntax.  Support auto-filling.

*** Major revision of comment handling.

*** Major revision of fontification working with `jit-lock-mode'.

*** Cover reStructuredText syntax more closely.  Improve
the experience for Sphinx users.

*** `rst-insert-list' inserts new list or continues existing lists.

*** Extend correct and improve customization.

*** Negative prefix argument always works for `rst-adjust'.

*** Reset window configuration after displaying TOC.

*** Package version in `rst-version'.

** New `derived-mode' filter for Ibuffer, bound to `/ M'.
`/ m' is now bound to filter by used-mode, which used to be bound to `/ M'.

** Apropos

*** The faces used by Apropos are now directly customizable.
These faces are named `apropos-symbol', `apropos-keybinding', and so on;
see the `apropos' Custom group for details.

**** The old options whose values specified faces to use were removed
(i.e. `apropos-symbol-face', `apropos-keybinding-face', etc.).

** Calendar

*** The calendars produced by cal-html include holidays.
Customize cal-html-holidays to change this.

** Customize

*** `custom-reset-button-menu' now defaults to t.

*** Non-option variables are never matched in `customize-apropos' and
`customize-apropos-options' (i.e. the prefix argument does nothing for
these commands now).

** erc will look up server/channel names via auth-source and use the
channel keys found, if any.

** FFAP

*** The option `ffap-url-unwrap-remote' can now be a list of strings,
specifying URL types which should be converted to remote file names at
the FFAP prompt.  The default is now '("ftp").

** Follow mode

*** The obsolete variable `follow-mode-off-hook' has been removed.

*** Follow mode no longer works by using advice.
The option `follow-intercept-processes' has been removed.

** The `server-auth-key' variable can be used to set a permanent
shared key for Emacs Server.

** In Perl mode, new option `perl-indent-parens-as-block' causes non-block
closing brackets to be aligned with the line of the opening bracket.

** FIXME something happened to ses.el, 2012-04-17.

** which-function-mode now applies to all applicable major modes by default.

** D-Bus

+++
*** New variables `dbus-compiled-version' and `dbus-runtime-version'.

+++
*** The D-Bus object manager interface is implemented.

+++
*** Variables of type :(u)int32 and :(u)int64 accept floating points,
if their value does not fit into Emacs's integer range.

+++
*** The function `dbus-call-method' works non-blocking now, it can be
interrupted by C-g.  `dbus-call-method-non-blocking' is obsolete.

+++
*** Signals can be sent also as unicast message.

+++
*** The argument list of `dbus-register-signal' has been extended,
according to the new match rule types of D-Bus.  See the manual for
details.

+++
*** `dbus-init-bus' supports private connections.

+++
*** There is a new function `dbus-setenv'.

+++
** notifications.el supports now version 1.2 of the Notifications API.
The function `notifications-get-capabilities' returns the supported
server properties.

** Tabulated List and packages derived from it

*** New command `tabulated-list-sort', bound to `S', sorts the column
at point, or the Nth column if a numeric prefix argument is given.

** URL

*** Structs made by `url-generic-parse-url' have nil `attributes' slot.
Previously, this slot stored semicolon-separated attribute-value pairs
appended to some imap URLs, but this is not compatible with RFC 3986.
So now the `filename' slot stores the entire path and query components
and the `attributes' slot is always nil.

*** New function `url-encode-url' for encoding a URI string.
The `url-retrieve' function now uses this to encode its URL argument,
in case that is not properly encoded.

** Obsolete packages:

*** assoc.el
In most cases, assoc+member+push+delq work just as well.
And in any case it's just a terrible package: ugly semantics, terrible
inefficiency, and not namespace-clean.

*** bruce.el

*** ledit.el

*** mailpost.el

*** mouse-sel.el

*** patcomp.el

*** cust-print.el


* New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.2

* Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.2

+++
** Docstrings starting with `*' no longer indicate user options.
Only variables defined using `defcustom' are considered user options.
The function `user-variable-p' is now an obsolete alias for
`custom-variable-p'.

** `face-spec-set' no longer sets frame-specific attributes when the
third argument is a frame (that usage was obsolete since Emacs 22.2).

+++
** The arguments of `dbus-register-signal' are no longer just strings,
but keywords or keyword-string pairs.  The old argument list will
still be supported for Emacs 24.x.

