Changes/New Features in 5.2.10:

  * [R]: ess-r-versions can no longer be customized (since the customization was not taking effect unless customizations were loaded before ESS).  Its value has been changed so that it will also find R executables beginning ``R-devel'' and ``R-patched''.  If you wish to change this variable, it must be set in your .emacs before ESS is loaded.

  * Installation with GNU Make enhanced:  unix and unix-like operating systems will now be able to install ESS for all users in either a GNU Emacs site-lisp or an XEmacs package configuration by editing lisp/ess-site.el and Makeconf accordingly, then issuing make install

  * [S]: Filename completion (inside strings) now also works in Xemacs, for R and S-plus.

Changes/New Features in 5.2.9:

  * [R] for Windows:  the \ directory character bug with respect to ess-load-file has been eradicated.

  * [SAS]: C-c C-r and C-c C-b once again work as intended and documented.

  * [S]: M-x ess-fix-EQ-assign is a bit more agressive.

  * [S]: Imenu now also shows setAs(), etc.

  * [R]: R function pattern enhanced with underlying code such that M-C-a (ess-beginning-of-function) etc now work for many more cases, including S4 method definitions.

  * [R]: myOwnhelp(1) no longer wrongly triggers help(1).

  * [R]: Improved detection of bogus help buffers: valid help buffers containing with the string ``no documentation''(e.g. contour) were being treated as bogus.

  * [R]: In R help buffers, if options("help.try.all.packages" = TRUE) then ?rlm will list which packages rlm is defined in.  This help buffer is not bogus, but instead is now relabelled ``*help[R](rlm in packages)*''.

  * [STA]: add ``//'' as comment starting character to syntax-table.

Changes/New Features in 5.2.8:

  * iESS: [Tab] completes file names ``inside string'' as in earlier (<= 5.2.3) ESS versions.

Changes/New Features in 5.2.7:

  * If you use Custom to change the variable ess-toolbar-items, the new toolbar is used in all subsequent ESS buffers.

  * [SAS]: new feature:  if ess-sas-log-max >0 and your .log grows to more than ess-sas-log-max bytes, just the first ess-sas-log-max bytes are refreshed; this is helpful when your .sas program generates lots of error messages and gets too big for emacs to display

  * [R/S]: M-; in R/S editing modes will now indent with either one or two hashes depending on context.

  * [R]: David Whiting's Sweave extensions (to 'noweb') are now available (from ess-swv.el loaded by default).

Changes/New Features in 5.2.6:

  * Removed non-ASCII characters in a few files.

  * [R]: now works better when UTF-8 locale is active; in particular, you get correct directional quotes in R's startup message for R-devel (unstable development version of R 2.1.0) when using environment variables LANGUAGE=en@quot LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

  * [SAS]: toggling of .log mode improved (F10); toggling of .lst mode now also available (C-F10); killing all buffers associated with .sas program no longer bound to C-F10 since its a bit overzealous.

  * S-Plus 7 for Windows is now recognized.

  * [S] (incl. R): in auto-fill mode, strings are not wrapped anymore.

  * [S] (incl. R): font-lock now correctly differs between R and S, e.g., for "_"; both now fontify warning(.) and S does terminate() additionally.

  * Support for `bell' aka `beep' aka `ding' aka `alarm' in all inferior modes: When \a is output ``to the the console'' at the beginning of a line, the bell is rung.

Changes/New Features in 5.2.5:

  * [R]: C-c C-q or Quit S from the menu now should work (again and less klunkily) and do not append -exited to the buffer name.  Further, the behavior of (ess-cleanup), called from ess-quit, now depends on the new customizable variable ess-S-quit-kill-buffers-p which defaults to nil. Consequently, the question ``Delete all buffers associated with ..?'' will not be asked anymore by default.

  * [SAS] -- ess-ebcdic-to-ascii-search-and-replace will now work with the recode application as well which is available on many platforms

  * [S] (incl. R): Name completion for slots of S4 objects now works!

Changes/New Features in 5.2.4:

  * The documentation now includes an overview of how to use the emacs TAGS facility for S functions.  (The distribution also used to contain a directory etc/other/Tags where a ~1990 version of etags.c was distributed; this is no longer relevant and so has been deleted.)

  * [SAS] -- When you are working with EBCDIC files on an ASCII platform, .log NOTEs may display as gibberish since the EBCDIC characters are not converted to ASCII prior to their display.  So, the function ess-ebcdic-to-ascii-search-and-replace is provided for convenience and is bound to C-F11.  This function requires the dd command (only available on unix or unix-like platforms).

