$Id: NEWS 5382 2013-09-26 23:06:01Z karl $
This NEWS file records noteworthy changes, very tersely.
See the manual for detailed information.
Copyright 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001,
2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.
*** NEWS FOR ALL AUTHORS OF TEXINFO MANUALS ***
As of version 4.2, Texinfo has a new command @copying to define the
copyright and copying permissions for a manual. If you haven't already,
please switch to using it in your next release, because the historical
method of doing copyright permissions using @ifinfo failed to output
copyright information in the HTML (or XML) formats. The manual has
detailed explanations and examples. For convenience, here's a url to
one of the relevant sections:
http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/Document-Permissions.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.2 (26 September 2013)
* Language:
. new commands @inlinefmtifelse, @inlineifset, @inlineifclear, for
more brace-delimited alternatives to the conditional environments.
* texi2any:
. warns about node names, menu items, and cross-references (but not
index entries) containing problematic characters; can be disabled
with -c INFO_SPECIAL_CHARS_WARNING=0.
* info:
. new option -x (--debug) for debugging output; -x -1 to get everything.
. new option -v (--variable) assigns a value to an Info variable,
with the usual syntax, -v VARIABLE=VALUE.
. new option -a (--all) instructs Info to display all documents
matching the command line arguments, not just the first. In
conjunction with the -w option, it shows full names of all Info
files matching the command line arguments; with -o, it outputs all
matching files.
. new variable search-skip-screen controls the starting position for
repeated search commands ({ and }). When set to On, repeated
searches skip the lines displayed on the screen, i.e.,
forward searches (}) start at the beginning of the next page, and
backward searches ({) start at the end of the previous page.
. new command display-file-info (bound to = by default, C-g in vi mode)
shows full file name of the node being displayed and position in it.
* texi2dvi:
. support for biblatex+biber.
* Distribution: automake-1.14, gettext-0.18.3.1.
5.1 (12 March 2013)
* texi2any:
. irregular sectioning trees (see 5.0 news item) produce a warning
rather than an error.
. @set in the middle of the line no longer produces a warning.
* info:
. lzip (.lz) compression supported.
* install-info:
. lzip (.lz) compression supported.
* Development: switch from CVS to Subversion.
https://savannah.gnu.org/svn/?group=texinfo
5.0 (16 February 2013)
* Language:
. Texinfo commands are supported in node names.
. #line directives are recognized.
. @-commands are now recognized in raw format blocks. Therefore, for
example, lone @, { and } characters in @tex, @html and similar
environments must be converted to the normal @@, @{, and @} commands.
. new commands @inlinefmt and @inlineraw for brace-delimited conditionals.
. new conditionals @ifcommanddefined and @ifcommandnotdefined to test
if a Texinfo command is available.
. new command @part for a group of chapters.
. new environments @raggedright, @smallquotation,
@indentedblock, and @smallindentedblock.
. new commands @codequoteundirected and @codequotebacktick,
for a better interface than the @set variables; now respected by @kbd.
. new command @xrefautomaticsectiontitle to allow using section titles
in cross references by default, instead of node names.
. new commands for Texinfo special characters:
@atchar{} @lbracechar{} @rbracechar{} @backslashchar{} @hashchar{}.
. new commands @deftypefnnewline to print return types on their own lines.
. new command @headitemfont for the sake of template rows.
. new command @urefbreakstyle to control breaking of @url/@uref in TeX.
. new diacritic command @ogonek.
. new commands for Icelandic letters eth and thorn: @DH{} @dh{} @TH{} @th{}.
. new command @errormsg to report an error.
. five-argument xrefs can refer to a whole manual, by omitting the
section name and either omitting the node name or using "Top".
. DEL (0x7f = 0177 = 127) is a true comment character (catcode 14 in TeX).
* texi2any is the new generic converter for Texinfo that can produce all
supported output formats, both those from texi2dvi (PDF/DVI) and from
makeinfo (Info/HTML/etc.). texi2any and makeinfo are now different
names for the same program; there are no differences in behavior based
on the program name.
The new implementation is in Perl, requiring Perl 5.7.3 (released in
March 2002) and its standard Encode module.
