Announcing XEmacs 19.15 XEmacs 19.15 is now available, on this, the 27th anniversary of the DEC announcement of the PDP 11. This is a version of GNU Emacs derived from Emacs version 19 from the Free Software Foundation. XEmacs 19.15 is intended to be a stable release and good for however long it takes for XEmacs v20 to stabilize. We plan no new features -- all new development will be taking place in the v20 development tree. Many changes have occurred since XEmacs 19.14 and work is continuing on XEmacs 20.1. XEmacs 19.15 is a normal source+binary release and includes updates to Gnus 5.4, tm-7.106, VM 6, AUCTeX, and efs, all of which will be present in XEmacs 20.1. You can get XEmacs via anonymous FTP from FTP.XEMACS.ORG (128.174.252.16). ftp://ftp.ai.mit.edu:/pub/xemacs/ ftp://ftp-digital.cern.ch:/pub/beta/xemacs-20.0/ ftp://ftp.uu.net:/systems/gnu/xemacs/ ftp://ftp.sunet.se:/pub/gnu/xemacs/ ftp://tp.cenatls.cena.dgac.fr:/pub/Emacs/xemacs/ ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de:/pub/editors/xemacs/ ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk:/gnu/xemacs/ ftp://ftp.ibp.fr:/pub/emacs/xemacs/ ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu:/pub/packages/xemacs/ ftp://ftp.technion.ac.il:/pub/unsupported/gnu/xemacs/ ftp://thphys.irb.hr:/pub/xemacs/ ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/xemacs/ ftp://ftp.unicamp.br:/pub/xemacs/r20.0/ ftp://ftp.usyd.edu.au:/pub/Xemacs/ ftp://ftp.lab.kdd.co.jp/xemacs/ ftp://SunSITE.sut.ac.jp/pub/archives/xemacs/ It may take a few days for the files to propagate to all of the mirrors. (Mirror sites are encouraged to automatically check ftp.xemacs.org) The complete list of mirror sites, the current FAQ, and several other XEmacs related items can be found at the XEmacs World Wide Web page: http://www.xemacs.org/ README This file. xemacs-19.15.tar.gz The complete source distribution. This file is about 18.5 megabytes. When unpacked, the source distribution will take up about 70 megs. You will need another 13 megs or so to compile it. README.executables Installation instructions for the precompiled binaries. It's important that you read this before unpacking the executables. xemacs-19.15-common.tar.gz This contains the architecture-independent parts of the installation tree. If you intend to build XEmacs from scratch, you do not need this file: it contains a subset of the files included in xemacs-19.15.tar.gz but arranged in a different directory structure (the files are arranged as an installation tree rather than a build tree.) If you intend to install the precompiled binaries, you need this file in addition to the binary kit(s). xemacs-19.15-sparc-sun-sunos4.1.3.tar.gz This contains a set of ready-to-run executables for SunOS 4.1.x. NOTE: you need to get xemacs-19.15-common.tar.gz as well for these to work. See README.executables. xemacs-19.15-sparc-sun-solaris2.4.tar.gz This contains a set of ready-to-run executables for SunOS 5.4, otherwise known as Solaris 2.4. These binaries should also work under Solaris 2.3. NOTE: you need to get xemacs-19.15-common.tar.gz as well for these to work. See README.executables. xemacs-19.15-sparc-sun-solaris2.4-sparcworks.tar.gz This set contains a set of ready-to-run executables for SunOS 5.4, otherwise known as Solaris 2.4, plus support for Sun's SparcWorks development environment. These binaries should also work under Solaris 2.3. If you do not own SparcWorks, then these binaries do not add any features that you can take advantage of. NOTE: you need to get xemacs-19.15-common.tar.gz as well for these to work. See README.executables. xemacs-19.15-i386-sun-sunos4.1.3.tar.gz Executables for Intel SunOS 4.1.3. xemacs-19.15-i386-sun-solaris2.4.tar.gz Executables for Intel Solaris 2.4 aka SunOS 5.4 and above. xemacs-19.15-i386-sun-solaris2.4-sparcworks.tar.gz Executables for Intel Solaris 2.4 aka SunOS 5.4 and above. If you do not own SparcWorks, then these binaries do not add any features that you can take advantage of. xemacs-19.15-hppa1.1-hp-hpux9.05.tar.gz Executables for HP9000/7xx or HP9000/8xx with HPUX 8 or 9. xemacs-19.15-hppa1.0-hp-hpux10.20.tar.gz Executables for HP9000/7xx or HP9000/8xx with HPUX 10. xemacs-19.15-rs6000-ibm-aix3.2.5.tar.gz Executables for AIX 3.2.5. xemacs-19.15-rs6000-ibm-aix4.1.1.tar.gz Executables for AIX 4.1.1. xemacs-19.15-alpha-dec-osf3.2.tar.gz Executables for DEC OSF 3.2. xemacs-19.15-mips-sgi-irix5.3.tar.gz Executables for SGI Irix 5.3 xemacs-19.15-mips-sgi-irix6.3.tar.gz Executables for SGI Irix 6.3 xemacs-19.15-i386-unknown-bsdi2.1.tar.gz Executables for BSDI 2.1. xemacs-19.15-i386-unknown-freebsd2.1.5.gz Executables for FreeBSD 2.1. xemacs-19.15-i386-univel-sysv4.2MP.tar.gz Executables for UnixWare. xemacs-19.15-i586-unknown-sco3.2v5.0.2.tar.gz Executables for SCO Open Desktop. The following are not available at the moment but should be in the very near future: xemacs-19.15-i586-unknown-linux2.0.29.tar.gz Other various DEC systems. Don't forget to set "binary" mode when transferring these files. Unpack them with some variation of the command "gunzip -c xemacs-20.0.tar.gz | tar -pvxf -". There is a newsgroup for discussing XEmacs. comp.emacs.xemacs: For reporting all bugs in XEmacs, including bugs in the compilation and installation procedures. Also for random questions and conversation about using XEmacs. There is also a mailing list, xemacs@xemacs.org. This