     Changes/New Features in 12.04-1:

       * [Stata]: New interactive help invocation.

       * [Stata]: New custom variable inferior-STA-start-file.

       * [Stata]: inferior-STA-program-name is now ``stata'' and can be  customized.

       * [Stata] New sections in stata help files Syntax(s-S), Remarks(r), Title(t).

     Bug Fixes in 12.04-1:

       * [R]: Better ess-tracebug error handling.

       * [R]: Corrected ess-eldoc help string filtering and improved argument caching.

       * [R]: Indentation of non-block if/else/for/while lines fixed.

       * M-x ess-version should work better.

       * ESS: Filename completion now again works inside strings.

       * [Stata]: Fixed prompt detection issue.

       * [Rd]: R is autostarted also from here, when needed.

     Changes/New Features in 12.04:

       * ESS: Reverting new behavior of 12.03, TAB in ess-mode no longer completes by default.  If you want smart TAB completion in R and S scripts, similarly to iESS behavior, set the variable ess-tab-complete-in-script to t. Also see ess-first-tab-never-complete for how to customize where first TAB is allowed to complete.

       * ESS: completion is consistently bound to M-TAB (aka M-C-i) in both Emacs23 and Emacs24.

       * ESS: The variable ess-arg-function-offset-new-line introduced in (12.03) now accepts a list with the first element a number to indicate that the offset should be computed from the indent of the previous line. For example setting it to '(2) results in:

            a <- some.function(
              arg1,
              arg2)

     Changes/New Features in 12.03:

       * ESS indentation: new offset variable ess-arg-function-offset-new-line controlling for the indentation of lines immediately following open '('. This is useful to shift backwards function arguments after a long function call expression:

            a <- some.function(
                   arg1,
                   arg2)

          instead of the old

            a <- some.function(
                               arg1,
                               arg2)

          If '(' is not followed by new line the behavior is unchanged:

            a <- some.function(arg1,
                               arg2)

          This variable should be set as part of indentation style lists, or in ess-mode hook.

       * [R]: C-c . sets (indentation) style.

       * ESS: In ESS buffers yank(C-y) command accepts double argument C-u C-u to paste commands only. It deletes any lines not beginning with a prompt, and then removes the prompt from those lines that remain. Useful to paste code from emails, documentation, inferior ESS buffers or transcript files.

       * Documentation: ESS user manual has been rearranged and completed with several new chapters and sections to reflect newly added features (``Completion'', ``Developing with ESS'', ``ESS tracebug'', ``ESS developer'', ``ESS ElDoc'', ``IDO Comppletion'' and ``Evaluating Code'')

       * RefCard: Reference card was updated to include new features.

       * Eldoc: Eldoc was rewritten and is activated by default. See ess-use-eldoc, ess-eldoc-show-on-symbol, ess-eldoc-abbreviation-style variables for how to change the default behavior. Note: skeleton-pair-insert-maybe prohibits eldoc display, on ( insertion.

       * [R]: Eldoc shows arguments of a generic function whenever found.

       * ESS: TAB in ess-mode now indents and completes, if there is nothing to indent. Set ess-first-tab-never-completes-p to t to make TAB never complete on first invocation. Completion mechanism is similar to the completion in the inferior-ess-mode -- a filename expansion is tried, if not found ESS completes the symbol by querying the process.

       * ESS for emacs version 24 or higher: ESS is  fully compatible with the emacs 24 completion scheme, i.e. all the completion is done by completion-at-point. Also in accordance with emacs conventions, ESS doesn't bind M-TAB for emacs 24 or higher. M-TAB calls the default complete-symbol.

       * [R]: Out of the box integration with Auto Completion mode (http://cx4a.org/software/auto-complete/). Three AC sources ac-source-R-args, ac-source-R-objects and ac-source-R are provided. The last one combines the previous two and makes them play nicely together. Set ess-use-auto-complete to t to start using it.  Refer to documentation string of ac-use-auto-complete for further information.

       * [R]: New unified and fast argument completion system, comprised of ess-funname.start, ess-function-arguments, ess-get-object-at-point. Eldoc and auto-completion integration are using this system.