  * ESS: Completion of object names is now always done dynamically rather than allowing the option of using a pre-computed database (by ess-create-object-name-db) since modern computers seem fast enough for dynamic completion.  (We expect few users, if any, have been using the pre-computed database method.)

  * ESS: object completion in iESS buffers running on Windows was very slow (for GNU Emacs, but not XEmacs) and has now been fixed. Further, it was more or less broken for all versions of S-plus 6.x, and has been fixed to work everywhere but with the Windows' GUI of S-plus.  The list of objects now shows unique names also when an object appears more than once in the search path.

  * [R]: Completion of object names now also includes those starting with ``.''.

Changes/New Features in 5.2.3:

  * ESS: When new inferior ESS processes are created, by default they will replace the current buffer (this restores behavior from pre 5.2.0). If you wish new ESS processes to start in another window of the current frame, set inferior-ess-same-window to nil.

  * New variables inferior-Splus-args and inferior-R-args provide a way to pass command line arguments to starting S and R processes.

Changes/New Features in 5.2.2:

  * bug-fixes for 5.2.1 (require 'executable), html docs, etc.

  * ess-lisp-directory/../doc/info added to Info-directory-list if ess-info not found by info

  * [R]: If you have other versions of R on your exec-path, such as "R-1.8.1" with Unix or "rw1081" with Windows, ESS will find them and create appropriate functions, such as M-x R-1.8.1 or M-x rw1081, for calling them. By default only Unix programs beginning "R-1" and "R-2" and Windows programs parallel to the version of R in your exec-path will be found, but see ess-r-versions and ess-rterm-versions for ways to find other versions of R.

  * [R]: Other versions of R, such as "R-1.8.1" on Unix and "rw1081" on Windows, are added to the "ESS / Start Process / Other" menu.

  * [S]: If you have other versions of S-Plus on your Windows computer, such as S-Plus 6.1 or S-Plus 4.5, ESS will find them and create appropriate functions, such as M-x splus61, for calling the console version (Sqpe) inside an emacs buffer.  By default only programs installed in the default location will be found, but see ess-SHOME-versions for ways to find other versions of S-Plus.

  * [S]: Other versions of Sqpe on Windows, such as "splus61", are added to the "ESS / Start Process / Other" menu.

  * [R]: (bug fix) ess-quit (bound to C-c C-q) should now quit the inferior R process, when issued from either the inferior buffer, or from a .R buffer.

Changes/New Features in 5.2.1:

  * [S] (R and S-plus): now have toolbar support with icons to evaluate code in the inferior process or to switch there.  This code is experimental and likely to change as XEmacs/Emacs issues get resolved. The toolbar should be enabled if your Emacs displays images, but can be disabled with the variable ess-use-toolbar. Thanks to David Smith from Insightful for the S-plus logo.

  * [SAS]: ess-sas-graph-view (F12) enhanced; you can specify external file viewers for each graphics file type via the alist ess-sas-graph-view-viewer-alist; also .jpg/.gif are now handled by image-mode on XEmacs, if available, otherwise by graphics primitives as before

Changes/New Features in 5.2.0:

  * [BUGS]:  new info documentation!  now supports interactive processing thanks to Aki Vehtari (mailto:Aki.Vehtari@hut.fi); new architecture-independent unix support as well as support for BUGS v. 0.5

  * [SAS]:  convert .log to .sas with ess-sas-transcript; info documentation improved; Local Variable bug fixes; SAS/IML statements/functions now highlighted; files edited remotely by ange-ftp/EFS/tramp are recognized and pressing SUBMIT opens a buffer on the remote host via the local variable ess-sas-shell-buffer-remote-init which defaults to "ssh"; changed the definition of the variable ess-sas-edit-keys-toggle to boolean rather than 0/1; added the function ess-electric-run-semicolon which automatically reverse indents lines containing only "run;"; C-F1 creates MS RTF portrait from the current buffer; C-F2 creates MS RTF landscape from the current buffer; C-F9 opens a SAS DATASET with PROC INSIGHT rather than PROC FSVIEW; "inferior" aliases for SAS batch:  C-c C-r for submit region, C-c C-b for submit buffer, C-c C-x for goto .log; C-c C-y for goto .lst

  * [S]: Pressing underscore ("_") once inserts " <- " (as before); pressing underscore twice inserts a literal underscore.  To stop this smart behaviour, add "(ess-toggle-underscore nil)" to your .emacs after ess-site has been loaded; ess-dump-filename-template-proto (new name!) now can be customized successfully (for S language dialects); Support for Imenu has been improved; set ess-imenu-use-S to non-nil to get an "Imenu-S" item on your menubar; ess-help: Now using nice underlines (instead of `nuke-* ^H_')

