Re: September Gnus 0.13 is released

[Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk>]

>>>>> "RN" == Robert Nicholson <robert@steffi.accessone.com> writes:

RN> With respect to 5.0.12.

RN> I take it this is that one that FSF maintain now. Probably in their
RN> own time. ie. not released separately to Emacs?

5.0.12 is the release at Lars' site.  Emacs 19.30 will have 5.1.  I'm
more curious about what will be in XEmacs 19.14.  It might be a good
idea to make an unbundled 5.1.1 release after Emacs 19.30 has been
released.

RN> Anybody want to try and convince lars to keep 19.28 support in? 

I'd vote no for two reasons: One, maintaining support for old versions
slow down development and two, there is already a good alternative for
people using Emacs 19.28 (people using 19.22 or 18.55 are much worse
of). 

RN> the 19.30 stuff that good? What exactly does it allow you to do?

I haven't noticed any significant new features, beside the new Gnus.
See the appended NEWS file.

SJ> It'd be nice if someone pointed out what new feature of 19.29 it is
SJ> that ding is using, so that we may work around that and still upgrade.

That the `intangible' property exists but doesn't work has been the
largest problem in my code.

\f
* Editing Changes in Emacs 19.30.

** Be sure to recompile your byte-compiled Emacs Lisp files
if you last compiled them with Emacs 19.28 or earlier.
You can use M-x byte-force-recompile to recompile all the .elc files
in a specified directory.

** Emacs now provides multiple-frame support on Windows NT
and Windows 95.

** M-x column-number-mode toggles a minor mode which displays
the current column number in the mode line.

** Line Number mode is now enabled by default.

** C-mouse-1 now once again provides a menu of buffers to select.
S-mouse-1 is now the way to select a default font for the frame.

** If you type a M-x command that has an equivalent key binding,
the equivalent is shown in the minibuffer before the command executes.
This feature is enabled by default for the sake of beginning users.
You can turn the feature off by setting suggest-key-bindings to nil.

** M-x what-line now displays the line number in the accessible
portion of the buffer as well as the line number in the full buffer,
when narrowing is in effect.

** The menu bar is now visible on text-only terminals.  To choose a
command from the menu bar when you have no mouse, type M-`
(Meta-Backquote).

** Whenever you invoke a minibuffer, it appears in the minibuffer
window that the current frame uses.

Emacs can only use one minibuffer window at a time.  If you activate
the minibuffer while a minibuffer window is active in some other
frame, the outer minibuffer window disappears while the inner one is
active.

** Echo area messages always appear in the minibuffer window that the
current frame uses.  If a minibuffer is active in some other frame,
the echo area message does not hide it even temporarily.

** Dead-key and composite character processing is done in the standard
X11R6 manner (through the default "input method" using the
/usr/lib/X11/locale/*/Compose databases of key combinations).  I.e. if
it works in xterm, it should also work in emacs now.

** Mouse changes

*** There is a new mouse-scroll-min-lines variable to control the
minimum number of lines scrolled by dragging the mouse outside a
window's edge.

*** Dragging mouse-1 on a vertical line that separates windows
now moves the line, thus changing the widths of the two windows.
(This feature is available only if you don't have vertical scroll bars.
If you do use them, a scroll bar separates two side-by-side windows.)

*** Double-click mouse-1 on a character with "symbol" syntax (such as
underscore, in C mode) selects the entire symbol surrounding that
character.  (Double-click mouse-1 on a letter selects a whole word.)

** The CC-mode package now provides the default C and C++ modes.
See the manual for documentation of its features.

** Filling changes.

*** If the variable colon-double-space is non-nil, the explicit fill
commands put two spaces after a colon.

*** Auto-Fill mode now supports Adaptive Fill mode just as the
explicit fill commands do.  The variable adaptive-fill-regexp
specifies a regular expression to match text at the beginning of
a line that should be the fill prefix.

*** Adaptive Fill mode can take a fill prefix from the first line of a
paragraph, *provided* that line is not a paragraph-starter line.

Paragraph-starter lines are indented lines that start a new
paragraph because they are indented.  This indentation shouldn't
be copied to additional lines.