** The following obsolete variables and varaliases have been removed:

*** `facemenu-unlisted-faces'
*** `rmail-decode-mime-charset'


* Lisp changes in Emacs 24.2

** `defun' also accepts a (declare DECLS) form, like `defmacro'.
The interpretation of the DECLS is determined by `defun-declarations-alist'.

** `macro-declaration-function' is obsolete, use `macro-declarations-alist'.

** New function `set-temporary-overlay-map'.

** New macros `setq-local' and `defvar-local'.

** New error type and new function `user-error'.  Doesn't trigger the debugger.

** The functions get-lru-window, get-mru-window and get-largest-window
now accept a third argument to avoid chosing the selected window.

** Completion

*** New function `completion-table-with-quoting' to handle completion
in the presence of quoting, such as file completion in shell buffers.

*** New function `completion-table-subvert' to use an existing completion
table, but with a different prefix.

** Time

*** `current-time-string' no longer requires that its argument's year
must be in the range 1000..9999.  It now works with any year supported
by the underlying C implementation.

** `automount-dir-prefix' is obsolete.
** `buffer-has-markers-at' is obsolete.

* Changes in Emacs 24.2 on non-free operating systems

** New configure.bat options on MS-Windows:

*** --without-libxml2 omits support for libxml2, even if its presence
is detected.

** When invoked with the -nw switch to run on the Windows text-mode terminal,
Emacs now supports mouse highlight, help-echo (in the echo area), and
mouse-autoselect-window.


* Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1

** Emacs can be compiled with Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
to configure.  Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
also depend on Gtk+.  You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
--without-gconf.

** Emacs can be compiled with GnuTLS support.
This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
found at build time.  To prevent this, use the configure option
`--without-gnutls'.  See below for GnuTLS features.

** Emacs can be compiled with SELinux support.
This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
found at build time.  To prevent this, use the configure option
`--without-selinux'.  See below for SELinux features.

** Emacs can be compiled with ImageMagick support.
This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
found at build time.  To prevent this, use the configure option
`--without-imagemagick'.  See below for ImageMagick features.
This feature is not available for the Nextstep or MS ports.

** Emacs can be compiled with libxml2 support.
This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
found at build time.  To prevent this, use the configure option
`--without-xml2'.  See below for libxml2 features.

** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.

** New configure option --with-wide-int.
With it, Emacs integers typically have 62 bits, even on 32-bit machines.
On 32-bit hosts, this raises the limit on buffer sizes from about 512 MiB
to about 2 GiB.

** New configure options: --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.

** New configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.

** The standalone programs digest-doc and sorted-doc are removed.
Emacs now uses Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.

** The standalone program `fakemail' is removed.
If you need it, feedmail.el provides a superset of the functionality.


* Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1

** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
longer have any effect.  (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)

** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
from load-path.  -Q now implies this.  This option does not affect the
EMACSLOADPATH environment variable (and hence has no effect for
Nextstep builds).


* Changes in Emacs 24.1

** Completion

*** Many packages now use the `completion-at-point' command,
rather than implementing separate completion commands.

*** `completion-at-point' now handles tags and semantic completion.

*** Completion in a non-minibuffer now tries to detect the end of completion
and pops down the *Completions* buffer accordingly.

*** New option `completion-cycle-threshold' allows completion cycling.

*** New option `completion-category-overrides' for overriding the
default completion style in certain circumstances.

*** New completion style `substring'.

*** Completion of buffer names uses `substring' completion by default.

*** The option `widget-complete-field' has been removed.

** Mail changes

*** The first time you try sending mail, Emacs asks for a mail method.
This is implemented by a new default for `send-mail-function', which
is `sendmail-query-once'.  This offers to use the smtpmail package, or
to use the old defaults relying on external mail facilities
(`sendmail-send-it' on GNU/Linux and other Unix-like systems, and
`mailclient-send-it' on Windows).

*** Typing C-c m in the buffer made by M-x report-emacs-bug transfers
the report to your desktop's preferred mail client, if there is one.
This uses either the "xdg-email" utility, or Mac OS's "open" command.

