1 GNUS NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Gnus bug reports to bugs@gnus.org.
6 For older news, see Gnus info node "New Features".
11 ** The revised Gnus FAQ is included in the manual.
12 See the info node "Frequently Asked Questions".
14 ** Upgrading from previous (stable) version if you have used Oort.
16 If you have tried Oort (the unstable Gnus branch leading to this
17 release) but went back to a stable version, be careful when upgrading
18 to this version. In particular, you will probably want to remove all
19 .marks (nnml) and .mrk (nnfolder) files, so that flags are read from
20 your ~/.newsrc.eld instead of from the .marks/.mrk file where this
21 release store flags. See a later entry for more information about
22 marks. Note that downgrading isn't safe in general.
26 More buttons for URLs, mail addresses, Message-IDs, Info links, man pages and
27 Emacs or Gnus related references, see the info node "Article Buttons". The
28 variables `gnus-button-*-level' can be used to control the appearance of all
29 article buttons, see the info node "Article Button Levels".
32 `gnus-dired-minor-mode' installs key bindings in dired buffers to send
33 a file as an attachment (`C-c C-a'), open a file using the approriate
34 mailcap entry (`C-c C-l'), and print a file using the mailcap entry
35 (`C-c P'). It is enabled with
37 (add-hook 'dired-mode-hook 'turn-on-gnus-dired-mode)
39 ** Gnus can display RSS newsfeeds as a newsgroup. To get started do `B
40 nnrss RET RET' in the Group buffer.
42 ** Single-part yenc encoded attachments can be decoded.
45 The picons code has been reimplemented to work in Emacs 21 -- some of
46 the previous options have been removed or renamed.
48 Picons are small "personal icons" representing users, domain and
49 newsgroups, which can be displayed in the Article buffer. To enable
50 picons, install the picons database from
52 http://www.cs.indiana.edu/picons/ftp/index.html
54 and point `gnus-picon-databases' to that location.
56 ** If the new option `gnus-treat-body-boundary' is `head', a boundary
57 line is drawn at the end of the headers.
59 ** Retrieval of charters and control messages
60 There are new commands for fetching newsgroup charters (`H c') and
61 control messages (`H C').
64 You can delay the sending of a message with `C-c C-j' in the Message
65 buffer. The messages are delivered at specified time. This is useful
66 for sending yourself reminders. Setup with (gnus-delay-initialize).
68 ** If `auto-compression-mode' is enabled, attachments are automatically
69 decompressed when activated.
71 ** If the new option `nnml-use-compressed-files' is non-nil,
72 the nnml back end allows compressed message files.
74 ** Signed article headers (X-PGP-Sig) can be verified with `W p'.
76 ** The Summary Buffer uses an arrow in the fringe to indicate the
77 current article in Emacs 21 running on a graphical display. Customize
78 `gnus-summary-display-arrow' to disable it.
80 ** Warn about email replies to news
81 Do you often find yourself replying to news by email by mistake? Then
82 the new option `gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news' is just the thing for
85 ** If the new option `gnus-summary-display-while-building' is non-nil,
86 the summary buffer is shown and updated as it's being built.
88 ** The new `recent' mark "." indicates newly arrived messages (as
89 opposed to old but unread messages).
91 ** The new option `gnus-gcc-mark-as-read' automatically marks
94 ** The nndoc back end now supports mailman digests and exim bounces.
96 ** Gnus supports RFC 2369 mailing list headers, and adds a number of
97 related commands in mailing list groups.
99 ** The Date header can be displayed in a format that can be read aloud
100 in English, see `gnus-treat-date-english'.
102 ** The envelope sender address can be customized when using Sendmail, see
103 `message-sendmail-envelope-from'.
105 ** diffs are automatically highlighted in groups matching
106 `mm-uu-diff-groups-regexp'
108 ** TLS wrapper shipped with Gnus
110 TLS/SSL is now supported in IMAP and NNTP via tls.el and GNUTLS. The
111 old TLS/SSL support via (external third party) ssl.el and OpenSSL
114 ** New make.bat for compiling and installing Gnus under MS Windows
116 Use make.bat if you want to install Gnus under MS Windows, the first
117 argument to the batch-program should be the directory where xemacs.exe
118 respectively emacs.exe is located, iff you want to install Gnus after
119 compiling it, give make.bat /copy as the second parameter.
121 `make.bat' has been rewritten from scratch, it now features automatic
122 recognition of XEmacs and GNU Emacs, generates gnus-load.el, checks if
123 errors occur while compilation and generation of info files and reports
124 them at the end of the build process. It now uses makeinfo if it is
125 available and falls back to infohack.el otherwise. `make.bat' should now
126 install all files which are necessary to run Gnus and be generally a
127 complete replacement for the "configure; make; make install" cycle used
130 The new make.bat makes make-x.bat superfluous, so it has been removed.
132 ** Support for non-ASCII domain names
134 Message supports non-ASCII domain names in From:, To: and Cc: and will
135 query you whether to perform encoding when you try to send a message.