Whether indented lines are paragraph lines depends on the value of the
variable paragraph-start.  Some major modes set this; you can set it
by hand or in mode hooks as well.  For editing text in which paragraph
first lines are not indented, and which contains paragraphs in which
all lines are indented, you should use Indented Text mode or arrange
for paragraph-start not to match these lines.

*** You can specify more complex ways of choosing a fill prefix
automatically by setting `adaptive-fill-function'.  This function
is called with point after the left margin of a line, and it should
return the appropriate fill prefix based on that line.
If it returns nil, that means it sees no fill prefix in that line.

** When incremental search wraps around to the beginning (or end) of
the buffer, if you keep on searching until you go past the original
starting point of the search, the echo area changes from "Wrapped" to
"Overwrapped".  That tells you that you are revisiting matches that
you have already seen.

** Gnus changes.

Gnus, the Emacs newsreader, has been rewritten and expanded.  Most
things that worked with the old version should still work with the new
version.  Code that relies heavily on Gnus internals is likely to
fail, though.

*** Incompatabilities with the old GNUS.

**** All interactive commands have kept their names, but many internal
functions have changed names.

**** The summary mode gnus-uu commands have been moved from the `C-c
C-v' keymap to the `X' keymap.

**** There can now be several summary buffers active at once.
Variables that are relevant to each summary buffer are buffer-local to
that buffer.

**** Old hilit code doesn't work at all.  Gnus performs its own
highlighting based not only on what's visible in the buffer, but on
other data structures.

**** Old packages like `expire-kill' will no longer work.  

**** `C-c C-l' in the group buffer no longer switches to a different
buffer, but instead lists killed groups in the group buffer.

*** New features.

**** The look of all buffers can be changed by setting format-like
variables.
 
**** Local spool and several NNTP servers can be used at once.

**** Groups can be combined into virtual groups.

**** Different mail formats can be read much the same way as one would
read newsgroups.  All the mail backends implement mail expiry schemes.

**** Gnus can use various strategies for gathering threads that have
lost their roots (thereby gathering loose sub-threads into one thread)
or it can go back and retrieve enough headers to build a complete
thread.

**** Killed groups can be read.

**** Gnus can do partial group updates - you do not have to retrieve
the entire active file just to check for new articles in a few groups.

**** Gnus implements a sliding scale of subscribedness to groups.

**** You can score articles according to any number of criteria.  You
can get Gnus to score articles for you using adaptive scoring.

**** Gnus maintains a dribble buffer that is auto-saved the normal
Emacs manner, so it should be difficult to lose much data on what you
have read if your machine should go down.

**** Gnus now has its own startup file (`.gnus.el') to avoid
cluttering up the `.emacs' file.

**** You can set the process mark on both groups and articles and
perform operations on all the marked items.

**** You can grep through a subset of groups and create a group from
the results.

**** You can list subsets of groups using matches on group names or
group descriptions.

**** You can browse foreign servers and subscribe to groups from those
servers.

**** Gnus can pre-fetch articles asynchronously on a second connection
to the servers.

**** You can cache articles locally.

**** Gnus can fetch FAQs to and descriptions of groups.

**** Digests (and other files) can be used as the basis for groups.

**** Articles can be highlighted and customized.

** Changes to Version Control (VC)

*** General changes (all backends).

VC directory listings (C-x v d) are now kept up to date when you do a
vc-next-action (C-x v v) on the marked files.  The `g' command updates
the buffer properly.  `=' in a VC dired buffer produces a version
control diff, not an ordinary diff.

*** CVS changes.

Under CVS, you no longer need to type C-x C-q before you can edit a
file.  VC doesn't write-protect unmodified buffers anymore; you can
freely change them at any time.  The mode line keeps track of the
file status.

If you do want unmodified files to be write-protected, set your
CVSREAD environment variable.  VC sees this and behaves accordingly;
that will give you the behaviour of Emacs 19.29, similar to that under
RCS and SCCS.  In this mode, if the variable vc-mistrust-permissions
is nil, VC learns the modification state from the file permissions.
When setting CVSREAD for the first time, you should check out the
whole module anew, so that the file permissions are set correctly.

