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From: cmp...@ucbvax.ARPA (Andrew Purshottam)
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: GNU Emacs news
Message-ID: <6180@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 12-Apr-85 02:41:54 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.6180
Posted: Fri Apr 12 02:41:54 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Apr-85 03:48:50 EST
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Organization: University of California at Berkeley
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[This is Paul Rubin (phr@ucbernie) using Andy Purshottam's account.
Please do not send Andy mail about this.]
GNU Emacs 15.10 or thereabouts is now in the distribution directory
on MIT-PREP. It includes the long-awaited header file that is supposed
to make it run on Suns. Here are most recent additions to the news
file, as promised:
GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 10-Apr-85
Copyright (c) 1985 Richard M. Stallman.
See end of this document for copying conditions.
Changes in Emacs 15
* Emacs now runs on Sun and Megatest 68000 systems.
* Emacs now alters the output-start and output-stop characters
to prevent C-s and C-q from being considered as flow control
by cretinous rlogin software in 4.2.
* It is now possible convert Mocklisp code (for Gosling Emacs) to Lisp code
that can run in GNU Emacs. M-x convert-mocklisp-buffer
converts the contents of the current buffer from Mocklisp to
GNU Emacs Lisp. You should then save the converted buffer with C-x C-w
under a name ending in ".el"
There are probably some Mocklisp constructs that are not handled.
If you encounter one, feel free to report the failure as a bug.
The construct will be handled in a future Emacs release, if that is not
not too hard to do.
Note that lisp code converted from Mocklisp code will not necessarily
run as fast as code specifically written for GNU Emacs, nor will it use
the many features of GNU Emacs which are not present in Gosling's emacs.
(In particular, the byte-compiler (m-x byte-compile-file) knows little
about compilation of code directly converted from mocklisp.)
It is envisaged that old mocklisp code will be incrementally converted
to GNU lisp code, with M-x convert-mocklisp-buffer being the first
step in this process.
* Control-x n (narrow-to-region) is now by default a disabled command.
This means that, if you issue this command, it will ask whether
you really mean it. You have the opportunity to enable the
command permanently at that time, so you will not be asked again.
This will place the form "(put 'narrow-to-region 'disabled nil)" in your
.emacs file.
* Tags now prompts for the tag table file name to use.
All the tags commands ask for the tag table file name
if you have not yet specified one.
Also, the command M-x visit-tag-table can now be used to
specify the tag table file name initially, or to switch
to a new tag table.
* If truncate-partial-width-windows is non-nil (as it intially is),
all windows less than the full screen width (that is,
made by side-by-side splitting) truncate lines rather than continuing
them.
* Emacs now checks for Lisp stack overflow to avoid fatal errors.
The depth in eval, apply and funcall may not exceed max-lisp-eval-depth.
The depth in variable bindings and unwind-protects may not exceed
max-specpdl-size. If either limit is exceeded, an error occurs.
You can set the limits to larger values if you wish, but if you make them
too large, you are vulnerable to a fatal error if you invoke
Lisp code that does infinite recursion.
* New hooks find-file-hook and write-file-hook.
Both of these variables if non-nil should be functions of no arguments.
At the time they are called (current-buffer) will be the buffer being
read or written respectively.
find-file-hook is called whenever a file is read into its own buffer,
such as by calling find-file, revert-buffer, etc. It is not called by
functions such as insert-file which do not read the file into a buffer of
its own.
find-file-hook is called after the file has been read in and its
local variables (if any) have been processed.
write-file-hook is called just before writing out a file from a buffer.
* The initial value of shell-prompt-pattern is now "^[^#$%>]*[#$%>] *"
* If the .emacs file sets inhibit-startup-message to non-nil,
the messages normally printed by Emacs at startup time
are inhibited.
* Facility for run-time conditionalization on the basis of emacs features.
The new variable features is a list of symbols which represent "features"
of the executing emacs, for use in run-time conditionalization.
The function featurep of one argument may be used to test for the
presence of a feature. It is just the same as
(not (null (memq FEATURE features))) where FEATURE is its argument.
For example, (if (featurep 'magic-window-hack)
(transmogrify-window 'vertical)
(split-window-vertically))
The function provide of one argument "announces" that FEATURE is present.
It is much the same as (if (not (featurep FEATURE))
(setq features (cons FEATURE features)))
The function require with arguments FEATURE and FILE-NAME loads FILE-NAME
(which should contain the form (provide FEATURE)) unless FEATURE is present.
It is much the same as (if (not (featurep FEATURE))
(progn (load FILE-NAME)
(if (not featurep FEATURE) (error ...))))
FILE-NAME is optional and defaults to FEATURE.
* New function load-average.
This returns a list of three integers, which are
the current 1 minute, 5 minute and 15 minute load averages,
each multiplied by a hundred (since normally they are floating
point numbers).
* Per-terminal libraries loaded automatically.
Emacs when starting up on terminal type T automatically loads
a library named term-T. T is the value of the TERM environment variable.
Thus, on terminal type vt100, Emacs would do (load "term-vt100" t t).
Such libraries are good places to set the character translation table.
It is a bad idea to redefine lots of commands in a per-terminal library,
since this affects all users. Instead, define a command to do the
redefinitions and let the user's init file, which is loaded later,
call that command or not, as the user prefers.