*** See Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages for SMTPmail changes
and Mail mode changes

** Emacs server and client changes

*** New option `server-port' specifies the port for TCP Emacs servers.

*** New emacsclient argument -q/--quiet suppresses some status messages.

*** New emacsclient argument --frame-parameters specifies the frame
parameters of any newly-created graphical frame.

*** If emacsclient shuts down due to Emacs signaling an error,
its exit status is 1.

*** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID.
This opens a client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed, similar
to the --parent-id argument to Emacs.

** Internationalization changes

*** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
Right-to-left (RTL) scripts, such as Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew, are
displayed in the correct visual order as expected by users of those
scripts.  The display reordering is a "full bidirectionality" class
implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (UBA).  Buffers
with no RTL text should look exactly the same as before.

**** New buffer-local variable `bidi-display-reordering'.
To disable display reordering in a buffer, change this to nil.

**** New buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction'.
If nil (the default), Emacs determines the base direction of each
paragraph from its text, as specified by the UBA.  Setting the value
to `right-to-left' or `left-to-right' forces a base direction on each
paragraph.

Paragraphs with right-to-left base direction are displayed starting at
the right window edge.

*** Enhanced support for characters with no glyphs in available fonts,
or, on text terminals, characters that cannot be encoded by the
terminal coding system.  The new option `glyphless-char-display-control'
specifies how to display them: as a hexadecimal code in a box, a thin
1-pixel space, an empty box, etc.

*** New input methods: farsi, farsi-translit, bulgarian-alt-phonetic.

*** `nobreak-char-display' now also highlights Unicode hyphen chars
(U+2010 and U+2011).

*** New Hebrew translation of the Emacs Tutorial.
Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
automatically select it.

** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
from a package repository at http://elpa.gnu.org.

*** M-x list-packages shows a list of packages, which can be
selected for installation.

*** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.

*** By default, all installed packages are loaded automatically when
Emacs starts up.  To disable this, set `package-enable-at-startup' to
nil.  To specify the packages to load, customize `package-load-list'.

** Custom theme changes

*** New command `M-x customize-themes', which provides a convenient
interface for enabling and disabling Custom themes.

*** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
Emacs no longer looks for Custom themes in `load-path'.  The default
value of `custom-theme-load-path' says to look for themes in
`custom-theme-directory', followed by a subdirectory of
`data-directory' named "themes/", which contains a small selection of
built-in Custom themes.

*** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically.  By
default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.

** Improved GTK integration

*** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
The function `set-scroll-bar-mode' can change this.

*** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose the style.  On a Gnome desktop,
the default is taken from desktop settings.

*** GTK tool bars can be placed on any edge of the frame.
The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this.  It takes the
values top, left, right or bottom.  The Options => Show/Hide menu has
entries for this.

*** The default colors for selected text (the `region' face) are taken
from the GTK theme when Emacs is built with GTK.

*** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK.
You can disable this by changing `x-gtk-use-system-tooltips' to nil.

** Graphical interface changes

*** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
Also, the first dash (which does not indicate anything) is just
displayed as a space.

*** `menu-bar-select-buffer-function' lets you choose another operation
instead of `switch-to-buffer' when selecting an item in the Buffers menu.

*** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is
built with Xft.  These fonts can be set via X resources, for example:
Emacs.pane.menubar.font: Courier-12

** Exiting changes

*** Emacs now calls `kill-emacs' if it receives SIGTERM or SIGHUP,
or if it receives a SIGINT signal in batch mode.

*** `kill-emacs-hook' is now also run in batch mode.
Third-party code which adds to `kill-emacs-hook' should check if they
do the right thing in batch mode.

** Scrolling changes

*** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
(bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) do not signal errors at top/bottom
of buffer at first key-press (instead they move to top/bottom of buffer)
when `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.

*** New option `scroll-error-top-bottom' (see above).

*** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
scroll a line instead of full screen.

*** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.

*** If you customize `scroll-conservatively' to a value greater than 100,
Emacs will never recenter point in the window when it scrolls due to
cursor motion commands or commands that move point (e.f., `M-g M-g').
Previously, you needed to use `most-positive-fixnum' as the value of
`scroll-conservatively' to achieve the same effect.

*** "Aggressive" scrolling now honors the scroll margins.
If you customize `scroll-up-aggressively' or
`scroll-down-aggressively' and move point off the window, Emacs now
scrolls the window so as to avoid positioning point inside the scroll
margin.

