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- Lucid GNU Emacs 19.6 is now available. This is a version of GNU Emacs derived
- from an early version of Emacs version 19 from the Free Software Foundation.
-
- (If you are already a user of version 19.4, you might want to skip ahead to
- the section labeled "Differences Between 19.4 and 19.6".)
-
- You can get it via anonymous FTP from labrea.Stanford.EDU (36.8.0.112).
- Log in with the user "anonymous" and "username@host" as a password (that is,
- your email address.) Execute the command "cd pub/gnu/lucid/". These are
- the files you will find there:
-
- lemacs-19.6.tar.Z
- The complete source distribution. This file is about 9 megabytes.
- When untarred and uncompressed, the source distribution will take up
- about 22 megs. You will need an additional 12 megs or so to compile it.
-
- lemacs-19.6.tar.z
- The above in `gzip' format instead of `compress' format; 6 megabytes.
-
- lemacs-19.6-sun4.tar.Z
- This is a ready-to-run set of Sun4 executables, and a DOC file. If
- you want to use these executables, you will still need to get the file
- lemacs-19.6.tar.Z, because Emacs cannot function very well without the
- lisp library online. This file is about 2.8 megs, 5.3 megs when
- unpacked, 3.9 megs of which is the Emacs executable itself (2.9 megs if
- stripped.) This version of lemacs is compiled with support for Motif
- dialog boxes and XPM files.
-
- lemacs-19.6-sun4.tar.z
- The above in `gzip' format instead of `compress' format; 2 megabytes.
-
- xpm-3.2a.tar.Z
- xpm-3.2a.tar.z
- The XPM library (optional.)
-
- Don't forget to set "binary" mode when transferring these files. Unpack them
- with some variation of the command "zcat lemacs-19.6.tar.Z | tar -pvxf -".
-
- You can also purchase Lucid Emacs tapes and manuals directly from Lucid.
- Call (800) 223-9322 or send mail to lucid-info@lucid.com for current pricing,
- media, and platform information.
-
- We have created two mailing lists for discussing our Emacs.
-
- bug-lucid-emacs@lucid.com For reporting all bugs in Lucid GNU Emacs,
- including bugs in the compilation and
- installation procedures.
-
- help-lucid-emacs@lucid.com For random questions and conversation
- about using Lucid GNU Emacs.
-
- To be added or removed from these mailing lists, send mail to
- bug-lucid-emacs-request@lucid.com or help-lucid-emacs-request@lucid.com.
-
- The bug-lucid-emacs and help-lucid-emacs mailing lists are archived on labrea,
- and are bidirectionally gatewayed into the newsgroups alt.lucid-emacs.bug and
- alt.lucid-emacs.help.
-
- The bug-lucid-emacs and help-lucid-emacs mailing lists are archived on labrea.
-
- Please do not send messages about problems with Lucid GNU Emacs to the FSF
- 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 GNU Emacs. People who aren't subscribed to the Lucid GNU
- Emacs mailing lists most likely are not interested in hearing about problems
- with it.
-
-
- Why Another Version of Emacs?
- =============================
-
- Lucid's latest product, Energize, is a C/C++ development environment. Rather
- than invent (and force our users to learn) a new user-interface, we chose to
- build part of our environment on top of the world's best editor, GNU Emacs.
- (Though our product is commercial, the work we did on GNU Emacs is free
- software, and is useful without having to purchase our product.)
-
- We needed a version of Emacs with mouse-sensitive regions, multiple fonts,
- the ability to mark sections of a buffer as read-only, the ability to detect
- which parts of a buffer has been modified, and many other features.
-
- Why Not Epoch?
- ==============
-
- For our purposes, the existing version of Epoch was not sufficient; it did
- not allow us to put arbitrary pixmaps/icons in buffers, `undo' did not
- restore changes to regions, regions did not overlap and merge their
- attributes in the way we needed, and several other things.
-
- We could have devoted our time to making Epoch do what we needed (and, in
- fact, we spent some time doing that) but, since the FSF planned to include
- Epoch-like features in their version 19, we decided that our efforts would
- be better spent improving Emacs19 instead of Epoch.
-
- Our original hope was that our changes to Emacs would be incorporated into
- the "official" v19. However, scheduling conflicts arose, and we found that,
- given the amount of work still remaining to be done, we didn't have time to
- merge with the FSF's code. Consequently, we have released our work as a
- forked branch of Emacs, instead of delaying any longer.
-
- Work has begun on a merger of Epoch and Lucid Emacs. It seems likely that
- the next release of Epoch will be based on Lucid Emacs instead of GNU Emacs
- from the FSF. At some point, Lucid Emacs and Epoch will probably be the
- same thing.
-
- No Warranty
- ===========
-
- Lucid Emacs is distributed under exactly the same terms as GNU Emacs, and
- thus has no warranty of any kind.
-
- However, if you have received this version of Emacs with Energize, then it is
- covered by your Energize support contract. If you have received it through
- some other means, then you may buy a support contract for it from Lucid.
- Send mail to lucid-info@lucid.com for more information about Lucid Emacs or
- Energize.
-
- What's Different?