VC also works with remote repositories now.  When you visit a file, it
doesn't run "cvs status" anymore, so there shouldn't be any long delays.

Directory listings under VC/CVS have been enhanced.  Type C-x v d, and
you get a list of all files in or below the current directory that are
not up-to-date.  The actual status (modified, merge, conflict, ...) is
displayed for each file.  If you give a prefix argument (C-u C-x v d),
up-to-date files are also listed.  You can mark any number of files,
and execute the next logical version control command on them (C-x v v).

*** Starting a new branch.

If you try to lock a version that is not the latest on its branch, 
VC asks for confirmation in the minibuffer.  If you say no, it offers
to lock the latest version instead.

*** RCS non-strict locking.

VC can now handle RCS non-strict locking, too.  In this mode, working
files are always writable and you needn't lock the file before making
changes, similar to the default mode under CVS.  To enable non-strict
locking for a file, use the "rcs -U" command.

*** Sharing RCS master files.

If you share RCS subdirs with other users (through symbolic links),
and you always want to work on the latest version, set
vc-consult-headers to nil and vc-mistrust-permissions to `t'.
Then you see the state of the *latest* version on the mode line, not
that of your working file.  When you do a check out, VC overwrites
your working file with the latest version from the master.

*** RCS customization.

There is a new variable vc-consult-headers.  If it is t (the default),
VC searches for RCS headers in working files (like `$Id$') and
determines the state of the file from them, not from the master file.
This is fast and more reliable when you use branches.  (The variable
was already present in Emacs 19.29, but didn't get mentioned in the
NEWS.)

** The uniquify package chooses buffer names differently when you
visit multiple files with the same name (in different directories).

** RMAIL now always uses the movemail program when it renames an
inbox file, so that it can interlock properly with the mailer
no matter where it is delivering mail.

** The environment variable NAME, if set, now specifies the value of
(user-full-name), when Emacs starts up.

** tex-start-of-header and tex-end-of-header are now regular expressions,
not strings.

** To enable automatic uncompression of compressed files,
type M-x auto-compression-mode.  (This command used to be called
toggle-auto-compression, but was not documented before.)  In Lisp,
you can do

   (auto-compression-mode 1)

to turn the mode on.

** The new pc-select package emulates the key bindings for cutting and
pasting, and selection of regions, found in Windows, Motif, and the
Macintosh.

** TPU-edt Changes

Loading tpu-edt no longer turns on tpu-edt mode.  In fact, it is no
longer necessary to explicitly load tpu-edt.  All you need to do to
turn on tpu-edt is run the tpu-edt function.  Here's how to run
tpu-edt instead of loading the file:
  
  Running Emacs:   Type      emacs -f tpu-edt
                    not      emacs -l tpu-edt

  Within Emacs:    Type      M-x tpu-edt <ret>
                    not      M-x load-library <ret> tpu-edt <ret>
  
  In .emacs:       Use       (tpu-edt)
                   not       (load "tpu-edt")
  
The default name of the tpu-edt X key definition file has changed from
~/.tpu-gnu-keys to ~/.tpu-keys.  If you don't rename the file yourself,
tpu-edt will offer to rename it the first time you invoke it under
x-windows.

** The files etc/termcap.dat and etc/termcap.ucb have been replaced
with a new, merged, and much more comprehensive termcap file.  The
new file should include all the special entries from the old one.
This new file is under active development as part of the ncurses
project.  If you have any questions about this file, or problems with
an entry in it, email terminfo@ccil.org.

** The minibuffer now has a menu-bar menu.  You can use it to exit or
abort the minibuffer, or to ask for completion.

** Help buffers now use a special major mode, Help mode.  This mode
normally turns on View mode; it also provides a hook, help-mode-hook,
which you can use for other customization.

** Font Lock mode

*** Supports Scheme, TCL and Help modes

For example, to automatically turn on Font Lock mode in the *Help*
buffer, put:

 (add-hook 'help-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)

in your ~/.emacs.

*** Enhanced fontification

The structure of font-lock-keywords is extended to allow "anchored" keywords.
Typically, a keyword item of font-lock-keywords comprises a regexp to search
for and information to specify how the regexp should be highlighted.  However,
the highlighting information is extended so that it can be another keyword
item.  This keyword item, its regexp and highlighting information, is processed
before resuming with the keyword item of which it is part.