** Basic SELinux support has been added.
This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.

*** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up.
Also, the function `copy-file' has an extra optional argument for
preserving SELinux context, and the return value of `backup-buffer'
now includes the SELinux context.

*** New functions `file-selinux-context' and `set-file-selinux-context'
get and set the SELinux context of a file.

** Trash changes

*** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
trashing.  This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.

*** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.

** File- and directory-local variable changes

*** You can stop directory local vars from applying to subdirectories.
Add an element (subdirs . nil) to the alist portion of any variables
settings to indicate that the section should not apply to
subdirectories.

*** Directory local variables can apply to some file-less buffers.
Affected modes include dired, vc-dir, and log-edit.  For example,
adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to .dir-locals.el will
turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers.  Modes should call
`hack-dir-local-variables-non-file-buffer' to support this.

*** Using "mode: MINOR-MODE" to enable a minor mode is deprecated.
Instead, use "eval: (minor-mode 1)".

*** The variable `inhibit-first-line-modes-regexps' has been renamed
to `inhibit-local-variables-regexps'.  As the name suggests, it now
applies to ALL file local variables, not just -*- lines.  The
associated `inhibit-first-line-modes-suffixes' has been renamed in the
corresponding way.

** Window changes

*** The `quit-window' command now restores the last buffer displayed
in the quitted window.

*** Resizing an Emacs frame now preserves proportional window sizes,
modulo restrictions like window minimum sizes and fixed-size windows.

*** The behavior of `display-buffer' is now customizable in detail.

**** New option `display-buffer-base-action' specifies a list of
user-determined display "actions" (functions and optional arguments
for choosing the displaying window).

This takes precedence over the default display action, which is
specified by `display-buffer-fallback-action'.

**** New option `display-buffer-alist' maps buffer name regexps to
display actions, taking precedence over `display-buffer-base-action'.

*** New option `window-combination-limit'.
The new option `window-combination-limit' allows to return the space
obtained for resizing or creating a window more reliably to the window
from which such space was obtained.

*** New option `window-combination-resize'.
The new option `window-combination-resize' allows to split a window that
otherwise cannot be split because it's too small by stealing space from
other windows in the same combination.  Subsequent resizing or deletion
of the window will resize all windows in the same combination as well.

*** New option `frame-auto-hide-function' lets you choose between
iconifying or deleting a frame when burying a buffer in a dedicated
frame, or quitting a window showing a buffer in a frame of its own.

*** New commands `maximize-window' and `minimize-window'.
These maximize and minimize the size of a window within its frame.

*** New commands `switch-to-prev-buffer' and `switch-to-next-buffer'.
These functions allow to navigate through the live buffers that have
been shown in a specific window.

** Minibuffer changes

*** The inactive minibuffer has its own major mode `minibuffer-inactive-mode'.
This is handy for minibuffer-only frames, and is also used for the feature
where mouse-1 pops up *Messages*"', which can now easily be changed.

*** Minibuffers set `truncate-lines' to nil.
If you want to change the value to something else, you could use
for example `minibuffer-setup-hook'.

** `auto-mode-case-fold' is now enabled by default.

** `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' now defaults to t.

** New basic faces `error', `warning', `success'.
These are used to highlight text indicating failure, caution or
successful operation.

** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
for `list-colors-display'.

** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.


* Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1

** Search changes

*** C-y in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-kill', instead of
`isearch-yank-line'.

*** M-y in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-pop', instead of
`isearch-yank-kill'.

*** M-s C-e in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-line'.

** New commands `count-words-region' and `count-words'.

*** M-= is bound to `count-words-region', not `count-lines-region'.
The `count-words-region' command, when called interactively, reports
the number of lines, words, and characters in the region.  It is a
superset of the old `count-lines-region', which is now an obsolete
alias for it.

** The command `just-one-space' (M-SPC), if given a negative argument,
also deletes newlines around point.

** Deletion changes

*** New option `delete-active-region'.
If non-nil, [delete] and DEL delete the region if it is active and no
prefix argument is given.  If set to `kill', those commands kill
instead.

*** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to [delete].
This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.

*** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; Lisp
callers should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.

*** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.

** Selection changes.

The default handling of clipboard and primary selections has been
changed to conform with modern X applications.  In short, most
commands for killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while
mouse commands use the primary selection.