       * ESS: ess-switch-to-end-of-ESS(C-c C-z), and ess-switch-to-ESS(C-c C-y): Automatically start the process whenever needed.

       * [R]: roxy knows about previewing text version of the documentation. Bound to C-c C-e t.

       * [R]: Solved the ``nil filename'' bug in roxygen support.

       * [R]: ess-tracebug is now part of ESS:

          New Features:

            - Source injection: Tracebug now can inject source references on the fly during code evaluation, i.e. you don't have to source your file, but just evaluate your code in normal fashion. Variable ess-tracebug-inject-source-p controls this behavior - if t, always inject source reference, if 'function, inject only for functions (this is the default), if nil, never inject.

               During the source injection the value of `ess-eval-visibly-p' is ignored.

            - Org-mode support: Visual debugger is now aware of the temporary org source editing buffer (C-c ') and jumps through this buffers if still alive, or in original org buffer otherwise.

            - New keys in watch mode: ? and d

            - Two new hooks: ess-tracebug-enter-hook and ess-tracebug-exit-hook

       * [R]: New package ess-developer to evaluate R code directly in the package environment and namespace. It can be toggled on and off with C-c d t. When ess-developer is on all ESS evaluation commands are redefined to evaluate code in appropriate environments. Add package names to the list of your development packages with C-d a, and remove with C-d r. Source the current file with C-d s.Evaluation function which depend on `ess-eval-region' ask for the package to source the code into, ess-eval-function and alternatives search for the function name in the development packages' environment and namespace and insert the definition accordingly. See the documentation section ``Developing with ESS/ESS developer'' for more details.

       * [R] help system:

          New Features:

            - q quits window instead of calling ess-switch-to-end-of-ESS. This is consistent with emacs behavior help and other special buffers (breaking change).

            - k kills window without asking for the name (pointed by Sam Steingold)

            - Help map inherits from special-mode-map as sugested by Sam Steingold.

            - Package index: new function ess-display-index bound to i in help mode map.

            - Package vignettes: new function ess-display-vignettes bound to v in help mode map.

            - Display help in HTML browser: new function ess-display-help-in-browser bound to w in help mode map. It depends on R's browser option.

            - New custom variable ess-help-pop-to-buffer: if non-nil ESS help buffers are given focus on display. The default is t (breaking change).

            - New menu entries for the above functions.

            - Bogus help buffers are no longer generated by default, i.e. buffers of the form ``No documentation for 'foo' in specified packages and libraries: you could try '??foo' ''.  ess-help-kill-bogus-buffers now defaults to t.  Beware, there may be instances where the default is unsatisfactory such as debugging and/or during R development.  Thanks to Ross Boylan for making the suggestion, Sam Steingold for reminding us of this variable and Martin Maechler for the warning.

       * ESS now uses IDO completing read functionality for all the interactive requests. It uses ido completion mechanism whenever available, and falls back on classical completing-read otherwise. You can set ess-use-ido to nil if you don't want the IDO completion. See the documentation string of ess-use-ido for more information about IDO and ESS configuration.

       * [S]: ``,`` is bound to ess-smart-comma: If comma is invoked at the process marker of an ESS inferior buffer, request and execute a command from `ess-handy-commands' list. If ess-R-smart-operators is t `ess-smart-comma also inserts `` `` after comma.

       * [S], notably R: Variable `ess-handy-commands' stores an alist of useful commands which are called by ess-smart-comma in the inferior buffer.

          Currently containing:

          change-directory
               ess-change-directory

          help-index
               ess-display-index

          help-object
               ess-display-help-on-object

          vignettes
               ess-display-vignettes

          objects[ls]
               ess-execute-objects

          search
               ess-execute-search

          set-width
               ess-execute-screen-options

          install.packages
               ess-install.packages

          library
               ess-library

          setRepos
               ess-setRepositories

          sos
               ess-sos

          Handy commands: ess-library, ess-install.packages, etc - ask for item with completion and execute the correspond command. ess-sos is a interface to findFn function in package sos. If package sos is not found, ask user for interactive install.

