Aquamacs Emacs 1.5rc3

Aquamacs Emacs is a Mac-like distribution of the powerful Emacs text editor. It looks and behaves like a Mac program - even though it's still GNU Emacs with all the extensibility that millions have come to appreciate.

Emacs is a text editor of legendary power and configurability, but it also has an enormously complex interface. Aquamacs tames the Emacs tiger: you get Apple shortcuts (in addition to the Emacs ones), nice fonts, one file per window (if wanted), international input methods, Apple Help manuals and more. Aquamacs comes with a range of modes for various markup and programming languages: HTML, C/C++, Java, Python, Perl, AppleScript, Tcl, XML, R (S)... These modes have extra functions for the languages, including excellent syntax highlighting. You can even use Aquamacs to read news and e-mail, just like any Emacs.

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Version 1.5rc3 sports new features and bugfixes that are still being tested. Please report any bugs only via the "Send Bug Report" function in the Help menu and only to aquamacs-bugs@aquamacs.org. (Please read the FAQ and our Bug Reporting Guidelines before reporting a problem.)

Aquamacs now handles paragraphs better that are stored as single lines in the buffer: these very long ``lines'' are shown as paragraphs, with words wrapped were appropriate. The wrap functions in the Options menu will use the new technique. As a result, line numbers shown in Aquamacs correspond to line numbers in the file. Also, word wrap will work better now with variable-width fonts. Syntax highlighting is now correct in all situations, because it is based on the line separation in the underlying file and not on what's displayed (`longlines-mode' is not used any longer; a new variable `word-wrap' controls the display-time word wrapping.) Code by Kim F. Storm, Chong Yidong, David Reitter.
The end of file lines (newlines) or paragraph endings in soft word wrapping can be visualized via Option / Show/Hide / Show Newlines (`global-show-newlines-mode').
Symbols in the fringes have been adapted to look less conspicuous. (These are the indicators to the left and right of text lines.) Code by Kim F. Storm.
The ``small left fringe'' setting in the Show/Hide menu works again as intended.
Automatic wrapping detection (hard word wrap = auto-fill, vs.~soft word wrap) improved. A new customization option `auto-word-wrap-default-function' may be used to configure the default, which is hard word wrapping.
Navigation in buffers (up/down) optimized and improved. This is also a new buffer-local mode (`visual-line-mode'), which is enabled globally (`global-visual-line-mode'). That's also what the ``vl'' mode line indicator stands for.
Command-Backspace will remove the whole visual line now (`kill-whole-visual-line'), while Command-Shift-Backspace will remove the entire buffer line (which may be a paragraph, when soft wrap is on).
Environment variables are imported again in most situations despite bugs in OS X / Emacs. This issue could cause LaTeX calls to fail. The *Messages* buffer contains helpful notices. Reported by Thomas S. Dye and others.
An issue where pressing M-Backspace (especially in the minibuffer) could lead to an error message has been resolved.
The Help menu (in ``Diagnose and Report Bug'') provides a way to start another Aquamacs Emacs instance without any personal customizations. This should be used to reproduce any potential bugs before reporting them.
LaTeX configuration (standard paths) simplified.
Auto Frame Styles are turned on automatically when the user chooses to retain frame settings (colors, fonts) for a mode or as a default.
Searching for keywords in the Help menu now includes the Emacs Manual and the Emacs Lisp Reference.
Structure of Help menu revised.
in SLIME (Lisp mode), the Aquamacs tabs work again. (`slime-header-line-p' now defaults to nil; customize this variable to revert to the old behavior.)
Internal change: Full-screen editing is now handled via the frame parameter `fullscreen'.
Further minor bug fixes.

Mac OS X 10.4 or later.