For example, a typical keyword item might be:

 ("\\<anchor\\>" (0 anchor-face))

which fontifies each occurrence of the discrete word "anchor" in the value of
the variable anchor-face.  However, the highlighting information can be used to
fontify text that is anchored to the word "anchor".  For example:

 ("\\<anchor\\>" (0 anchor-face) ("\\=[ ,]*\\(item\\)" nil nil (1 item-face)))

which fontifies each occurrence of "anchor" as above, but for each occurrence
of "anchor", each occurrence of "item", in any following comma separated list,
is fontified in the value of the variable item-face.  Thus the "item" text is
anchored to the "anchor" text.  See the variable documentation for further
information.

This feature is used to extend the level and quality of fontification in a
number of modes.  For example, C/C++ modes now have level 3 decoration that
includes the fontification of variable and function names in declaration lists.
In this instance, the "anchor" described in the above example is a type or
class name, and an "item" is a variable or function name.

*** Fontification levels

The variables font-lock-maximum-decoration and font-lock-maximum-size are
extended to specify levels and sizes for specific modes.  The variable
font-lock-maximum-decoration specifies the preferred level of fontification for
modes that provide multiple levels (typically from "subdued" to "gaudy").  The
variable font-lock-maximum-size specifies the buffer size for which buffer
fontification is suppressed when Font Lock mode is turned on (typically because
it would take too long).

These variables can now specify values for individual modes, by supplying
lists of mode names and values.  For example, to use the above mentioned level
3 decoration for buffers in C/C++ modes, and default decoration otherwise, put:

 (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration '((c-mode . 3) (c++-mode . 3)))

in your ~/.emacs.  Maximum buffer size values for individual modes are
specified in the same way with the variable font-lock-maximum-size.

*** Font Lock configuration

The mechanism to provide default settings for Font Lock mode are the variables
font-lock-defaults and font-lock-maximum-decoration.  Typically, you should
only need to change the value of font-lock-maximum-decoration.  However, to
support Font Lock mode for buffers in modes that currently do not support Font
Lock mode, you should set a buffer local value of font-lock-defaults for that
mode, typically via its mode hook.

These variables are used by Font Lock mode to set the values of the variables
font-lock-keywords, font-lock-keywords-only, font-lock-syntax-table,
font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function and font-lock-keywords-case-fold-search.

You need not set these variables directly, and should not set them yourself
since the underlining mechanism may change in future.

** Archive mode is now the default mode for various sorts of
archive files (files whose names end with .arc, .lzh, .zip, and .zoo).

** Apropos now uses faces for legibility.  It also has new features
such as showing plists, and snooping thru values.  It now supports
highlighted mouse-2 or RET hypertext.  All symbol-names start with
`apropos'.

** Skeleton commands now work smoothly as abbrev definitions.  The
element < no longer exists, ' is a new element.

** The autoinsert insert facility for prefilling empty files as soon
as they are found has been extended to accomodate skeletons or calling
functions.  Put (add-hook 'find-file-hooks 'auto-insert) into your
~/.emacs.

** Automatic copyright update functionality is now available for all
documents, not just Emacs Lisp.  Put (add-hook 'write-file-hooks
'copyright-update) into your ~/.emacs.

** Scripts of various languages (Shell, AWK, Perl, makefiles ...) can
be automatically provided with a magic number and be made executable
by their respective modes under control of various user variables.
The mode must call (executable-set-magic "perl") or
(executable-set-magic "make" "-f").  The latter for example has no
effect on [Mm]akefile.

** Shell script mode V2.0 now supports over 15 different shells.
There is also an edit-interpret-debug cycle via C-c !  (from
executable based on compile).  Because of the different detail in
messages, ksh gives the best results (when outside functions), sh and
bash find syntax errors but no command name typos while csh
programmers are left out in the cold.  The new command C-c | executes
the region and optionally beginning of script.