* New ways to access the last command input character.
The function last-key-struck, which used to return the last
input character that was read by command input, is eliminated.
Instead, you can find this information as the value of the
variable last-command-char. (This variable used to be called
last-key).
Another new variable, last-input-char, holds the last character
read from the command input stream regardless of what it was
read for. last-input-char and last-command-char are different
only inside a command that has called read-char to read input.
* The new switch -kill causes Emacs to exit after processing the
preceding command line arguments. Thus,
emacs -l lib data -e do-it -kill
means to load lib, find file data, call do-it on no arguments,
and then exit.
* The config.h file has been modularized.
Options that depend on the machine you are running on are defined
in a file whose name starts with "m-", such as m-vax.h.
Options that depend on the operating system software version you are
running on are defined in a file whose name starts with "s-",
such as s-bsd4.2.h.
config.h includes one m- file and one s- file. It also defines a
few other options whose values do not follow from the machine type
and system type being used. Installers normally will have to
select the correct m- and s- files but will never have to change their
contents.
* Termcap AL and DL strings are understood.
If the termcap entry defines AL and DL strings, for insertion
and deletion of multiple lines in one blow, Emacs now uses them.
This matters most on certain bit map display terminals for which
scrolling is comparatively slow.
Changes in Emacs 14
* Completion now prints various messages such as [Sole Completion]
or [Next Character Not Unique] to describe the results obtained.
These messages appear after the text in the minibuffer, and remain
on the screen until a few seconds go by or you type a key.
* The buffer-read-only flag is implemented.
Setting or binding this per-buffer variable to a non-nil value
makes illegal any operation which would modify the textual content of
the buffer. (Such operations signal a buffer-read-only error)
The read-only state of a buffer may be altered using toggle-read-only
(C-x C-q)
The buffers used by Rmail, Dired, Rnews, and Info are now read-only
by default to prevent accidental damage to the information in those
buffers.
* Functions car-safe and cdr-safe.
These functions are like car and cdr when the argument is a cons.
Given an argument not a cons, car-safe always returns nil, with
no error; the same for cdr-safe.
* The new function user-real-login-name returns the name corresponding
to the real uid of the Emacs process. This is usually the same
as what user-login-name returns; however, when Emacs is invoked
from su, user-real-login-name returns "root" but user-login-name
returns the name of the user who invoked su.
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From: rms@mit-prep
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: Distributing GNU Emacs
Message-ID: <4185@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 5-May-85 17:46:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.4185
Posted: Sun May 5 17:46:45 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 6-May-85 02:47:10 EDT
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From: Richard M. Stallman < rms@mit-prep>
1. Don't use shar! It destroys all the .elc files.
Since sh bugs also contribute to the problem, it cannot
be solved by fixing shar (I tried).
Please make a tar file available, to save people the
work of regenerating the .elc files.
2. If announce that you have a copy of GNU Emacs for distribution,
say what version number it is.
There is no manual yet, but I hope to have adapted the PDP-10
Emacs manual within a month or two. Please read the file DISTRIB
for answers to many other such questions.
GNU Emacs version 15 should be in its final form in a couple of days.
People might wish to wait for that rather than transfer existing versions.
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From: rms@mit-prep
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: 15.34 available
Message-ID: <4198@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-May-85 02:03:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.4198
Posted: Wed May 8 02:03:56 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 9-May-85 01:43:20 EDT
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From: Richard M. Stallman < rms@mit-prep>
GNU Emacs version 15.34 is now available on prep:/u2/emacs/dist.
I hope this is the final version 15 distribution.
In the past couple of days I have fixed some significant
bugs in handling terminals: VT100, and anything
whose termcap entry has sg > 0.
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From: rms@mit-prep
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: Distribution tapes
Message-ID: <4268@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-May-85 18:32:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.4268
Posted: Mon May 13 18:32:49 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 15-May-85 00:43:47 EDT
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From: Richard M. Stallman < rms@mit-prep>
I did not send out any distribution tapes until last week
because only then did I have version bug-free enough that I
felt it could be sent to someone paying to receive it.
Now, however, I can send tapes of GNU Emacs 15.34 within a few days
of receiving an order. This is the version now available for
distribution from MIT-PREP.
To order, send a check for $150 to me, Richard Stallman,
c/o Lisp Machine Inc, 1000 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138.
(Checks made out to LMI are not acceptable.)
This charge is for distribution and any necessary assistance with
installation. It is not a license fee. Use of GNU Emacs is still free,
and you are still welcome to copy it from MIT-PREP or anyone else who
has a copy.
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From: rms@mit-prep
Newsgroups: net.emacs
Subject: GNU Emacs on suns
Message-ID: <4467@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 15-Jun-85 00:50:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.4467
Posted: Sat Jun 15 00:50:49 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Jun-85 00:25:25 EDT
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From: Richard M. Stallman <rms@mit-prep>
GNU Emacs version 15 works on most Sun systems. Some versions of
the Sun compiler have additional bugs which makes Emacs not work.
I don't know that anyone is working on trying to get around them;
I'm not.
In general, if you have an inquiry on the status of GNU Emacs,
send it to bug-gnu-emacs@mit-prep, because you only need to reach
the maintainers, not the entire user community. It is desirable
not to burden people with unnecessary mail.