       * ESS: New dynamic mode line indicator: Process status is automatically reflected in all mode-lines of associated with the process buffers. Particularly useful for displaying debug status of ess-tracebug and developer status of ess-developer in all associated buffers.

       * ESS: New ess-completing-read mechanism: ESS uses ido completions whenever possible. Variable ess-use-ido controls whether to use ido completion or not. Active by default.

       * ESS now supports comint fields for output and input detection. This feature is not used by default, but might be useful in the future.

       * [S]: New custom variable inferior-ess-S-prompt to customize prompt detection regular expression in the inferior ESS buffers. You can customize this variable to enhance comint navigation (comint-previous-prompt and comint-next-prompt) the inferior buffers.

       * [R]: Internal R completion retrieval (ess-R-complete-object-name)  was rewritten and is faster now.

       * ESS is using process plist to store process specific variables, as opposed to buffer local variables as it was using before. The use of buffer local variables to store process variables is discouraged.

       * ESS: new functions to manipulate process plists: ess-process-get and ess-process-set.

       * ESS: Internal process waiting mechanism was completely rewritten. ESS no more relies on prompt regular expressions for the prompt detection. The only requirement on the primary process prompt is to end in > . This could be overwritten by setting inferor-ess-primary-prompt.

       * [S], notably R: Saved command history: ESS-HISTORY-FILE now accepts t (default), nil, or a file name. By setting it to nil no command line history is saved anymore.  ESS-HISTORY-DIRECTORY now allows to have the history all saved in one ``central'' file.

       * [R]: more Roxygen improvements.

       * [R]: C-c . to set (indentation) style.

       * [R]: Functions with non-standard names (for example 'aaa-bbb:cc') are properly handled by font-lock and evaluation routines.

       * [R]:Several regexp bugs (described in etc/R-ESS-bugs.el) were fixed in ess-get-words-from-vector and ess-command.

     Changes/New Features in 5.14:

       * [BUGS/JAGS]:  Batch BUGS is back!  For recent OpenBUGS versions, 3.0.8+, a batch BUGS script is once again available, but for Linux only.  Therefore, since it seems that BUGS and JAGS must co-exist (rather than a transition from BUGS to JAGS), .bug files are now in [BUGS] mode and .jag files are in [JAGS] mode.  [BUGS] now works like [JAGS] rather than the original mode [BUGS] mode which was difficult to maintain.  Although, [BUGS] appears to work, there still may be some features missing as well as bugs.

       * [R]: New customizable variable ess-swv-plug-into-AUCTeX-p Commands to Sweave current file and LaTeX the result are now available to AUCTeX users, if this variable is set to t.

       * [S]: C-c C-c (ess-eval-function-or-paragraph-and-step) is now skipping over comments as the other paragraph functions do. It (and similar functions) should no longer wrongly find function() beginnings inside comments or strings.

       * [SAS]: improved by better support for GNU Emacs

     Changes/New Features in 5.13:

       * [R]: On Windows, for R 2.12.0 and later, the Rterm executables (in subdirectories i386 / x64) now are found as well as for earlier R versions.

       * [S+]: on Windows, both 32- and 64-bit versions of S+ (``S-PLUS'') are found now and made available on the menu.

       * [R]: When prompting for a starting directory, the R version is (always?) correct now.

       * [R]: on non-Windows platforms, the use-dialog-box variable is no longer temporarily changed (to nil for R-x.y.z version functions and to t for R itself), but rather the user customization is obeyed.

       * [R]: more Roxygen improvements.

       * `Rd-preview-help' now generates preview buffers with navigation facilities the same as regular help buffers.

       * ESS: New functions and keys C-c [up] / [down] for evaluating the buffer ``from beginning till here''.

     Changes/New Features in 5.12:

       * [SAS] Font-locking: update of PROCs keywords (up to SAS 9.22); error/warnings.

       * [R]: Roxygen improvements: S4 classes; also optionally keep spaces when filling arguments

       * [Rd]: support new keywords: section-name \subsection plus a dozen ``new'' keywords; should match R 2.12.x now.