136 The variable `message-use-idna' controls this. Gnus will also decode
137 non-ASCII domain names in From:, To: and Cc: when you view a message.
138 The variable `gnus-use-idna' controls this.
140 ** Better handling of Microsoft citation styles
142 Gnus now tries to recognize the mangled header block that some Microsoft
143 mailers use to indicate that the rest of the message is a citation, even
144 though it is not quoted in any way. The variable
145 `gnus-cite-unsightly-citation-regexp' matches the start of these
148 ** gnus-article-skip-boring
150 If you set `gnus-article-skip-boring' to t, then Gnus will not scroll
151 down to show you a page that contains only boring text, which by
152 default means cited text and signature. You can customize what is
153 skippable using `gnus-article-boring-faces'.
155 This feature is especially useful if you read many articles that
156 consist of a little new content at the top with a long, untrimmed
159 ** The format spec %C for positioning point has changed to %*.
161 ** The new variable `gnus-parameters' can be used to set group parameters.
163 Earlier this was done only via `G p' (or `G c'), which stored the
164 parameters in ~/.newsrc.eld, but via this variable you can enjoy the
165 powers of customize, and simplified backups since you set the variable
166 in ~/.emacs instead of ~/.newsrc.eld. The variable maps regular
167 expressions matching group names to group parameters, a'la:
169 (setq gnus-parameters
171 (gnus-show-threads nil)
172 (gnus-use-scoring nil))
173 ("^nnimap:\\(foo.bar\\)$"
174 (to-group . "\\1"))))
176 ** Smileys (":-)", ";-)" etc) are now iconized for Emacs too.
178 Customize `gnus-treat-display-smileys' to disable it.
180 ** Gnus no longer generates the Sender: header automatically.
182 Earlier it was generated iff the user configurable email address was
183 different from the Gnus guessed default user address. As the guessing
184 algorithm is rarely correct these days, and (more controversially) the
185 only use of the Sender: header was to check if you are entitled to
186 cancel/supersede news (which is now solved by Cancel Locks instead,
187 see another entry), generation of the header has been disabled by
188 default. See the variables `message-required-headers',
189 `message-required-news-headers', and `message-required-mail-headers'.
191 ** Features from third party message-utils.el added to message.el.
193 Message now asks if you wish to remove "(was: <old subject>)" from
194 subject lines (see `message-subject-trailing-was-query'). C-c M-m and
195 C-c M-f inserts markers indicating included text. C-c C-f a adds a
196 X-No-Archive: header. C-c C-f x inserts appropriate headers and a
197 note in the body for cross-postings and followups (see the variables
198 `message-cross-post-*').
200 ** References and X-Draft-Headers are no longer generated when you
201 start composing messages and `message-generate-headers-first' is nil.
203 ** Improved anti-spam features.
205 Gnus is now able to take out spam from your mail and news streams
206 using a wide variety of programs and filter rules. Among the supported
207 methods are RBL blocklists, bogofilter and white/blacklists. Hooks
208 for easy use of external packages such as SpamAssassin and Hashcash
211 ** Easy inclusion of X-Faces headers.
213 ** In the summary buffer, the new command / N inserts new messages and
214 / o inserts old messages.
216 ** Gnus decodes morse encoded messages if you press W m.
218 ** Unread count correct in nnimap groups.
220 The estimated number of unread articles in the group buffer should now
221 be correct for nnimap groups. This is achieved by calling
222 `nnimap-fixup-unread-after-getting-new-news' from the
223 `gnus-setup-news-hook' (called on startup) and
224 `gnus-after-getting-new-news-hook' (called after getting new mail).
225 If you have modified those variables from the default, you may want to
226 add n-f-u-a-g-n-n again. If you were happy with the estimate and want
227 to save some (minimal) time when getting new mail, remove the
230 ** Group Carbon Copy (GCC) quoting
232 To support groups that contains SPC and other weird characters, groups
233 are quoted before they are placed in the Gcc: header. This means
234 variables such as `gnus-message-archive-group' should no longer
235 contain quote characters to make groups containing SPC work. Also, if
236 you are using the string "nnml:foo, nnml:bar" (indicating Gcc into two
237 groups) you must change it to return the list ("nnml:foo" "nnml:bar"),
238 otherwise the Gcc: line will be quoted incorrectly. Note that
239 returning the string "nnml:foo, nnml:bar" was incorrect earlier, it
240 just didn't generate any problems since it was inserted directly.
242 ** ~/News/overview/ not used.