- =================
-
- Lucid Emacs *currently* requires an X Window System environment to run,
- though it will not be much work to make it run on dumb ttys again. We plan
- to do this eventually.
-
- We have not personally tried to compile this version of Emacs under anything
- but SunOS 4.1 on SparcStations, though others have successfully done so. We
- are very eager to get feedback about portability problems from those who
- compile it on other systems.
-
- We have reimplemented the basic input model in a more general way; instead of
- X input being a special-case of the normal ASCII input stream, Emacs has a
- concept of "input events", and ASCII characters are a subset of that. The
- events that Emacs knows about are not X events, but are a generalization of
- them, so that Emacs can eventually be ported to different window systems.
-
- We have reimplemented keymaps so that sequences of events can be stored into
- them instead of just ASCII codes; it is possible to, for example, bind
- different commands to each of the chords Control-h, Control-H, Backspace,
- Control-Backspace, and Super-Shift-Backspace. Key bindings, function key
- bindings, and mouse bindings live in the same keymaps.
-
- Input and display of all ISO-8859-1 characters is supported.
-
- You can have multiple X windows ("screens" in Emacs terminology).
-
- Our Emacs has objects called "extents" and "faces", which are roughly
- analogous to Epoch's "buttons," "zones," and "styles." An extent is a region
- of text (a start position and an end position) and a face is a collection of
- textual attributes like fonts and colors. Every extent is displayed in some
- "face", so changing the properties of a face immediately updates the display
- of all associated extents. Faces can be screen-local: you can have a region
- of text which displays with completely different attributes when its buffer
- is viewed from a different X window.
-
- The display attributes of faces may be specified either in lisp or through
- the X resource manager.
-
- Emacs use the MIT "Xt" toolkit instead of raw Xlib calls, which makes it be
- a more well-behaved X citizen (and also improves portability). A result of
- this is that it is possible to include other Xt "Widgets" in the Emacs
- window. Also, Emacs understands the standard Xt command-line arguments.
-
- Emacs understands the X11 "Selection" mechanism; it's possible to define
- and customize selection converter functions and new selection types from
- elisp, without having to recompile Emacs.
-
- Emacs now supports the Zmacs/Lispm style of region highlighting, where the
- region between the point and mark is highlighted when in its "active" state.
-
- Emacs has a menubar, whose contents are customizable from emacs-lisp.
- This menubar looks Motif-ish, but does not require Motif. If you already
- own Motif, however, you can configure Emacs to use a *real* Motif menubar
- instead. If you have OLIT ("OpenLook Intrinsics"), you can use an
- OpenWindows-like menubar.
-
- Emacs can ask questions using popup dialog boxes. Any command executed from
- a menu will ask yes/no questions with dialog boxes, while commands executed
- via the keyboard will use the minibuffer.
-
- The initial load-path is computed at run-time, instead of at compile-time.
- This means that if you move the Emacs executable and associated directories
- to somewhere else, you don't have to recompile anything.
-
- Emacs now supports floating-point numbers.
-
- Emacs now knows about timers directly, instead of them being simulated by
- a subprocess.
-
- Emacs understands truenames, and can be configured to notice when you are
- visiting two names of the same file.
-
- If you're running on the console of a Sun Sparc or SGI machine, you can
- specify sound files for Emacs to play instead of the default X beep.
-
- Much more detail about the differences between Lucid Emacs and Emacs 18 can
- be found in the file .../etc/NEWS (accessible with ``C-h n''.)
-
- Note that building Lucid Emacs requires an ANSI C compiler, like gcc, or
- Lucid's own (and the galaxy's best) Lucid C/C++.
-
-
- Major Differences Between 19.4 and 19.6
- =======================================
-
- There were almost no differences between versions 19.4 and 19.5; we fixed
- a few minor bugs and repacked 19.4 as 19.5 for a CD-ROM that we gave away
- as a trade show promotion.
-
- The primary goal of the 19.6 release is stability, rather than improved
- functionality, so there aren't many user-visible changes. The most notable
- changes are:
-
- - The -geometry command-line option now correctly overrides geometry
- specifications in the resource database.
- - The `width' and `height' screen-parameters work.
- - Font-lock-mode considers the comment start and end characters to be
- a part of the comment.
- - The lhilit package has been removed. Use font-lock-mode instead.
- - vm-isearch has been fixed to work with isearch-mode.
- - new versions of ispell and calendar.
- - sccs.el has menus.
-
- Lots of bugs were fixed, including the problem that lemacs occasionally
- grabbed the keyboard focus.
-
- Also, as of Lucid Emacs 19.6 and Energize 2.0 (shipping now) it is possible
- to compile the public release of Lucid Emacs with support for Energize; so
- now Energize users will be able to build their own Energize-aware versions
- of lemacs, and will be able to use newer versions of lemacs as they are
- released to the net. (Of course, this is not behavior covered by your
- Energize support contract; you do it at your own risk.)
-
- I have not incorporated all portability patches that I have been sent since
- 19.4; I will try to get to them soon. However, if you need to make any
- changes to lemacs to get it to compile on your system, it would be quite
- helpful if you would send me context diffs (diff -c) against version 19.6.
-