       * ess-display-help-on-object (C-c C-v) now caches the list of topics, thus speeding up the improvement feature introduced in 5.9.

     Changes/New Features in 5.11:

       * Filename completion within buffers now adds only trailing characters to complete the filename, rather than expanding to an absolute file path.  This filename completion is bound to the TAB key.

       * M-n P in Sweave buffers now prompts for the command to run instead of using pdflatex unconditionally, offering completion from customizable collection ess-swv-pdflatex-commands, the first of which is taken as default and that defaults to texi2pdf.

       * M-RET is now also bound in S language (R and S+) buffers to ess-use-this-dir. It sends setwd(..) to the S process to set the working directory to the one of the source file.

     Changes/New Features in 5.10:

       * M-RET in *S* buffers is now bound to ess-dirs.  This function will set Emacs's current directory to be the same as the *S* process.  This is useful if you use setwd() within a *S* process.

     Changes/New Features in 5.9:

       * Toolbar:  The toolbar now has an icon for starting Splus.

       * Indentation: New documentation and code has been added to make it easier to change how ESS indents code.  In particular, see ess-default-style, ess-own-style-list and the documention subsection ``Changing indentation styles''.

       * ess-display-help-on-object (C-c C-v) now offers completion candidates for help file aliases, in addition to object names.

       * Font locking: is now turned on even without window-system is nil, whenever ESS-FONT-LOCK-MODE is non-nil, i.e., by default.

       * ESS script editing: ess-eval-deactivate-mark default is now t, as suggested by Leo Alekseyev and subsequent ``unanimous'' ESS-help discussion.

       * [R]: Editing support for ``#!'' (Rscript / littler) editing, thanks to Jeffrey Arnold.

       * [R]: Now finds all R versions, both 64-bit and 32-bit, on some 64-bit Windows machines.  Please report back to ess-core success or failure on your 64-bit Windows machine.

       * ESS Manual now more visually pleasing; http://ess.r-project.org/Manual/ess.html

       * [R]: Roxygen on XEmacs no longer font locks for now (as it required missing features and hence broke ESS startup, there).

       * [R]: Roxygen has a sub-menu on the [ESS] menu.

       * [R]: Function ess-rutils-htmldocs in ess-rutils.el offers an alternative to help.start() for navigating R documentation, using the browse-url Emacs function.

     Changes/New Features in 5.8:

       * [R]: New ess-rutils.el with utilities for listing, loading, installing, and updating packages, as well as object manipulation (listing, viewing, and deleting).  It also provides an alternative to RSiteSearch() that uses the browse-url function, so results can be viewed in an Emacs web browser.

       * [R]: much more extensive Roxygen interface, via ess-roxy.el from Henning Redestig. Ess-roxy supports filling of roxygen fields, generation and updating roxygen templates, completion of roxygen tags, basic navigation (marking and moving between entries), folding using hs-minor-mode and preview of the Rd file.

       * Emacs lisp files have got better names (partly, for now).

     Changes/New Features in 5.7:

       * [R]: loading a source file (C-c C-l) now works in Windows, similarly to other platforms; (further; it had accidentally been broken in ESS 5.6 on all platforms)

     Changes/New Features in 5.6:

       * [R]: help() calls have to differ from old default, with newer versions of R; currently via .help.ESS <- function(...) hack.

     Changes/New Features in 5.4:

       * [SAS]: The long overdue change from make-regexp to regexp-opt for font-locking is complete.  The new regexp-opt is now the default since it is better than the old code in many ways (and especially more maintainable).  However, there are certainly some special cases missed (bug reports and patches welcome!). Setting ess-sas-run-regexp-opt to nil will result in the old code being used.

       * [BUGS] and [JAGS]: typing = now results in <-.

       * [R] function arguments ``show'' (ess-r-args-show) now uses the new (tooltip-show-at-point) contributed by Erik Iverson.

       * Toolbar icons now also work in (beta) Emacs 23.

       * [S]: New function ess-change-directory for setting both emacs' current directory and the directory of an *R* or *S* buffer.

