GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. Copyright (C) 2014-2016 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 26. See file HISTORY for a list of GNU Emacs versions and release dates. See files NEWS.25, NEWS.24, 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 all necessary documentation updates are complete. (This means all relevant manuals in doc/ AND lisp doc-strings.) --- means no change in the manuals is needed. When you add a new item, use the appropriate mark if you are sure it applies, * Installation Changes in Emacs 26.1 ** By default libgnutls is now required when building Emacs. Use 'configure --with-gnutls=no' to build even when GnuTLS is missing. ** GnuTLS version 2.12.2 or later is now required, instead of merely version 2.6.6 or later. ** The new option 'configure --enable-gcc-warnings=warn-only' causes GCC to issue warnings without stopping the build. This behavior is now the default in developer builds. As before, use '--disable-gcc-warnings' to suppress GCC's warnings, and '--enable-gcc-warnings' to stop the build if GCC issues warnings. +++ ** The Emacs server now has socket-launching support. This allows socket based activation, where an external process like systemd can invoke the Emacs server process upon a socket connection event and hand the socket over to Emacs. Emacs uses this socket to service emacsclient commands. This new functionality can be disabled with the configure option '--disable-libsystemd'. ** New configure option '--disable-build-details' attempts to build an Emacs that is more likely to be reproducible; that is, if you build and install Emacs twice, the second Emacs is a copy of the first. Deterministic builds omit the build date from the output of the emacs-version and erc-cmd-SV functions, and the leave the following variables nil: emacs-build-system, emacs-build-time, erc-emacs-build-time. ** Emacs no longer works on IRIX. We expect that Emacs users are not affected by this, as SGI stopped supporting IRIX in December 2013. * Startup Changes in Emacs 26.1 * Changes in Emacs 26.1 +++ ** The new function 'file-name-case-insensitive-p' tests whether a given file is on a case-insensitive filesystem. +++ ** The new user variable 'electric-quote-chars' provides a list of curved quotes for 'electric-quote-mode', allowing user to choose the types of quotes to be used. +++ ** Emacs now uses double buffering to reduce flicker when editing and resizing graphical Emacs frames on the X Window System. This support requires the DOUBLE-BUFFER extension, which major X servers have supported for many years. --- The group 'wp', whose label was "text", is now deprecated. Use the new group 'text', which inherits from 'wp', instead. +++ ** The new function 'call-shell-region' executes a command in an inferior shell with the buffer region as input. +++ ** The new user option 'shell-command-dont-erase-buffer' controls if the output buffer is erased between shell commands; if non-nil, the output buffer is not erased; this variable also controls where to set the point in the output buffer: beginning of the output, end of the buffer or save the point. When 'shell-command-dont-erase-buffer' is nil, the default value, the behavior of 'shell-command', 'shell-command-on-region' and 'async-shell-command' is as usual. +++ ** The new user option 'mouse-select-region-move-to-beginning' controls the position of point when double-clicking mouse-1 on the end of a parenthetical grouping or string-delimiter: the default value nil keeps point at the end of the region, setting it to non-nil moves point to the beginning of the region. +++ ** The new user option 'confirm-kill-processes' allows the user to skip a confirmation prompt for killing subprocesses when exiting Emacs. When set to t (the default), Emacs will prompt for confirmation before killing subprocesses on exit, which is the same behavior as before. --- ** 'find-library-name' will now fall back on looking at 'load-history' to try to locate libraries that have been loaded with an explicit path outside 'load-path'. +++ ** Faces in 'minibuffer-prompt-properties' no longer overwrite properties in the text in functions like 'read-from-minibuffer', but instead are added to the end of the face list. This allows users to say things like '(read-from-minibuffer (propertize "Enter something: " 'face 'bold))'. +++ ** The new variable 'extended-command-suggest-shorter' has been added to control whether to suggest shorter 'M-x' commands or not. --- ** icomplete now respects 