What's New in Emacs 28.1?

Another feature-packed release from the emacs maintainers. - Big one's native compilation. - Other things I especially like is `M-x shortdoc-display-group`, a cheat sheet of elisp functions grouped by category. I look forward to third-party packages adopting it. - `M-y` on its own now shows a history of recent kills. If you just want to yank something the kill-ring history, this is the command you want. - `M-S-x` is a filtered `M-x'. It shows a curated list of commands relevant to the buffer's modes. - Emacs will now show the key binding (if any) in the command completion. Set `completions-detailed' to get a description of the symbol also. ... aaand a gajillion more things. Anyone spot anything interesting ?

When is the update to the book coming?

The new ``context-menu-mode`` is a super welcome addition, I feel like there should be an entry somewhere in the menu-bar that toggles it so it's more discoverable for new users.

The comment on `next-error-quit-window` doesn't make sense: > I cannot think of anything that presently sets this – well, possibly third-party packages – so if you want to experiment with it, you can. I do not know how useful it is to me, though, as I regularly leave hundreds of buffers I no longer need languish in obscurity without killing them. It quits the source window for the error, it doesn't kill the buffer. This is a very useful feature since screen space is always limited and source windows for `next-error` pop-up all over the place like weeds.

*Soooo* much stuff, I can't even find the time to read that whole document, let alone remember any of it. Emacs is like an infinite well, but still useful because the surface of the water is right there within reach.

My favorite Emacs 28 addition is `repeat-mode`. I've got it hooked up everywhere I can: error/occur/grep, window, git hunk navigation (diff-hl), undo and more. A real trove of useful features here. `remove-hook`, `display-buffer-use-least-recent-window`, `read-minibuffer-restore-windows`, the new `describe-*` and info commands are all great. I didn't even know `M-x dig` and co were a thing in Emacs. > But this addition will most likely induce people to try out M-x clone-buffer which, well… clones the buffer. Unlike splitting a window and switching both of them to the same buffer, you get a brand new one synced to the original. Changes in one appear in the other; but they are distinct buffers nonetheless. This is incorrect, `clone-buffer` and `clone-indirect-buffer` do different things. Indirect buffers are updated to have the same contents as the original, clones are simple copies. File-visiting buffers cannot be cloned, and the `C-x x n` command is basically useless to me. A `C-x x c` to run `clone-indirect-buffer` would be more useful. > New command 'clone-frame' (bound to 'C-x 5 c'). You can also use the tab bar C-x t n... This is an unfortunate choice. In general the `c` key is used for indirect clones and `n` for direct clones. When replicating frame or tab configurations there's no difference between them, so they should all be using `n` or `c` instead of splitting the difference like this.

Maybe it should be enabled automatically when cua-mode is active, too.

Soon™

You're right about the indirect buffer. That's the one I mean :)

For anyone wondering, the offical Windows builds do have native compilation enabled. Buy you will need MSYS2 & libgccjit for it to work: `pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-libgccjit` Nothing else needed.

And you will need the mingw-w64 bin directory (default: `C:\msys64\mingw64\bin` ) to be in the `PATH` environment variable.

> > New frame parameter 'drag-with-tab-line'. This parameter, similar to 'drag-with-header-line', allows moving frames by dragging the tab lines of their topmost windows with the mouse. > > This works fine, but you don’t get a visual indicator of the position it’s dragged to, like you would in say your web browser. I think this change is talking about dragging (empty parts of) the tab bar to move the frame as if you dragged the title bar, not to reorder the tab. I haven't tested though.

Thanks for re-mentioning `shortdoc`, I overlooked that reading your post and it looks very useful. I also agree "I can’t believe I never knew I wanted these!" about the new keys in help > New convenience commands with short keys in the "*Help*" buffer. > New command 'help-view-source' ('s') will view the source file (if > any) of the current help topic. New command 'help-goto-info' ('i') > will look up the current symbol (if any) in Info. New command > 'help-customize' ('c') will customize the user option or the face > (if any) whose doc string is being shown in the "*Help*" buffer.

Thanks for the summary, the kill history and filtered commands are really nice! (Been on v28 for a long time but hadn't looked into all the new things)

For some reason, fonts look worse than before. Especially Fira Code😬

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* Emacs can support 24-bit color TTY without terminfo database. * fido-vertical-mode

I don't know if it is interesting, but one thing I really like is much faster switching to wdired in directories with many files. Used to be noticeable when number of files is more than few hundred, is fast and constant time now. I am using wdired now when I am renaming single file or multiple files.

That is good to know! A welcome change indeed.