The Perl texi2any/makeinfo both replaces and is intended to be (for
all practical purposes) upward-compatible with the C makeinfo. It has
many new features not in the C makeinfo. For example, cross-manual
references are now fully supported, and allows for extensive
customization of the HTML output. See the `Generic Translator
texi2any' chapter in the manual (among other places) for more about
this reimplementation.
The new program is, unfortunately, noticeably slower at present than
the C program was. We hope all the many improvements make the new
version worthwhile for users nevertheless.
* Intentional incompatibilities with the previous implementation of
makeinfo, through version 4.13:
. The old implementation accepted a lone block of text inside @itemize,
@enumerate, etc., without any @item. This is semantically
inconsistent, leading to problems with some backends, and thus now
produces a warning.
. The old implementation accepted ``irregular'' sectioning trees. Now,
when @node pointers are implicitly determined, the consistency of
@menu and the sectioning tree is checked. (If node pointers are
explicitly specified in the document, the tree can still be irregular.)
. The old implementation always added blank lines between function
definitions if they weren't already there. Now blank lines are not
added. (Both old and new implementations preserve blank lines that
are present.)
. The old implementation processed macros in place, formatting the
replacement text with the output. Now the replacement text is
textually substituted as Texinfo source. A consequence of the old
behavior is that ends of lines from expansion of an @macro
definition did not end an @-command line-delimited argument
(@chapter, @center, etc.). Now they do. (A detailed example is in
the manual, node Macro Details.)
* pod2texi is a new (Perl) program that uses the capabilities of
texi2any to translate Perl pod documentation to Texinfo.
* texinfo.tex:
. urls (given to @uref and @url) are broken by default at special
characters; behavior controllable with @urefbreakstyle.
. support some per-language hyphenation, when the underlying TeX
engine does (for instance, etex/pdfetex from TeX Live 2008 or
later). Words with accented letters are still not handled properly.
. @title, text will be broken if needed, and @* can be used to override.
. new Icelandic translation: txi-is.tex.
. new Hungarian translation: txi-hu.tex.
. official updates between full package releases available at
http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/texinfo/texinfo.tex.
* texi2dvi:
. new option --max-iterations.
. official updates between full package releases available at
http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/texinfo/texi2dvi.
* info:
. INFOPATH is determined from PATH by default, or if an element "PATH"
is specified.
. New command Info-virtual-index, bound to I by default, following Emacs.
. Info keywords not found by searches.
. A lower limit on the length of search patterns, default 1,
specified by the variable min-search-length.
. Use ASCII versions of images, if supplied by the document.
. xz compression supported.
* install-info:
. xz compression supported.
* Documentation:
. new appendix with a technical description of the Info file format.
. information on the customizations of the HTML output now possible.
* Distribution:
. new file htmlxref.cnf is installed to support cross-manual
references; official updates between full package releases available
at http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/texinfo/htmlxref.cnf.
. language support for no removed/renamed to nb, per Norwegian translators.
. new translations: id it,
and document translations: eo pl.
. texinfo.cat file removed since it is (to our knowledge) unused.
. documentation license now GFDLv1.3 or later.
. autoconf 2.69, automake 1.13.1, gettext 0.18.2.
4.13 (18 September 2008)
* A reference card for Texinfo is now available, in doc/refcard. For
convenience, preformatted PDF's for letter-size and A4 paper are included.
* makeinfo:
. new option --internal-links for HTML output, to write a tsv file
mapping indexed/toc terms to links, for easy reference from external
documents.
. - as an input file name reads standard input.
* info:
. support for multibyte encodings such as UTF-8.
. new option --show-malformed-multibytes, to display malformed multibyte
sequences.
. new environment variable INFO_MAN_COMMAND sets the name of man executable
(use it if you a need to override PATH settings).
* install-info:
. bug fix: support names with embedded periods (e.g., config.status) again.
* Distribution:
. autoconf 2.63.
4.12 (20 April 2008)
* Language:
. new commands @clicksequence, @click, and @clickstyle for documenting
GUI sequences, and @arrow for the default glyph used.
. new commands @geq{} and @leq{} for the normal >= and <= relations.