Cases such as `sh' being a `bash' are now accounted for.
Fontification now also does variables, the magic number and all
builtin commands.  Shell script mode no longer mingles `tab-width' and
indentation style.  Var `sh-tab-width' is replaced by
`sh-indentation'.  Empty lines are now indented like previous
non-empty line, rather than just previous line.  It no longer has the
annoying $ variable prompting, it uses `comint-dynamic-completion'
instead for commands, variables & filenames.

** Two-column now automatically scrolls both buffers, eliminating a
few commands dedicated to this.  All symbols start with `2C-'.  The
commands that operate in two-column mode are no longer bound to keys
outside.  f2 o  will now position at the same point in other text.

New command  f2 RET  will also newline where  f2 o  would position.

** MS-DOS Enhancements:

*** Better mouse control by adding the following functions [in dosfns.c]
msdos-mouse-enable, msdos-mouse-disable, msdos-mouse-init.

**** If another foreground/background color than the default is setup in
your ~/_emacs, then the screen briefly flickers with the default
colors before changing to the colors you have specified.  To avoid
this, the EMACSCOLORS environment variable exists.  It shall be
defined as a string with the following elements:
  
    set EMACSCOLORS=fb;fb
  
The first set of "fb" defines the initial foreground and background
colors using standard dos color numbers (0=black,.., 7=white).
If specified, the second set of "fb" defines the colors which are
restored when you leave emacs.
  
*** The new SUSPEND environment variable can now be set as the shell to
use when suspending emacs.  This can be used to override the stupid
limitation on the environment of sub-shells in MS-DOS (they are just
large enough to hold the currently defined variables, not leaving
room for more); to overcome this limitation, add this to autoexec.bat:
  
    set SUSPEND=%COMSPEC% /E:2000

** The escape character can now be displayed (as a tiny left arrow)
on X window frames.  Try this:
    (aset standard-display-table 27 (vector 27))
after first creating a display table.

** The new command-line option --eval specifies an expression to evaluate
from the command line.

** etags has now the ability to tag perl files.  They are recognised
either by the .pm and .pl suffixes or by looking at their first line,
where it looks for a sharp-bang (#!) sequence followed by the
interpreter name.  The tagged lines are those beginning with the `sub'
keyword.  New suffixes recognised are .hpp for C++; .f90 for Fortran;
.bib, .ltx, .TeX for TeX (.bbl, .dtx removed); .ml for Lisp; .prolog
for prolog (.pl is now perl).
\f
* Lisp changes in Emacs 19.30.

** There is a new data type called a char-table which is an array
indexed by a character.  Currently this is mostly equivalent to a
vector of length 256, but in the future, when a wider character set is
in use, it will be different.  To create one, call
   (make-char-table SUBTYPE INITIAL-VALUE)

SUBTYPE is a symbol that identifies the specific use of this
character table.  It can be any of these values:

  syntax-table
  display-table
  keyboard-translate-table
  case-table

The function `char-table-subtype' returns the subtype of a char-table.
You cannot alter the subtype of an existing char-table.

A char-table has an element for each character code.  It also has some
"extra slots".  The number of extra slots depends on the subtype and
their use depends on the subtype.  (Each subtype symbol has a
`char-table-extra-slots' property that says how many extra slots to
make.)  Use (char-table-extra-slot TABLE N) to access extra slot N and
(set-char-table-extra-slot TABLE N VALUE) to store VALUE in slot N.

A char-table T can have a parent, which should be another char-table
P.  If you look for the value in T for character C, and the table T
actually holds nil, P's element for character C is used instead.
The functions `char-table-parent' and `set-char-table-parent'
let you read or set the parent of a char-table.

To scan all the values in a char-table, do not try to loop through all
possible character codes.  That would work for now, but will not work
in the future.  Instead, call map-char-table.  (map-char-table
FUNCTION TABLE) calls FUNCTION once for each character or character
set that has a distinct value in TABLE.  FUNCTION gets two arguments,
RANGE and VALUE.  RANGE specifies a range of TABLE that has one
uniform value, and VALUE is the value in TABLE for that range.

Currently, RANGE is always a vector containing a single character
and it refers to that character alone.  In the future, other kinds
of ranges will occur.  You can set the value for a given range
with (set-char-table-range TABLE RANGE VALUE) and examine the value
for a range with (char-table-range TABLE RANGE).