  * [R]:  After (require 'essa-r), M-x ess-r-var allows to load numbers from any Emacs buffer into an existing *R* process; M-x ess-rdired gives a ``directory editor'' of R objects; fixed ess-retr-lastvalue-command, i.e. .Last.value bug (thanks to David Brahm)

  * ESS: Support for creating new window frames has been added to ESS.  Inferior ESS processes can be created in dedicated frames by setting inferior-ess-own-frame to t.  ESS help buffers can also open in new frames; see the documentation for ess-help-own-frame for details. (Thanks to Kevin Rodgers for contributing code.)

Changes/New Features in 5.1.24:

  * The version number is now correct even inside ESS/Emacs

Changes/New Features in 5.1.23:

  * Minor more Makefile clean up.

Changes/New Features in 5.1.22:

  * Besides info documentation, PDF and HTML documentation are also provided (instead of built using "make") and available on the web as well; see ESS web page (http://ess.r-project.org/) and StatLib (http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/general/ESS/doc)

  * Now that info documentation is available, the README.* files are no longer supported.  However, they are still distributed for what it's worth.

  * ESS is now an XEmacs package!  See XEmacs Installation HOWTO (http://www.xemacs.org/Install/index.html) for details (specifically, items 10-15).

  * [SAS]: more user-friendly enhancements for remote SAS batch jobs with Kermit file transfers (LOG and OUTPUT function key features now supported).  Multiple shells now supported so you can run SAS on different computers from different buffers by setting the buffer-local variable ess-sas-shell-buffer to unique buffer names.

  * Major re-vamping of Makefile/Makeconf.

Changes/New Features in 5.1.21:

  * [SAS]: info documentation now available!, see ESS->Help for SAS; F12 opens GSASFILE nearest point for viewing either within emacs, when available, or via an external viewer; more syntax highlighting keywords; more enhancements for remote SAS batch jobs with Kermit; new framework for remote SAS interactive jobs, see ess-remote

  * [S]: info documentation now available!, see ESS->Help for the S family

  * Makefile: tag now independent of rel; info files made by doc/Makefile and installed in new info sub-directory

Changes/New Features in 5.1.20:

  * New `options()$STERM' in the S dialects (S, S-Plus, R). The S program can determine the environment in which it is currently running.  ESS sets the option to `iESS' or `ddeESS' when it starts an S language process.  We recommend other specific values for S language processes that ESS does not start.

  * New `ess-mouse-me' function, assigned to S-mouse-3 by default. User may click on a word or region and then choose from the menu to display the item, or a summary, or a plot, etc. This feature is still under development.

  * GNU Emacs 21.1 is now supported (fixed for S dialects, SAS & BUGS), (some from Stephen Eglen).

  * XEmacs 21.x is now supported (fixed w32-using-nt bug)

  * XEmacs on Win (NT) is better supported.

  * Workaround for bug in Sqpe+6 (S-PLUS 6 for Win).

  * should now work even when imenu is not available (for old XEmacsen).

  * [SAS]: XEmacs-Imenu fix; C-TAB is globalized along with your function-key definitions, if specified; you can specify your SAS library definitions outside of autoexec.sas for ess-sas-data-view with SAS code placed in the variable ess-sas-data-view-libname, also the dataset name is defaulted to the nearest permanent dataset to point; Speedbar support now works for permanent datasets, please ignore first./last.; new font-locking is now the default with more improvements for font-locking PROCs, macro statements, * ; and %* ; comments; you can toggle sas-log-mode with F10 which will font-lock your .log (if it isn't too big); submit remote .sas files accessed with ange-ftp, EFS or Tramp (Kermit is experimental) by setting ess-sas-submit-method to 'sh; ess-sas-submit-command and ess-sas-submit-command-options are buffer-local so you can have local file variable sections at the end of your .sas files to request different executables or specify special options and the local file variables are re-read at submit instead of only at file open so that if you make a change it is picked up immediately;

  * [BUGS]: font-lock with `in' fixed.

  * for STATA: font-lock bug fixed.

  * for Rd mode: C-c C-v and `switch-process' in menu. further, C-c C-f prefix (Rd-font) for inserting or surrounding a word by things such as \code{.}, \code{\link{.}}, \emph{.} etc.

  * new functions (ess-directory-function) and (ess-narrow-to-defun) ess-directory <-> default-directory logic (Jeff Mincy).

  * Re-organized Makefile and fixed a few bugs.