'completion-ignored-extensions'. +++ ** Non-breaking hyphens are now displayed with the 'nobreak-hyphen' face instead of the 'escape-glyph' face. +++ ** Approximations to quotes are now displayed with the new 'homoglyph' face instead of the 'escape-glyph' face. --- ** 'C-x h' ('mark-whole-buffer') will now avoid marking the prompt part of minibuffers. --- ** 'find-library' now takes a prefix argument to pop to a different window. --- ** 'process-attributes' on Darwin systems now returns more information. +++ ** Several accessors for the value returned by 'file-attributes' have been added. They are: 'file-attribute-type', 'file-attribute-link-number', 'file-attribute-user-id', 'file-attribute-group-id', 'file-attribute-access-time', 'file-attribute-modification-time', 'file-attribute-status-change-time', 'file-attribute-size', 'file-attribute-modes', 'file-attribute-inode-number', 'file-attribute-device-number' and 'file-attribute-collect'. +++ ** The new function 'buffer-hash' computes a fast, non-consing hash of a buffer's contents. --- ** 'fill-paragraph' no longer marks the buffer as changed unless it actually changed something. --- ** The locale language name 'ca' is now mapped to the language environment 'Catalan', which has been added. --- ** 'align-regexp' has a separate history for its interactive argument. 'align-regexp' no longer shares its history with all other history-less functions that use 'read-string'. +++ ** The networking code has been reworked so that it's more asynchronous than it was (when specifying :nowait t in 'make-network-process'). How asynchronous it is varies based on the capabilities of the system, but on a typical GNU/Linux system the DNS resolution, the connection, and (for TLS streams) the TLS negotiation are all done without blocking the main Emacs thread. To get asynchronous TLS, the TLS boot parameters have to be passed in (see the manual for details). Certain process oriented functions (like 'process-datagram-address') will block until socket setup has been performed. The recommended way to deal with asynchronous sockets is to avoid interacting with them until they have changed status to "run". This is most easily done from a process sentinel. ** 'make-network-process' and 'open-network-stream' sometimes allowed :service to be an integer string (e.g., :service "993") and sometimes required an integer (e.g., :service 993). This difference has been eliminated, and integer strings work everywhere. ** It is possible to disable attempted recovery on fatal signals. Two new variables support disabling attempts to recover from stack overflow and to avoid automatic auto-save when Emacs is delivered a fatal signal. 'attempt-stack-overflow-recovery', if set to 'nil', will disable attempts to recover from C stack overflows; Emacs will then crash as with any other fatal signal. 'attempt-orderly-shutdown-on-fatal-signal', if set to 'nil', will disable attempts to auto-save the session and shut down in an orderly fashion when Emacs receives a fatal signal; instead, Emacs will terminate immediately. Both variables are non-'nil' by default. These variables are for users who would like to avoid the small probability of data corruption due to techniques Emacs uses to recover in these situations. +++ ** File local and directory local variables are now initialized each time the major mode is set, not just when the file is first visited. These local variables will thus not vanish on setting a major mode. +++ ** A second dir-local file (.dir-locals-2.el) is now accepted. See the variable 'dir-locals-file-2' for more information. --- ** International domain names (IDNA) are now encoded via the new puny.el library, so that one can visit web sites with non-ASCII URLs. +++ ** The new 'timer-list' command lists all active timers in a buffer, where you can cancel them with the 'c' command. +++ ** The new function 'read-multiple-choice' prompts for multiple-choice questions, with a handy way to display help texts. +++ ** 'switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point' now defaults to t. +++ ** The new variable 'debugger-stack-frame-as-list' allows displaying all call stack frames in a Lisp backtrace buffer as lists. Both debug.el and edebug.el have been updated to heed to this variable. +++ ** The new variable 'x-ctrl-keysym' has been added to the existing roster of X keysyms. It can be used in combination with another variable of this kind to swap modifiers in Emacs. * Editing Changes in Emacs 26.1 +++ ** New bindings for 'query-replace-map'. 