* install-info:
. lzma compression supported.
. Much work towards compatibility with Debian's independent
implementation. Changes in behavior:
- new entries are formatted to start at column 34 by default.
- existing entries are replaced by default.
- new sections are alphabetized among existing sections.
- if an entry being removed is the last one in a section, the
section is also removed.
. Also many new options:
--section REGEX TITLE.
--no-indent: disable formatting of new entries.
--menuentry, --name: specify left-hand side of an entry.
--dry-run: alias for --test.
--regex REGEX: renamed from --section regex, adds to all sections
matching REGEX by default.
--add-once: add only to first specified or matching section.
--align COL: start description at column COL.
--calign COL: start continuation lines in description at COL.
--max-width COL: wrap the description at COL.
. New section in the Texinfo manual describing all this.
* info:
Our goal with these changes to the default interface is to make Info
documents more easily and quickly readable, especially by non-experts.
. the PageUp and PageDown keys move through the whole document by
default, instead of just the current node.
. the h command shows the basic help, and H starts the Info tutorial.
. the newly-bound x command deletes the current window, e.g., within help.
. the scroll-step variable is set to 1 by default, for smooth scrolling.
. the cursor-movement-scrolls-p variable is set to 1 by default, so
link searches look through the whole document.
. regular expression searches are supported, and are the default for
both regular and incremental searches.
. the new R command toggles between regexp and literal-string searches.
. the new variable scroll-last-node controls scrolling at the end of
the last node; by default, it now simply reports there are no more
nodes. To restore the old behavior, set scroll-last-node=Scroll.
. the precise line number specified in index entries is used if available.
. --usage=info shows usage for standalone Info.
. lzma compression supported.
* Distribution:
. language support for no removed/renamed to nb, per Norwegian translators.
. new translation: es.
. bug fixes in make check (and elsewhere).
. gettext 0.17, automake 1.10.1, autoconf 2.62.
4.11 (9 September 2007)
* Language:
. @documentlanguage now supports an optional country code
specification after the language code, a la gettext.
. new command @allowcodebreaks controls breaks at _ and - within @code.
. new command @frenchspacing controls spacing after sentences.
. new command @fonttextsize allows changing body text font size to 10pt.
. new command @textdegree{} produces the normal degrees symbol.
. new command @thischapternum can be used in TeX headers/footers.
. new commands for quotes: @quotedblleft @quotedblright
@quoteleft @quoteright @quotedblbase @quotesinglbase
@guillemetleft @guillemetright @guilsinglleft @guilsinglright.
. new option @set txicodequoteundirected produces an undirected quote
in code and example output, instead of the regular right quote.
. new option @set txicodequotebacktick produces a grave accent in
code and example output, instead of the regular left quote.
* makeinfo:
. The @documentlanguage locale is used to translate various document strings.
. --enable-encoding is now the default, meaning Info and plain text
output use 8-bit characters given a supported @documentencoding.
. new option --css-ref=URL for creating a stylesheet in HTML output.
. new option --transliterate-file-names to use a reduction-to-ASCII
algorithm for split HTML file names, useful for non-Latin-based languages.
. @enddots{} outputs three dots instead of four, for consistency with
texinfo.tex.
. the Local Variables coding: setting written by --enable-encoding now
comes at the very end, after the tags table, so that Emacs can find
it in more cases.
. @allow-recursion (never documented) is deprecated and produces a warning.
. @quote-args (never documented) is now the default behavior.
. centering and such take account of character widths.
. the --reference-limit option is now a no-op.
. improvements to XML and Docbook output and the DTD.
* texinfo.tex:
. @thissection can now be used in custom headings, and @thischapter
works reliably even without @set chapternewpage. Custom headings
have additional flexibility as well.
* texi2dvi:
. pdftexi2dvi is a new wrapper to `texi2dvi --pdf', equal to texi2pdf,
for the sake of AUC-TeX which prepends `pdf' to the compilation
command when requested to produce PDF.
* info:
. look for info files in the current directory first, by default.
. when calling man, use -a if no explicit section is found.
. avoid showing the top(1) man page for nonexistent info files.