Changes/New Features in 5.1.19:

  * S+6 now supported (Tony Rossini (Unix) and Rich Heiberger (Windows))

  * New BUGS support through [BUGS] mode (Rodney Sparapani) Templates assist you in writing .bug and .cmd code (.cmd and .log are replaced by .bmd and .bog to avoid emacs extension collisions). Substitution" parameters facilitate "automagic" generation of data...in" and "init...in" filenames, "const N=" from your data file and "monitor()/stats()" commands.  Activated by pressing F12.

  * Fixes for `ess-smart-underscore' SAS breakage (Rich Heiberger)

  * You can change between PC and Unix, local and global SAS function-key definitions interactively (Rich Heiberger)

  * C-Submit a highlighted region to SAS batch (Rodney Sparapani)

  * New and improved SAS syntax highlighting (Rodney Sparapani) To get the new functionality, set ess-sas-run-make-regexp to nil. Also available in .log files via F10.

  * Open a permanent SAS dataset for viewing via F9 (Rodney Sparapani) You must have the library defined in autoexec.sas for it to work.

  * User-friendly defaults for `sas-program', `ess-sas-batch-pre-command' and `ess-sas-batch-post-command' as well Customize support for these and other [SAS] variables (Rodney Sparapani)

  * `ess-sas-suffix-2' now defaults to .dat via F11 (Rodney Sparapani)

  * Emacs/XEmacs, Unix/Windows issues collectively handled in ess-emcs.el

  * defadvice solves problem of missing *ESS* (thanks to Jeff Mincy)

  * Improved manual a bit by including things that were only in `README'.

Changes/New Features in 5.1.18:

  * New `ess-smart-underscore' function, now assigned to "_" by default. Inserts `ess-S-assign' (customizable " <- "), unless inside string and comments where plain "_" is used instead. (MM)

  * Fixes for longstanding interactive SAS breakage (RMH)

Changes/New Features in 5.1.17:

  * Documentation for Windows Installation (Rich Heiberger)

  * removal of ess-vars, finalization of customize support (in the sense that there is no more use of ess-vars, but that we need to fix ess-cust) (AJ Rossini)

  * Many small (and large) fixes/contributions (MMaechler)

  * addition of the "S-equal" variable and provide M-x ess-add-MM-keys a way to remap "_" to `ess-S-assign', typically " <- ", but customizable. (MMaechler)

Changes/New Features in 5.1.16:

  * BUG FIXES

  * Better SAS support

Changes/New Features in 5.1.15:

  * BUG FIXES

Changes/New Features in 5.1.14:

  * Yet more fixes to SAS mode, (Rich Heiberger and Rodney Sparapani)

  * Customize support (for most Emacsen which support it) (AJRossini)

  * ARC and ViSta support out of the box, and fixes for XLispStat (AJRossini)

Changes/New Features in 5.1.13:

  * Version numbering finally all depending on the ./VERSION file, thanks to Martin Maechler.

  * Yet more fixes to SAS mode, thanks to Rich Heiberger.

Changes/New Features in 5.1.12:

  * Splus 5.1 stabilized, thanks to Martin Maechler, Bill Venables, Chuck Taylor, and others.

  * More fixes to SAS mode, thanks to Rodney Sparapani and Rich Heiberger.

Changes/New Features in 5.1.11:

  * More fixes to Stata mode, thanks to Brendan Halpin (mailto:brendan@essex.ac.uk).

  * fixed bugs in ESS-elsewhere, thanks to many testers

  * README.SPLUS4WIN has DETAILED instructions for S-PLUS 2000, thanks to David Brahm (mailto:brahm@alum.mit.edu).

  * Fixes to SAS mode, thanks to Rodney Sparapani

Changes/New Features in 5.1.10:

  * More fixes to Stata mode

  * primitive generic version of ESS-elsewhere

  * Small fixes to SAS/Stata.

Changes/New Features in 5.1.9:

  * Stata mode works

  * Literate Data Analysis using Noweb works

Changes/New Features in 5.1.8:

  * Bug fixes

  * R documentation mode defaults changed

Changes/New Features in 5.1.2:

  * able to use inferior iESS mode to communicate directly with a running S-Plus 4.x process using the Microsoft DDE protocol.  We use the familiar (from Unix ESS) C-c C-n and related key sequences to send lines from the S-mode file to the inferior S process.  We continue to edit S input files in [S] mode and transcripts of previous S sessions in ESS Transcript mode.  All three modes know the S language, syntax, and indentation patterns and provide the syntactic highlighting that eases the programming tasks.