244 As a result of the following change, the ~/News/overview/ directory is
245 not used any more. You can safely delete the entire hierarchy.
249 The Gnus Agent has seen a major update. It is now enabled by default,
250 and all nntp and nnimap servers from `gnus-select-method' and
251 `gnus-secondary-select-method' are agentized by default. Earlier only
252 the server in `gnus-select-method' was agentized by the default, and the
253 agent was disabled by default. When the agent is enabled, headers are
254 now also retrieved from the Agent cache instead of the backends when
255 possible. Earlier this only happened in the unplugged state. You can
256 enroll or remove servers with `J a' and `J r' in the server buffer.
257 Gnus will not download articles into the Agent cache, unless you
258 instruct it to do so, though, by using `J u' or `J s' from the Group
259 buffer. You revert to the old behaviour of having the Agent disabled
260 by customizing `gnus-agent'. Note that putting `(gnus-agentize)' in
261 ~/.gnus is not needed any more.
263 ** gnus-summary-line-format
265 The default value changed to "%U%R%z%I%(%[%4L: %-23,23f%]%) %s\n".
266 Moreover `gnus-extra-headers', `nnmail-extra-headers' and
267 `gnus-ignored-from-addresses' changed their default so that the users
268 name will be replaced by the recipient's name or the group name
269 posting to for NNTP groups.
271 ** deuglify.el (gnus-article-outlook-deuglify-article)
273 A new file from Raymond Scholz <rscholz@zonix.de> for deuglifying
274 broken Outlook (Express) articles.
276 ** (require 'gnus-load)
278 If you use a stand-alone Gnus distribution, you'd better add
279 "(require 'gnus-load)" to your ~/.emacs after adding the Gnus
280 lisp directory into load-path.
282 File gnus-load.el contains autoload commands, functions and variables,
283 some of which may not be included in distributions of Emacsen.
285 ** gnus-slave-unplugged
287 A new command which starts gnus offline in slave mode.
289 ** message-insinuate-rmail
291 Adding (message-insinuate-rmail) in .emacs and customizing
292 `mail-user-agent' to `gnus-user-agent' convinces Rmail to compose,
293 reply and forward messages in Message mode, where you can enjoy the
296 ** message-minibuffer-local-map
298 The line below enables BBDB in resending a message:
300 (define-key message-minibuffer-local-map [?\t] 'bbdb-complete-name)
302 ** Externalizing and deleting of attachments.
304 If `gnus-gcc-externalize-attachments' (or
305 `message-fcc-externalize-attachments') is non-nil, attach local files
308 The command `gnus-mime-save-part-and-strip' (bound to `C-o' on MIME
309 buttons) saves a part and replaces the part with an external one.
310 `gnus-mime-delete-part' (bound to `d' on MIME buttons) removes a part.
311 It works only on back ends that support editing.
313 ** gnus-default-charset
315 The default value now guesses on the basis of your environment instead
316 of using Latin-1. Also the ".*" item in gnus-group-charset-alist is
319 ** gnus-posting-styles
321 Add a new format of match like
323 ((header "to" "larsi.*org")
324 (Organization "Somewhere, Inc."))
326 The old format like the lines below is obsolete, but still accepted.
328 (header "to" "larsi.*org"
329 (Organization "Somewhere, Inc."))
331 ** message-ignored-news-headers and message-ignored-mail-headers
333 X-Draft-From and X-Gnus-Agent-Meta-Information have been added into
334 these two variables. If you customized those, perhaps you need add
335 those two headers too.
337 ** Gnus reads the NOV and articles in the Agent if plugged.
339 If one reads an article while plugged, and the article already exists
340 in the Agent, it won't get downloaded once more. Customize
341 `gnus-agent-cache' to revert to the old behavior.
343 ** Gnus supports the "format=flowed" (RFC 2646) parameter.
345 On composing messages, it is enabled by `use-hard-newlines'. Decoding
346 format=flowed was present but not documented in earlier versions.
348 ** Gnus supports the generation of RFC 2298 Disposition Notification requests.
350 This is invoked with the C-c M-n key binding from message mode.
352 ** Gnus supports Maildir groups.
354 Gnus includes a new backend nnmaildir.el.
356 ** Printing capabilities are enhanced.
358 Gnus supports Muttprint natively with O P from the Summary and Article
359 buffers. Also, each individual MIME part can be printed using p on
362 ** Message supports the Importance: (RFC 2156) header.
364 In the message buffer, `C-c C-f C-i' or `C-c C-u' cycles through the
367 ** Gnus supports Cancel Locks in News.