* install-info:
. new options --section-regex, --remove-exactly, --debug, --test.
* Distribution:
. autoconf 2.60, automake 1.10, gettext 0.16.1.
. gettext support now [external].
. new translations: hu (Hungarian), rw (Kinyarwandan), vi (Vietnamese).
. most common sources imported from gnulib.
4.10 (omitted)
4.9 (29 June 2007)
* GPLv3.
* texi2dvi:
. new mode --build=tidy which supports compilation in a separate
directory, where intermediate files are preserved.
. new option --build-dir, to specify where the tidy build will take
place, either locally or globally. This allows avoiding the clutter
while preserving auxiliary files.
. new support for AUC-TeX: texi2dvi (weakly) supports arguments a la
TeX such as `\nonstopmode\input{file.tex}'.
. new options --ps and --dvipdf, useful especially for pstricks documents.
. new option --src-specials, passed to TeX.
* texinfo.tex:
. Latin1, Latin2, Latin9, and UTF-8 are supported -- only as well as
the Computer Modern fonts can manage, which means primarily English
and western European languages, to a limited extent.
. png and jpg images supported in pdf output.
. new Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian translations for texinfo.tex:
txi-ru.tex, txi-sr.tex, txi-uk.tex.
. section names with \ characters work properly in pdf outlines.
. have .toc files use @ as the escape character, instead of \.
4.8 (31 December 2004)
* Language:
. new command @euro for the Euro currency symbol, and
@documentencoding has some support for ISO-8859-15.
. new command @abbr for general abbreviations.
. new command @slanted to typeset text in a slanted font,
and @sansserif to typeset in a sans serif font.
* makeinfo:
. An empty first argument to cross-reference commands, such as @xref,
causes an error. This change was made in 4.1, but not mentioned in NEWS.
. HTML output:
- constructs are added for the old-style
conversion of node names to HTML names, so that external references
to them can continue to work.
- "g_t" prefixed to targets for node names beginning with a
nonletter, for XHTML compatibility.
. Docbook output: recognize more image formats.
* texi2dvi:
. new option --recode, to call recode for input character translation.
* Distribution:
. new convenience script texi2pdf, equivalent to texi2dvi --pdf (from tetex).
. some cross-compiling support in configure && make.
. new configure option --disable-install-warnings, for TeX.
distributions which do have the files installed.
. automake 1.9.4.
4.7 (9 April 2004)
* Language:
. new commands @float, @caption, @shortcaption, @listoffloats for
initial implementation of floating material (figures, tables, etc).
Ironically, they do not yet actually float anywhere.
. new commands @docbook, @ifdocbook, @ifnotdocbook for conditional Docbook.
. new commands @ordf{} and @ordm{} for Spanish feminine/masculine ordinals.
. new commands @deftypecv[x] for class variables in typed OO languages.
. new command @registeredsymbol for the r-in-a-circle symbol.
. new command @headitem to make a heading row in @multitable.
. new command @LaTeX{} for the LaTeX logo.
. new command @comma{} to avoid comma-parsing problems.
. @url is now a synonym for @uref; new command @indicateurl has the
old meaning of just displaying a url as text.
. @quotation now accepts an optional argument for labelling the text
as a `Note', `Tip', etc.
. @defun (et al.) heading lines can now be continued with a lone @.
. @acronym accepts an optional argument for the meaning of the acronym.
* makeinfo:
. New environment variable TEXINFO_OUTPUT_FORMAT determines the output
format at runtime, if no options are specified.
. New option --plaintext, equivalent to --no-headers with Info output.
. All outputs:
- sections are numbered by default.
. Info output:
- punctuation is inserted after @pxref and @ref, if needed to make
cross-references valid.
- line numbers included in index menus, so Info readers can go to
the exact line of an entry, not just a node. Also in plaintext output.
- ^@^H[index^@^H] cookie included in index menus, so Info readers
can handle the ] etc. commands better.
. HTML output:
- new algorithm for cross-references to other manuals, for maximum
portability and stability.
- include node name in with split output.
- @multicolumn fractions become percentages.
- entities used for bullets, quotes, dashes, and others.
- index entries are links to the exact locations.
-