Release notes for AUCTeX 11.82 with preview-latex
=================================================
AUCTeX provides by far the most wide-spread and sophisticated
environment for editing LaTeX, TeX, ConTeXt and Texinfo documents with
Emacs or XEmacs. Combined with packages like RefTeX, flyspell and
others it is pretty much without peer as a comprehensive authoring
solution for a large variety of operating system platforms and TeX
distributions. It supports document-dependent completion and syntax
highlighting, easily accessible menus, jumping to error locations in
the source file, a number of editing shortcuts, intelligent
indentation and filling of the text during entry, and WYSIWYG previews
of graphical elements like math formulas right in the Emacs source
buffer, by virtue of its preview-latex component.
One part of the preview-latex subsystem is the central `preview.sty'
file that is independently useful for a number of applications and is
available in unbundled form from CTAN.[1]
Interfaces and installation procedures in this release remain a moving
target. If you feel you need to consult third-party installation
instructions for some reason, be sure that they refer to the same
version of AUCTeX as you are installing. For installing AUCTeX
itself, the installation instructions in the AUCTeX package should be
preferred.
AUCTeX needs volunteers in particular for non-programming tasks:
documentation writing, tutorials, translations, reference material,
sleuth work, testing.
New features and fixed bugs in this release
-------------------------------------------
Processing of errors and warnings resulting from processor invocations
was improved. That means BibTeX runs are now checked for warnings and
errors, warnings and underfull/overfull boxes after a LaTeX run can be
indicated in the echo area, and it is now possible to jump to warnings
and bad boxes separately.
In order to make typing sub- and superscript in math constructs more
convenient, automatic brace insertion upon typing <^> or <_> can be
activated.
French quotation marks as supported by the `frenchb' or `francais'
babel options can now be entered by simply typing <">.
Completion support for options of some LaTeX packages was added.
Various bug fixes happened as well. preview-latex can now be
correctly installed with XEmacs. Unloading AUCTeX as described in the
manual now works with Emacs 21. All tool bar images are displayed
again with CVS Emacs. Line breaks inside of LaTeX macros with
Japanese characters are now being prevented. Identification of math
constructs is now aware of comments.
People running Windows who used to load AUCTeX with `(require
'tex-mik)' now have to specify `(load "auctex.el" nil t t)' in
addition because tex-mik.el no longer activates AUCTeX.
More detailed information can be found in the CHANGES file included in
the distribution or the "Changes" section in the manual.
IMPORTANT: Many of the new features in the 11.x series rely on special
properties in the variable `TeX-command-list' and will not work if you
customized this variable for a pre-11.5x release of AUCTeX. If this
is the case for you, please re-initialize the variable by erasing the
customization, thereby setting the variable to the new default, and
re-adding your changes afterwards.
Requirements
------------
It is required that you use at least GNU Emacs 21 or XEmacs 21.4.
XEmacs requires at least version 1.84 of the xemacs-base package
(released on 01/27/2004) or a sumo tarball dated 02/02/2004 or newer
for compiling AUCTeX: please use the XEmacs package system for
upgrading if necessary. Warning: release 21.4.16 of XEmacs is
severely broken. This leads to crashes and hangs; don't use it.
The preview-latex subsystem requires image support. This is available
with GNU Emacs 21.3 under the X window system. For Windows[2], MacOS
Carbon[3] or native GTK+ toolkit support[4], a developer version[5] of
GNU Emacs (to be released as 22.1) is definitely required. A recent
developer version of GNU Emacs appears like the best choice even on
X11, however. If you prefer XEmacs-21, it will work in version
21.4.10 or later.
You'll also need a working LaTeX installation and Ghostscript.
dvipng[6] (version 1.4 or later: teTeX-3.0 works, TeXlive2004 not), a
very fast dvi converter, can be used to speed up the conversion.
Availability
------------
AUCTeX can be downloaded in various formats from
. A separate directory
contains some stuff from the tarball, such as ChangeLog, printable
manuals, and a reference sheet. The download area is mirrored to the
directory support/auctex on CTAN. AUCTeX is licensed under the GNU
General Public License version 2.
You'll find more information at the web site of AUCTeX
, including its mailing list
address.
Future development and additional information
---------------------------------------------
AUCTeX is proceeding as a GNU project with the long-term intent of
merging it into Emacs. For that reason, all new contributors need to
assign copyright to their contributions to the FSF (the usual
procedure for Emacs contributors). The same holds for past
contributors. The principal authors and maintainers have already done
so, but it would require a diligent and diplomatic volunteer to find
and ask the rest.
Current project manager is David Kastrup. While Paypal contributions
to are appreciated, volunteering for tasks
remains the most effective way of helping AUCTeX development.
The following people contributed to this release series (in
alphabetical order): Ralf Angeli, Masayuki Ataka, Thomas Baumann,
Berend de Boer, Miguel Frasson, Peter S. Galbraith, Patrick Gundlach,
Yvon Hevel, Arne Jørgensen, David Kastrup, Ikumi Keita, Frank Küster,
Jan-Åke Larsson, Dan Nicolaescu, Piet van Oostrum, Davide
G. M. Salvetti, Mike Sperber, Reiner Steib, Christian Schlauer, Shiro
Takeda, Mark Trettin (Please accept our apologies if we forgot
somebody.)
Footnotes:
[1]
[2] You can get a precompiled version of CVS Emacs for Windows at
or
. An experimental version with
AUCTeX preinstalled can be found at
.
[3]
contains build instructions.
[4] Debian provides precompiled GTK+ Emacs packages in its `unstable'
distribution (look for `emacs-snapshot-gtk'). Packages for Fedora can
be found at .
[5] If making use of the precompiled variants is not an option for
you, instructions for checking out the CVS version straight from the
GNU's mouth can be found at
[6] dvipng is available via its project page
and from CTAN.