369 This means a header "Cancel-Lock" is inserted in news posting. It is
370 used to determine if you wrote a article or not (for cancelling and
371 superseding). Gnus generates a random password string the first time
372 you post a message, and saves it using the Custom system. While the
373 variable is called `canlock-password', it is not security sensitive
374 data. Publishing your canlock string on the web will not allow anyone
375 to be able to anything she could not already do. The behaviour can be
376 changed by customizing `message-insert-canlock'.
378 ** Gnus supports server-side mail filtering using Sieve.
380 Sieve rules can be added as Group Parameters for groups, and the
381 complete Sieve script is generated using `D g' from the Group buffer,
382 and then uploaded to the server using `C-c C-l' in the generated Sieve
383 buffer. Search the online Gnus manual for "sieve", and see the new
384 Sieve manual, for more information.
386 ** Extended format specs.
388 Format spec "%&user-date;" is added into
389 `gnus-summary-line-format-alist'. Also, user defined extended format
390 specs are supported. The extended format specs look like "%u&foo;",
391 which invokes function `gnus-user-format-function-foo'. Because "&" is
392 used as the escape character, old user defined format "%u&" is no
395 ** `/ *' (gnus-summary-limit-include-cached) is rewritten.
397 It was aliased to `Y c' (gnus-summary-insert-cached-articles). The new
398 function filters out other articles.
400 ** Some limiting commands accept a C-u prefix to negate the match.
402 If C-u is used on subject, author or extra headers, i.e., `/ s', `/
403 a', and `/ x' (gnus-summary-limit-to-{subject,author,extra})
404 respectively, the result will be to display all articles that do not
405 match the expression.
407 ** Group names are treated as UTF-8 by default.
409 This is supposedly what USEFOR wanted to migrate to. See
410 `gnus-group-name-charset-group-alist' and
411 `gnus-group-name-charset-method-alist' for customization.
413 ** The nnml and nnfolder backends store marks for each group.
415 This makes it possible to take backup of nnml/nnfolder servers/groups
416 separately of ~/.newsrc.eld, while preserving marks. It also makes it
417 possible to share articles and marks between users (without sharing
418 the ~/.newsrc.eld file) within e.g. a department. It works by storing
419 the marks stored in ~/.newsrc.eld in a per-group file ".marks" (for
420 nnml) and "groupname.mrk" (for nnfolder, named "groupname"). If the
421 nnml/nnfolder is moved to another machine, Gnus will automatically use
422 the .marks or .mrk file instead of the information in ~/.newsrc.eld.
423 The new server variables `nnml-marks-is-evil' and
424 `nnfolder-marks-is-evil' can be used to disable this feature.
426 ** The menu bar item (in Group and Summary buffer) named "Misc" has
427 been renamed to "Gnus".
429 ** The menu bar item (in Message mode) named "MML" has been renamed to
430 "Attachments". Note that this menu also contains security related
431 stuff, like signing and encryption.
433 ** gnus-group-charset-alist and gnus-group-ignored-charsets-alist.
435 The regexps in these variables are compared with full group names
436 instead of real group names in 5.8. Users who customize these
437 variables should change those regexps accordingly. For example:
439 ("^han\\>" euc-kr) -> ("\\(^\\|:\\)han\\>" euc-kr)
441 ** Gnus supports PGP (RFC 1991/2440), PGP/MIME (RFC 2015/3156) and
442 S/MIME (RFC 2630-2633).
444 It needs an external S/MIME and OpenPGP implementation, but no
445 additional lisp libraries. This add several menu items to the
446 Attachments menu, and C-c RET key bindings, when composing messages.
447 This also obsoletes `gnus-article-hide-pgp-hook'.
449 ** Gnus inlines external parts (message/external).
451 ** MML (Mime compose) prefix changed from `M-m' to `C-c C-m'.
453 This change was made to avoid conflict with the standard binding of
454 `back-to-indentation', which is also useful in message mode.
456 ** The default for message-forward-show-mml changed to nil.
458 The reason is that decoding MIME, showing MML, and later re-encode the
459 MIME does not work properly for, e.g., PGP/MIME signed messages.
464 * Changes in Pterodactyl Gnus (5.8/5.9)
466 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
467 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
468 internationalization and mail-fetching.
470 ** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
471 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
473 If you used procmail like in
475 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
476 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
477 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
478 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
480 this now has changed to
483 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
486 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
487 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
489 ** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
490 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
492 ** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too
493 many parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables.
495 ** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
496 called to position point.
498 ** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
499 summary buffers and NOV files.
501 ** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
502 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
504 ** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now works in a
505 subtly different manner.
507 ** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
508 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
509 ever-changing layouts.
511 ** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
514 * For older news, see Gnus info node "New Features".
516 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
517 Copyright information:
519 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
521 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
522 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
523 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
524 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
526 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
527 of this document, or of portions of it,
528 under the above conditions, provided also that they
529 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
533 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"