** A new data type called a bool-vector is a vector of values
that are either t or nil.  To create one, do
   (make-bool-vector LENGTH INITIAL-VALUE)

** Syntax tables are now represented as char-tables.
All syntax tables other than the standard syntax table
normally have the standard syntax table as their parent.
Their subtype is `syntax-table'.

** Display tables are now represented as char-tables.
Their subtype is `display-table'.

** Case tables are now represented as char-tables.
Their subtype is `case-table'.

** The value of keyboard-translate-table may now be a char-table
instead of a string.  Normally the char-tables used for this purpose
have the subtype `keyboard-translate-table', but that is not required.

** The new hook window-scroll-functions is run when a window has been
scrolled.  The functions in this list are called just before
redisplay, after the new window-start has been computed.  Each function
is called with two arguments--the window that has been scrolled, and its
new window-start position.

This hook is useful for on-the-fly fontification and other features
that affect how the redisplayed text will look when it is displayed.

The window-end value of the window is not valid when these functions
are called.  The computation of window-end is byproduct of actual
redisplay of the window contents, which means it has not yet happened
when the hook is run.  Computing window-end specially in advance for
the sake of these functions would cause a slowdown.

The hook functions can determine where the text on the window will end
by calling vertical-motion starting with the window-start position.

** The new hook redisplay-end-trigger-hook is run whenever redisplay
in window uses text that extends past a specified end trigger
position.  You set the end trigger position with the function
set-window-redisplay-end-trigger.  Storing nil for the end trigger position
turns off the feature, and the trigger value is automatically reset to nil
just after the hook is run.

You can use the function window-redisplay-end-trigger to read a
window's current end trigger value.

** The new function insert-file-contents-literally inserts the
contents of a file without any character set translation or decoding.

** You can now specify, for each marker, how it should relocate when
text is inserted at the place where the marker points.  This is called
the "insertion type" of the marker.

To set the insertion type, do (set-marker-insertion-type MARKER TYPE).
If TYPE is t, it means the marker advances when text is inserted.  If
TYPE is nil, it means the marker does not advance.  (In Emacs 19.29,
markers did not advance.)

The function marker-insertion-type reports the insertion type of a
given marker.  The function copy-marker takes a second argument TYPE
which specifies the insertion type of the new copied marker.

** When you create an overlay, you can specify the insertion type of
the beginning and of the end.  To do this, you can use two new
arguments to make-overlay: front-advance and rear-advance.

** The new function overlays-in returns a list of the overlays that
overlap a specified range of the buffer.  The returned list includes
empty overlays at the beginning of this range, as well as within the
range.

** The new function safe-length computes the length of a list.
It never gets an error--it treats any non-list like nil.
If given a circular list, it returns an upper bound for the number
of elements before the circularity.

** replace-match now takes a fifth argument, SUBEXP.  If SUBEXP is
non-nil, that says to replace just subexpression number SUBEXP of the
regexp that was matched, not the entire match.  For example, after
matching `foo \(ba*r\)' calling replace-match with 1 as SUBEXP means
to replace just the text that matched `\(ba*r\)'.

** The new keymap special-event-map defines bindings for certain
events that should be handled at a very low level--as soon as they
are read.  The read-event function processes these events itself,
and never returns them.

Events that are handled in this way do not echo, they are never
grouped into key sequences, and they never appear in the value of
last-command-event or (this-command-keys).  They do not discard a
numeric argument, they cannot be unread with unread-command-events,
they may not appear in a keyboard macro, and they are not recorded
in a keyboard macro while you are defining one.

These events do, however, appear in last-input-event immediately after
they are read, and this is the way for the event's definition to find
the actual event.

The events types iconify-frame, make-frame-visible and delete-frame
are normally handled in this way.

** encode-time now supports simple date arithmetic by means of
out-of-range values for its SEC, MINUTE, HOUR, DAY, and MONTH
arguments; for example, day 0 means the day preceding the given month.
Also, the ZONE argument can now be a TZ-style string.

** command-execute and call-interactively now accept an optional third
argument KEYS.  If specified and non-nil, this specifies the key
sequence containing the events that were used to invoke the command.