'undo', undo the last replacement; bound to 'u'. 'undo-all', undo all replacements; bound to 'U'. ** 'delete-trailing-whitespace' deletes whitespace after form feed. In modes where form feed was treated as a whitespace character, 'delete-trailing-whitespace' would keep lines containing it unchanged. It now deletes whitespace after the last form feed thus behaving the same as in modes where the character is not whitespace. ** No more prompt about changed file when the file's content is unchanged. Instead of only checking the modification time, Emacs now also checks the file's actual content before prompting the user. * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 26.1 ** Ibuffer --- *** A new command 'ibuffer-copy-buffername-as-kill'; bound to 'B'. --- *** New command 'ibuffer-change-marks'; bound to '* c'. --- *** A new command 'ibuffer-mark-by-locked' to mark all locked buffers; bound to '% L'. --- *** A new option 'ibuffer-locked-char' to indicate locked buffers; Ibuffer shows a new column displaying 'ibuffer-locked-char' for locked buffers. --- *** A new command 'ibuffer-unmark-all-marks' to unmark all buffers without asking confirmation; bound to 'U'; 'ibuffer-do-replace-regexp' bound to 'r'. --- *** A new command 'ibuffer-mark-by-content-regexp' to mark buffers whose content matches a regexp; bound to '% g'. --- *** Two new options 'ibuffer-never-search-content-name' and 'ibuffer-never-search-content-mode' used by 'ibuffer-mark-by-content-regexp'. ** Browse-URL *** Support for opening links to man pages in Man or WoMan mode. ** Compilation mode --- *** Messages from CMake are now recognized. ** Dired +++ *** A new option 'dired-always-read-filesystem' default to nil. If non-nil, buffers visiting files are reverted before search them; for instance, in 'dired-mark-files-containing-regexp' a non-nil value of this option means the file is revisited in a temporary buffer; this temporary buffer is the actual buffer searched: the original buffer visiting the file is not modified. +++ *** In wdired, when editing files to contain slash characters, the resulting directories are automatically created. Whether to do this is controlled by the 'wdired-create-parent-directories' variable. +++ *** 'W' is now bound to 'browse-url-of-dired-file', and is useful for viewing HTML files and the like. ** Edebug *** Edebug can be prevented from pausing 1 second after reaching a breakpoint (e.g. with "f" and "o") by customizing the new option 'edebug-sit-on-break'. ** Eshell *** 'eshell-input-filter's value is now a named function 'eshell-input-filter-default', and has a new custom option 'eshell-input-filter-initial-space' to ignore adding commands prefixed with blank space to eshell history. ** eww +++ *** New 'M-RET' command for opening a link at point in a new eww buffer. +++ *** A new 's' command for switching to another eww buffer via the minibuffer. --- *** The 'o' command ('shr-save-contents') has moved to 'O' to avoid collision with the 'o' command from 'image-map'. +++ *** A new command 'C' ('eww-toggle-colors') can be used to toggle whether to use the HTML-specified colors or not. The user can also customize the 'shr-use-colors' variable. --- *** Images that are being loaded are now marked with gray "placeholder" images of the size specified by the HTML. They are then replaced by the real images asynchronously, which will also now respect width/height HTML specs (unless they specify widths/heights bigger than the current window). ** Images +++ *** Images are automatically scaled before displaying based on the 'image-scaling-factor' variable (if Emacs supports scaling the images in question). +++ *** Images inserted with 'insert-image' and related functions get a keymap put into the text properties (or overlays) that span the image. This keymap binds keystrokes for manipulating size and rotation, as well as saving the image to a file. These commands are also available in 'image-mode'. +++ *** A new library for creating and manipulating SVG images has been added. See the "SVG Images" section in the Lisp reference manual for details. +++ *** New setf-able function to access and set image parameters is provided: 'image-property'. --- ** The default 'Info-default-directory-list' no longer checks some obsolete directory suffixes (gnu, gnu/lib, gnu/lib/emacs, emacs, lib, lib/emacs) when searching for info directories. +++ ** The commands that add ChangeLog entries now prefer a VCS root directory for the ChangeLog file, if none already exists. Customize 