       * [S] when transient-mark-mode is true, the mark is now kept, rather than deactivated, thanks to a patch from David Reitter.

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.11:

       * [SAS]: work around bug in Emacs 22.2 & 22.3 which fails to set case-fold fontification automatically.

       * Rd mode: support new keyword 'Rdversion'

       * [R]: now again works with Emacs 21.x

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.10:

       * Fixed noweb-mode bug accidentally introduced into 5.3.9

       * In noweb-mode, e.g., Rnw-mode, electric ``<'' also inserts closing ``@". Further, the code chunk boundaries are better kept up-to-date, such that code[R] <-> text[LaTeX] minor mode switching should happen more reliably.

       * In noweb-mode, fix a buglet in rare [Enter] or [Tab] behavior; further, by default disable the former `[[' .. `]]'  code-protection-when-filling behavior which has been found to be buggy.

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.9:

       * [SAS]: evince PDF viewer now supported as well; search order: evince, Xpdf, Adobe/Acrobat Reader

       * [R]: added support for Roxygen, potentially to be extended.

       * [S] (and R): inferior (*R*) and transcript modes no longer fontify language keywords (such as for, in, etc).

       * [Stata]: Customize the ess-sta-delimiter-friendly setting to t to convert embedded semi-colons to newlines for Stata processing.

       * Sweave fix for embedded blanks in PDF reader and PDF files

       * Several fixes for Major Mode Convention violations in ess-mode and noweb-mode.

       * [JAGS]: M-x comment-region now available!

       * [S] The ess-swv-* commands (and keybindings) are now in a submenu of the ``Noweb'' menu, when editing Sweave files.

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.8:

       * [JAGS]: more separation from [BUGS] (as much as is currently planned); now C-c C-c on an empty .jmd creates a template as it should; symbolic links are created for CODA output so BOA is happy: from index.txt to .ind and chain#.txt to #.out

       * [SAS]: buffer-local ess-sas-submit-command and ess-sas-submit-command-options now recognized by ess-sas-submit-region

       * [S]: When trying to evaluate code in an S language buffer and there is no associated process, now start R automatically instead of signalling an error.  Also, restart R if there is an associated process which is not running.  However, do not start R just via the ``electric'' ( (ess-r-args-auto-show).

       * [S]: For (one-line) functions withOUT '{ .. }' bodys, the end of function is now correctly found more often.  This notably improves C-c C-c (ess-eval-function-or-paragraph-and-step).

       * [JAGS]: cleanup/re-organization of elisp code; symbolic links for CODA output are now only created by the new JAGS system command in version 1.0.3; specify whether this command is available via ess-jags-system; if not present, then no links are created so that the *shell* buffer does not become unresponsive during the batch run

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.7:

       * ESS: ess-default-style now *is* customizable, i.e., changing its value in ~/.emacs now does have the desired effect.

       * ESS: ess-font-lock-mode is a new variable (default: t) which controls whether font-locking is enabled in ESS buffers.

       * [R]: for XEmacs on Windows; another tweak to find R versions

       * [SAS]: font-locking updated for ODS and SAS Bayesian Procedures; a more consistent handling of SAS options by ess-sas-submit-command-options which is buffer-local; portable snooze for MS Windows via customize-able ess-sleep-for (floats welcome); Xpdf now supported as a PDF viewer

       * [Rnw]: now also works with ``emacs -nw'' and Emacs 22.

       * [JAGS]: now requires JAGS 1.0 (see the new ESS for JAGS help section for more information): both need work; suggestions welcome

       * [R]: [TAB] completion now uses the R-internal completion mechanism (for R >= 2.5.0).

       * [R], [S]: interpretation of ``_'' as assignment has been removed in ess-continued-statement-p for R and S.

       * several internal code cleanups.

       * [R]: An experimental version of a new command Rgui on MS Windows to send lines directly from emacs to Rgui is available in file lisp/essd-rgui.el. Preliminary documentation is in file doc/rgui-doc.txt.

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.6:

       * ESS: for XEmacs, using ``gnuclient'' (without a ``-q'') works for things like fix() after M-x gnuserv-start has been done.