mailing list is bidirectionally gatewayed with the newsgroup comp.emacs.xemacs. To be added or removed from this mailing list, send mail to xemacs-request@xemacs.org. (Send all administrative requests, and only administrative requests, to this address.) Please use the newsgroups instead of mailing directly to the maintainers, you are likelier to get a better response that way. Crashes should be reported to crashes@xemacs.org. When reporting a crash, please read carefully the information in part II of the XEmacs FAQ so that you can include enough information in your report to get the problem resolved. In particular, if you are experiencing coredumps, it is vital that you compile XEmacs with the `-g' compile flag so the stack back trace is meaningful. Do not send messages about problems with XEmacs to the GNU Emacs newsgroups and mailing lists (help-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu, bug-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu, gnu.emacs.help, gnu.emacs.bug, et cetera) unless you are sure that the problem you are reporting is a problem with both versions of Emacs. The following is an excerpt from the NEWS file: ** Major Differences Between 19.14 and 19.15 ============================================ Many bugs have been fixed. An effort has been made to eradicate all XEmacs crashes, although we are not quite done yet. The overall quality of XEmacs should be higher than any previous release. XEmacs now compiles with nary a warning with some compilers. User visible changes: -- EFS replaces ange-ftp for remote file manipulation capability. -- TM (Tools for Mime) now comes with XEmacs. This provides MIME (Multi-purpose Internet Multi-media Extensions?) support for Mail and News. The primary author is Morioka Tomohiko. -- There is a new way to customize faces and (some) variables. Try it with `M-x customize RET', or from the Options->Customize menu. Documented in . -- The AUC TeX environment for editing and running TeX is now bundled. (Per Abrahamsen.) Enable with (require 'tex-site) in your .emacs file. Documented in . -- New user option `init-face-from-resources'. If you don't set faces with X resources, you can speed up the initialization of new faces by setting this to nil. -- `column.el' removed, use `column-number-mode' instead. -- Command line processing should work much better now - no more order dependencies. -- html mode now defaults to using HTML-3.2 -- VM now has a native MIME mode -- The traditional time.el package now has optional modeline graphics -- The XEmacs Logo has been changed courtesy of Jens Lautenbacher -- Default background changed to gray80 -- The XEmacs build procedure has been changed to make it easier than ever to include new packages to be dumped with the binary -- cc-mode is no longer auto-loaded. (require 'cc-mode) is now needed before you customize cc-mode in your .emacs. -- blink-cursor-mode is somewhat more useable now that the cursor stops blinking during keyboard activity. -- Dired is now part of efs and went from version 6.X to 7.9. Keybindings have been synced with FSF Emacs, there are more menus and items in menus are sometimes grouped differently. Any personnal customization to dired will probably have to be checked. If you are a 19.14 user and use its dired a lot, expect to get mad at 'c', 'r' and '^' keybindings." ** New Packages ------------ Noteworthy new packages: redo igrep uniquify auctex -- Many new packages have been added: *** auctex (Per Abrahamsen) *** customize (Per Abrahamsen)) *** m4-mode 1.8 (Andrew Csillag) *** crisp.el - crisp/brief emulation (Gary D. Foster) Minor mode emulation for Borland's Brief/Crisp editor *** Johan Vroman's iso-acc.el has been ported to XEmacs by Alexandre Oliva *** psgml-1.01 (Lennart Staflin, James Clark) *** python-mode.el 2.90 (Barry Warsaw) *** vrml-mode.el (Ben Wing) *** enriched.el, face-menu.el (Boris Goldowsky, Michael Sperber) *** sh-script.el (Daniel Pfeiffer) *** decipher.el (Christopher J. Madsen) *** mic-paren.el (Mikael Sjödin) *** xrdb-mode.el 1.21 (Barry Warsaw) *** redo.el 1.01 (Kyle Jones) *** edmacro.el (ported by Hrvoje Niksic) *** verilog-mode.el (Michael McNamara) *** webjump.el-1.4 (Neil W. Van Dyke) *** overlay.el (Joseph Nuspl support for Emacs overlay API) *** browse-cltl2.el 1.1 (Holger Schauer) *** mine.el 1.17 (Jacques Duthen) *** igrep.el 2.56 (Kevin Rodger) *** speedbar.el (Eric Ludlam) *** frame-icon.el (Michael Lamoureux) *** winmgr-mode.el (David Konerding, Stefan Strobel & Barry Warsaw) *** whitespace-mode.el (Heiko Muenkel) *** detached-minibuf.el (Alvin Shelton) ** Updated Packages ------------ Most packages have been updated to the latest available versions. (thanks go to countless maintainers): *** ediff 2.64 (Michael Kifer) *** Gnus Gnus 5.4.36 (Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen) **** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion. **** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into Gnus. **** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection. **** Article washing status can be displayed in the article mode line. **** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files. **** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID. (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t) **** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files are to be considered home score and adapt files. See `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'. **** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics. **** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable. **** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions. See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'. **** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like. Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be used to pick articles. **** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to another have been added. `M-x gnus-change-server' **** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when generating lines in buffers. **** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with `M-C-_'. **** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'. **** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis: (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word)) **** Scores can be decayed. (setq gnus-decay-scores t) **** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first. **** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from the native server. `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups' **** A new command for reading collections of documents (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'. **** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped. **** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting. **** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added. Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such a group. **** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently. See the commands under the `T S' submap. **** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently. See the commands under the `G P' submap. **** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups. Use the `Y c' command. **** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order. **** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated. `M-x nnmail-split-history' **** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk from incoming mail before saving the mail. See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'. **** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files. *** w3 3.0.71 (Bill Perry) - Major upgrade to Emacs/W3, including - Much fuller stylesheet support - Tables support - Frames support - better asynchronous downloads - now uses the widget library for consistent look of form elements - Much much much faster *** ilisp 5.8 (Chris McConnell, Ivan Vasquez, Marco Antoniotti, Rick Campbell) *** VM 6.22 (Kyle Jones) *** etags 11.78 (Francesco Potorti`) *** ksh-mode.el 2.9 *** vhdl-mode.el 2.73 (Rod Whitby) *** id-select.el 1.4.5 (Bob Weiner) *** EDT/TPU emulation modes should work now for the first time. *** viper 2.93 (Michael Kifer) is now the `official' vi emulator for XEmacs. *** big-menubar should work much better now. *** mode-motion+.el 3.16 *** backup-dir 2.0 (Greg Klanderman) *** ps-print.el-3.05 (Jacques Duthen Prestataire) *** lazy-lock-1.16 (Simon Marshall) *** fast-lock.el 3.10.2 (Simon Marshall) *** reporter 3.3 (Barry Warsaw) *** hm--html-menus 5.4 (Heiko Muenkel) *** cc-mode 4.387 (Barry Warsaw) *** elp 2.37 (Barry Warsaw) *** itimer.el-1.05 (Kyle Jones) *** floating-toolbar.el-1.02 (Kyle Jones) *** balloon-help.el-1.05 (Kyle Jones) *** hyperbole-4.023 (Bob Weiner) *** cperl-mode-1.31+ *** OO-Browser 2.10 (Bob Weiner) ** Changes at Lisp level ------------ -- New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers. Documented in . -- New `custom' library for declaring user options and faces. Documented in . -- New function `make-empty-face'. Like `make-face', but doesn't query the resource database. -- New function x-keysym-on-keyboard-p helps determine keyboard characteristics for key rebinding: x-keysym-on-keyboard-p: (KEYSYM &optional DEVICE) -- a built-in function. Return true if KEYSYM names a key on the keyboard of DEVICE. More precisely, return true if pressing a physical key on the keyboard of DEVICE without any modifier keys generates KEYSYM. Valid keysyms are listed in the files /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h and in /usr/lib/X11/XKeysymDB, or whatever the equivalents are on your system. -- Usage of keysyms of the form kp_0 is deprecated and one should use the Emacs compatible kp-0 instead. -- preceding-char and following-char have been obsoleted. Use the much safer and correct functions char-after and char-before instead. -- Many symbols present for compatibility with GNU Emacs no longer generate bytecompiler warning messages -- Installed info files are now compressed (support courtesy of Joseph J Nuspl) -- (load-average) works on Solaris, even if you're not root. Thanks to Hrvoje Niksic. -- OffiX drag-and-drop support added -- lots of syncing with 19.34 elisp files, most by Steven Baur -- M-: (eval-expression) is now enabled by default since it is much more difficult to type. -- new variables: signal-error-on-buffer-boundary * Future Plans for XEmacs ========================== This is the end of the line for XEmacs v19. No new development is planned on this source tree. XEmacs 20.1 will contain the functionality in 19.15, and development will continue with XEmacs 20.2. The major new `feature' planned in 20.2 will be the introduction of separable packages and the capability to download and use an XEmacs lite distribution.