'change-log-directory-files' to nil for the old behavior. --- ** Support for non-string values of 'time-stamp-format' has been removed. ** Message --- *** 'message-use-idna' now defaults to t (because Emacs comes with built-in IDNA support now). --- *** When sending HTML messages with embedded images, and you have exiftool installed, and you rotate images with EXIF data (i.e., JPEGs), the rotational information will be inserted into the outgoing image in the message. (The original image will not have its orientation affected.) --- *** The 'message-valid-fqdn-regexp' variable has been removed, since there are now top-level domains added all the time. Message will no longer warn about sending emails to top-level domains it hasn't heard about. *** 'message-beginning-of-line' (bound to C-a) understands folded headers. In 'visual-line-mode' it will look for the true beginning of a header while in non-'visual-line-mode' it will move the point to the indented header's value. ** Tramp +++ *** New connection method "sg", which supports editing files under a different group ID. +++ *** New connection method "doas" for OpenBSD hosts. +++ *** New connection method "gdrive", which allows to access Google Drive onsite repositories. +++ Setting the "ENV" environment variable in 'tramp-remote-process-environment' enables reading of shell initialization files. --- ** 'auto-revert-use-notify' is set back to t in 'global-auto-revert-mode'. ** CSS mode --- *** Support for completing attribute values, at-rules, bang-rules, HTML tags, classes and IDs using the 'completion-at-point' command. Completion candidates for HTML classes and IDs are retrieved from open HTML mode buffers. +++ ** Emacs now supports character name escape sequences in character and string literals. The syntax variants \N{character name} and \N{U+code} are supported. +++ ** Prog mode has some support for multi-mode indentation. This allows better indentation support in modes that support multiple programming languages in the same buffer, like literate programming environments or ANTLR programs with embedded Python code. A major mode can provide indentation context for a sub-mode through the 'prog-indentation-context' variable. To support this, modes that provide indentation should use 'prog-widen' instead of 'widen' and 'prog-first-column' instead of a literal zero. See the node "Mode-Specific Indent" in the ELisp manual for more details. ** ERC *** New variable 'erc-default-port-tls' used to connect to TLS IRC servers. ** URL +++ *** The new function 'url-cookie-delete-cookie' can be used to programmatically delete all cookies, or cookies from a specific domain. +++ *** 'url-retrieve-synchronously' now takes an optional timeout parameter. --- *** The URL package now support HTTPS over proxies supporting CONNECT. +++ *** 'url-user-agent' now defaults to 'default', and the User-Agent string is computed dynamically based on 'url-privacy-level'. ** VC and related modes --- *** The VC state indicator in the mode line now defaults to more colorful faces to make it more obvious to the user what the state is. See the 'vc-faces' customization group. ** CC mode *** Opening a .h file will turn C or C++ mode depending on language used. This is done with the help of 'c-or-c++-mode' function which analyses contents of the buffer to determine whether it's a C or C++ source file. ** Flymake +++ *** Emacs does no longer prompt the user before killing Flymake processes on exit. * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 26.1 ** New Elisp data-structure library 'radix-tree'. * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 26.1 +++ ** Resizing a frame no longer runs 'window-configuration-change-hook'. Put your function on 'window-size-change-functions' instead. ** 'C-up', 'C-down', 'C-left' and 'C-right' are now defined in term mode to send the same escape sequences that xterm does. This makes things like forward-word in readline work. --- ** hideshow mode got four key bindings that are analogous to outline mode bindings: 'C-c @ C-a', 'C-c @ C-t', 'C-c @ C-d', and 'C-c @ C-e.' ** The grep/rgrep/lgrep functions will now ask about saving files before running. This is controlled by the 'grep-save-buffers' variable. ** Some obsolete functions, variables, and faces have been removed: *** From subr.el: window-dot, set-window-dot, read-input, show-buffer, eval-current-buffer, string-to-int *** All the default-FOO variables that hold the default value of the FOO variable. Use 'default-value' and 'setq-default' to access and change