In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.

*** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
the kill ring.  The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).

**** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
"ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
point motion, do not alter the primary selection.

**** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.

*** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.

*** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.

*** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.

**** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
exactly equivalent to M-w, C-w, and C-y respectively.

**** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
between applications.

*** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:

**** Change `select-active-regions' to nil.
**** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
**** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
**** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
**** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.

*** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.

*** X clipboard managers are now supported.
To inhibit this, change `x-select-enable-clipboard-manager' to nil.

** New command `C-x r N' (`rectangle-number-lines') numbers the lines
in the current rectangle.  With a prefix argument, this prompts for a
number to count from and for a format string.

** `redisplay-dont-pause' now defaults to t.
This makes Emacs feel more responsive to editing commands that arrive
at high rate, e.g. if you lean on some key, because stopping redisplay
in the middle (when this variable is nil) forces more expensive
updates later on, and Emacs appears to be unable to keep up.

** The behavior of <TAB> for active regions in Text mode has changed.
In Text and related modes, typing <TAB> (`indent-for-tab-command')
when the region is active causes Emacs to indent all the lines in the
region, aligning them with the line previous to the first line in the
region (or with the left margin if there is no previous line).

** When `occur' is called with a prefix argument, matching strings are
collected into the `*Occur*' buffer without line numbers.  If there
are parenthesized subexpressions in the specified regexp, `occur'
reads replacement text that may contain \\& and \\N whose convention
follows `replace-match'.


* Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1

** Archive Mode has basic support for browsing and updating 7z archives.

** BibTeX mode

*** BibTeX mode now supports biblatex.
Use the variable `bibtex-dialect' to select different BibTeX dialects.
`bibtex-entry-field-alist' is now an obsolete alias for
`bibtex-BibTeX-entry-alist'.

*** New command `bibtex-search-entries', bound to C-c C-a.

*** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `sort-fields', disabled by default.

*** New variable `bibtex-search-entry-globally'.

** Browse-url

*** New option `browse-url-mailto-function' specifies how to handle "mailto:"s.

*** The default browser used by the package is now the "xdg-open" program,
on platforms that support it.  This calls your desktop's preferred browser.

** Calendar, Diary, and Appt

*** Diary entries can contain non-printing "comments".
See the variable `diary-comment-start'.

*** Appointments can specify their individual warning times.
See the variable `appt-warning-time-regexp'.

*** The function specified by `appt-disp-window-function' may be passed
lists of arguments if multiple appointments are due at similar times.
If you are using a custom function for this, you should update it.

*** New function `diary-hebrew-birthday'.

*** Elements of `calendar-day-abbrev-array' and `calendar-month-abbrev-array'
may no longer be nil, but must all be strings.

*** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt
package by adding `appt-make-list' to `diary-hook' has been removed.
Use `appt-activate' instead.

*** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)

*** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries

** CC Mode

*** New feature to "guess" the style in an existing buffer.
The main entry point is M-x c-guess.

*** Java Mode now supports Java 5.0 (Tiger) and 6 (Mustang).

*** `c-beginning-of-defun' and `c-end-of-defun' now respect nested scopes.
Thus C-M-a will, by default, go to the beginning of the immediate function,
not the top level.

*** "Macros with semicolons" can be registered for correct indentation.
Where such a macro ends a line (no semicolon) the next statement is no longer
parsed as a statement continuation.

** Comint and modes derived from it use the standard completion code.

** Compilation mode

*** Compilation mode can be used without Font Lock mode.
`compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.

*** New variable `compilation-filter-start', which is bound while
`compilation-filter-hook' runs.  It records the start position of the
text inserted by `compilation-filter'.

*** `compilation-error-screen-columns' and `compilation-first-column'
are obeyed in the editing buffer.  So programming language modes can
set them, whereas previously only the value in the *Compilation*
buffer was used.

** Customize

*** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
To turn off the search field, set `custom-search-field' to nil.

*** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.

*** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.

*** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
choose a color via `list-colors-display'.

** D-Bus

*** It is now possible to access buses other than the default system
or session bus.

*** The `dbus-register-method' and `dbus-register-property' functions
optionally do not register names.

*** The new function `dbus-register-service' registers a known service
name on a D-Bus without also registering a property or a method.

** Dired-x