       * [R]: M-x R-newest should now work in more situations on MS Windows, e.g., when R has been installed in a non-default "ProgramFiles" directory tree.  In these cases, there's no need to specify the name (and full path) of the R program anymore.

       * [R]: For XEmacs, startup (with new tooltip code) works again.

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.5:

       * [R] a new defun is available, M-x R-newest, which will start the newest version of R that it can find on your system.

       * [R] add Sven Hartenstein's ``R function arguments tips'' functionality, via new file ../lisp/essd-r-args.el. Note that this includes an ``electric "("'' behavior inside R-mode which is active by default and can be customized via ess-r-args-electric-paren; i.e., use (setq ess-r-args-electric-paren nil) to turn it off.  Further, ess-r-args-show-as allows to switch to the ``tooltip'' mode.

       * ESS: functions ess-get-pdf-viewer and *-ps-viewer; built on new customizable variables ess-pdf-viewer-pref and ess-ps-viewer-pref; currently used in ess-swv-PDF and *-PS.

       * [R] Improved ess-swv-PDF to run pdf viewer only if pdflatex was ok

       * [R] Improved ess-swv-weave to start R automatically if none is running.

       * ESS: Do no longer ask which ESS process to use if there is only one.

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.4:

       * [R] now better work with options(error=recover); and the new default of CHM help files on windows.

       * [R] some more cleanup in the ``sweave'' functions

       * miscellaneous fixes

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.3:

       * [S] fix buglet (5.3.2 only) which left command prompt in ``execute buffer'' and hence help files.

       * new customizable variable ess-display-buffer-reuse-frames set to true (which changes default behavior) such that execution or help *frames* are reused.

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.2:

       * Classic BUGS now supported by (require 'essd-bugs) with [BUGS] and JAGS by (require 'essd-jags) with [JAGS].  But, only one of them can be used at a time since they don't play nice together.  Also, C-c C-c is now bound to the function ess-bugs-next-action (F12 has been retired).  And finally, note that essl-bug.el is deprecated and the replacement is essl-bugs.el.

       * [R] Improved some of the ``Sweave-make'' functions (yet scarcely documented) in ess-swv.el.

       * [S] No longer mess with .Last.value (nor in other ``languages'').

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.1:

       * See the docs for 2 ways to install ESS for XEmacs

           1. by uncommenting the XEmacs part of Section 1 of Makeconf and performing make install

           2. by unpacking either ess-5.3.1.tgz or ess-5.3.1.zip into PREFIX/lib/xemacs/site-packages on unix or PREFIX\XEmacs\site-packages on windows

       * [R]: fixed bugs so that Rterm.exe can be found by XEmacs

       * [S]: ess-toggle-S-assign-key is slightly changed; in particular, the default ess-assign-key is now C-x =.

       * [R]: M-x R-site-search is a new (slightly experimental) utility similar to R's RSiteSearch(..) but with the advantage of using Emacs' preferred browser, see browse-url-browser-function

     Changes/New Features in 5.3.0:

       * [BUGS]: sanely re-format statistical output, .bog, from scientific notation to numbers rounded with 4 decimal places with M-x ess-bugs-sci-round-to-4-dp.

       * The keys for navigating among section headings in help buffers worked, but only for one language per session; they should now work for multiple languages.  (They were also broken on Windows machines.)

       * [S] long standing buglets in the internal logic for loading lisp code on Windows.  Particularly fixed behavior in help mode with S-plus GUI.

       * New variable, ess-use-inferior-program-name-in-buffer-name, which enables using the executable name instead of the dialect name for R. Feature request.

       * [S] ess-execute-screen-options now also works correctly when there is more than one window *side-by-side* in the same frame and runs in the correct buffer also when there is more than one S buffer.

       * [S] new functions ess-eval-paragraph-and-step and ess-eval-function-or-paragraph-and-step are bound to keys C-c C-p and C-c C-c respectively and to the menu in ESS-mode; also bound in the help mode (for evaluating examples).

       * [S] new function ess-toggle-S-assign-key allows to assign the `` <- '' insertion to an arbitrary key.