FOO, repectively. The exhaustive list of removed variables is: 'default-mode-line-format', 'default-header-line-format', 'default-line-spacing', 'default-abbrev-mode', 'default-ctl-arrow', 'default-truncate-lines', 'default-left-margin', 'default-tab-width', 'default-case-fold-search', 'default-left-margin-width', 'default-right-margin-width', 'default-left-fringe-width', 'default-right-fringe-width', 'default-fringes-outside-margins', 'default-scroll-bar-width', 'default-vertical-scroll-bar', 'default-indicate-empty-lines', 'default-indicate-buffer-boundaries', 'default-fringe-indicator-alist', 'default-fringe-cursor-alist', 'default-scroll-up-aggressively', 'default-scroll-down-aggressively', 'default-fill-column', 'default-cursor-type', 'default-cursor-in-non-selected-windows', 'default-buffer-file-coding-system', 'default-major-mode', and 'default-enable-multibyte-characters'. *** Many variables obsoleted in 22.1 referring to face symbols +++ ** The variable 'text-quoting-style' no longer affects the treatment of curved quotes in format arguments to functions like 'message' and 'format-message'. In particular, when this variable's value is 'grave', all quotes in formats are output as-is. ** Functions like 'check-declare-file' and 'check-declare-directory' now generate less chatter and more-compact diagnostics. The auxiliary function 'check-declare-errmsg' has been removed. * Lisp Changes in Emacs 26.1 ** New function 'undo-amalgamate-change-group' to get rid of undo-boundaries between two states. ** New var 'definition-prefixes' is a hash table mapping prefixes to the files where corresponding definitions can be found. This can be used to fetch definitions that are not yet loaded, for example for 'C-h f'. ** New var 'syntax-ppss-table' to control the syntax-table used in 'syntax-ppss'. +++ ** 'define-derived-mode' can now specify an :after-hook form, which gets evaluated after the new mode's hook has run. This can be used to incorporate configuration changes made in the mode hook into the mode's setup. ** Autoload files can be generated without timestamps, by setting 'autoload-timestamps' to nil. FIXME As an experiment, nil is the current default. If no insurmountable problems before next release, it can stay that way. --- ** 'gnutls-boot' now takes a parameter ':complete-negotiation' that says that negotiation should complete even on non-blocking sockets. +++ ** New functions 'window-pixel-width-before-size-change' and 'window-pixel-height-before-size-change' support detecting which window changed size when 'window-size-change-functions' are run. +++ ** New function 'display-buffer-reuse-mode-window' is an action function suitable for use in 'display-buffer-alist'. For example, to avoid creating a new window when opening man pages when there's already one, use (add-to-list 'display-buffer-alist '("\\`\\*Man .*\\*\\'" . (display-buffer-reuse-mode-window (inhibit-same-window . nil) (mode . Man-mode)))) --- ** There is now a new variable 'flyspell-sort-corrections-function' that allows changing the way corrections are sorted. --- ** The new command 'fortune-message' has been added, which displays fortunes in the echo area. +++ ** New function 'func-arity' returns information about the argument list of an arbitrary function. This generalizes 'subr-arity' for functions that are not built-in primitives. We recommend using this new function instead of 'subr-arity'. +++ ** 'parse-partial-sexp' state has a new element. Element 10 is non-nil when the last character scanned might be the first character of a two character construct, i.e., a comment delimiter or escaped character. Its value is the syntax of that last character. +++ ** 'parse-partial-sexp's state, element 9, has now been confirmed as permanent and documented, and may be used by Lisp programs. Its value is a list of currently open parenthesis positions, starting with the outermost parenthesis. --- ** 'read-color' will now display the color names using the color itself as the background color. ** The function 'redirect-debugging-output' now works on platforms other than GNU/Linux. +++ ** The new function 'string-version-lessp' compares strings by interpreting consecutive runs of numerical characters as numbers, and compares their numerical values. According to this predicate, "foo2.png" is smaller than "foo12.png". +++ ** The new function 'char-from-name' converts a Unicode name string to the corresponding character code. +++ ** New functions 'sxhash-eq' and 'sxhash-eql' return hash codes of a Lisp object suitable for use with 'eq' and 'eql' correspondingly. If two objects are 'eq' ('eql'), then the result of 'sxhash-eq' ('sxhash-eql') on them will be the same. +++ ** Function 'sxhash' has been renamed to 'sxhash-equal' for consistency with the new functions. For compatibility, 'sxhash' remains as an alias to 'sxhash-equal'. +++ ** Time conversion functions that accept a time zone rule argument now allow it to be OFFSET or a list (OFFSET ABBR), where the integer OFFSET is a count of seconds east of Universal Time, and the string ABBR is a time zone abbreviation. The affected functions are 'current-time-string', 'current-time-zone', 'decode-time', 'format-time-string', and 'set-time-zone-rule'. ** New built-in function 'mapcan' which avoids unnecessary consing (and garbage collection). +++ ** The new functions 'make-nearby-temp-file' and 'temporary-file-directory' can be used for creation of temporary files of remote or mounted directories. +++ ** The new error 'file-missing', a subcategory of 'file-error', is now signaled instead of 'file-error' if a file operation acts on a file that does not exist. +++ ** The function 'delete-directory' no longer signals an error when operating recursively and when some other process deletes the directory or its files before 'delete-directory' gets to them. ** Changes in Frame- and Window- Handling +++ *** Support for side windows is now official. The display action function 'display-buffer-in-side-window' will display its buffer in a side window. Functions for toggling all side windows on a frame, changing and reversing the layout of side windows and returning the main (major non-side) window of a frame are provided. For details consult the section "Side Windows" in the Elisp manual. +++ *** Support for atomic windows - rectangular compositions of windows treated by 'split-window', 'delete-window' and 'delete-other-windows' like a single live window - is now official. For details consult the section "Atomic Windows" in the Elisp manual. +++ *** New 'display-buffer' alist entry 'window-parameters' allows to assign window parameters to the window used for displaying the buffer. +++ *** New window parameter 'no-delete-other-window' prevents that its window gets deleted by 'delete-other-windows'. +++ *** New command 'window-swap-states' swaps the states of two live windows. * Changes in Emacs 26.1 on Non-Free Operating Systems ** Intercepting hotkeys on Windows 7 and later now works better. The new keyboard hooking code properly grabs system hotkeys such as Win-* and Alt-TAB, in a way that Emacs can get at them before the system. This makes the 'w32-register-hot-key' functionality work again on all versions of MS-Windows starting with Windows 7. On Windows NT and later you can now register any hotkey combination. (On Windows 9X, the previous limitations, spelled out in the Emacs manual, still apply.) ** 'convert-standard-filename' no longer mirrors slashes on MS-Windows. Previously, on MS-Windows this function converted slash characters in file names into backslashes. It no longer does that. If your Lisp program used 'convert-standard-filename' to prepare file names to be passed to subprocesses (which is not the recommended usage of that function), you will now have to mirror slashes in your application code. One possible way is this: (let ((start 0)) (while (string-match "/" file-name start) (aset file-name (match-beginning 0) ?\\) (setq start (match-end 0)))) ** GUI sessions now treat SIGINT like Posix platforms do. The effect of delivering a Ctrl-C (SIGINT) signal to a GUI Emacs on MS-Windows is now the same as on Posix platforms -- Emacs saves the session and exits. In particular, this will happen if you start emacs.exe from the Windows shell, then type Ctrl-C into that shell's window. --- ** 'signal-process' supports SIGTRAP on Windows XP and later. The 'kill' emulation on Windows now maps SIGTRAP to a call to the 'DebugBreakProcess' API. This causes the receiving process to break execution and return control to the debugger. If no debugger is attached to the receiving process, the call is typically ignored. This is in contrast to the default action on POSIX Systems, where it causes the receiving process to terminate with a core dump if no debugger has been attached to it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This file is part of GNU Emacs. GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with GNU Emacs. If not, see . Local variables: coding: us-ascii mode: outline paragraph-separate: "[ ]*$" end: