Aquamacs Emacs 2.0 Pre 4

Aquamacs Emacs 2.0 Pre 4 provides users with an effective Emacs text editor which features extensive customization that enables it to conform better with Apple's standard Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) than standard versions of the editor do.

Emacs is a text editor of legendary power and configurability, but it also has an enormously complex interface that, while consistent across platforms, is usually at odds with the specific interface conventions of the particular platform on which it is being used. The same applies to the OS X version of GNU Emacs, called Carbon Emacs.

Aquamacs is different: it will provide you a more Mac-like user experience and the comfort you've come to expect from other excellent Mac apps. Aquamacs comes completely configured and ready to go.

It builds on GNU Emacs 22, however, so you'll be able to use all your favorite extensions (and even the good-old Emacs key bindings, if you like!).

Major Features:

1. Fonts just work, right from the menu: The Mac-standard font (Lucida Grande) is the default for editing text, and the mono-spaced Monaco is used to other modes. These fonts are nicely rendered with antialiasing. Aquamacs offers a range of proportional and mono-spaced fonts to choose from.
2. Aquamacs Emacs has a standard Mac menu with entries where you would expect them, and recently used files are available from the File menu.
3. Aquamacs Emacs gives you all the standard Mac shortcuts like Apple-S, Apple-C, Apple-V - everything that you're used to.
4. Aquamacs Emacs can organize the files that you're editing in tabs. This preserves screen space but allows you to keep track of all those open files easily. You've probably seen the tabs in Safari, Firefox or the OS X Terminal program.
5. Aquamacs Emacs can open a normal OS X window for each file that is opened - Emacs experts call such windows frames. Finally, Aquamacs Emacs makes use of the capabilities of windows on modern graphical user interfaces. This is configurable with a mouse-click - of course, You can switch between the windows (frames) with the "Buffers"  menu.
6. Perfect Team-play. Clipboard operations interoperate with other Mac apps. In Aquamacs Emacs, if you mark a chunk of text, it will NOT be automatically copied into the clipboard. Just like in any Mac  program, you can copy with the Apple-C command, and then replace  another region by selecting it and hitting Apple-V (Paste).
7. Support for Asian languages. In addition to the input methods provided by any current Emacs for OS X, the Aquamacs Multilingual Environment defines configuration settings for Chinese, Japanese and Korean on top of the standard Mule. A font-package is included (not preactivated).
8. Printing just works the way you expect it to - with a preview and through the normal printing infrastructure.
9. Meta Key Management: since Emacs uses an extra modifier key that is not on your keyboard, Aquamacs allows you to use the Option key (or others with configuration). But even then you won't lose the ability to input characters such as [ or with the most common non-English keyboard layouts.
10. Frame Appearance Themes: You can define fonts and colors as defaults for a given editing mode. That means that you can have customized designs for different types of files you're editing. For example, you can easily distinguish LaTeX files on the screen by their beige background color, if you pick a color theme for the a latex window and select "use current theme for latex-mode".
11. A number of little extensions specific to the Mac are contained - they're small details that make your life easier. For example, there is a "Show (file) in Finder" function, or another one to open new files in one of many popular modes. When you double-click a file written in Aquamacs, it'll open in Aquamacs (thanks to Creator meta-information in files). You get a menu with recently edited files without any configuration. Of course, this support OS X functionality such as the little button in the upper right corner of windows that lets you switch the local tool-bar on and off!
12. It's a distribution that comes with the latest goodies pre-installed so you can simply use them and get on with your life. No installation, no setup needed. Here's what's included: AUCTeX for comfortable LaTeX editing, ESS (Emacs speaks Statistics) as an interface to statistics applications such as R, SPLUS etc., nXML for comfortable XML editing. Other, smaller, packages provide support for a range of programming languages and other formalisms. Point-and-Click installers can be downloaded for our high-quality Java and Lisp support with JDEE and SLIME, respectively.
13. Aquamacs Emacs remains extensible, so you can use special syntax coloring setups or enjoy embedded CVS support, a HTML markup menu and the like. Aquamacs is compatible with GNU Emacs.
14. Aquamacs Emacs offers a dedicated manual plus the good old Emacs manual directly via Apple Help environment - you can search both of them quickly with Spotlight and read the documentation comfortably.
15. Great Support. A community around Aquamacs Emacs (and a larger one around Emacs!) will help you out when you don't know how to do X. Just write to the mailing list (but check the manuals first!
    

Enhancements:

• Aquamacs is now based on Emacs 23 and the Cocoa (NextStep) port. There are many changes under the hood associated with this. Most functions should work correctly now, although recommend regular saving or familiarity with the auto-save mode when using this preview Aquamacs 2.0. Please help the Aquamacs team complete the transition by contributing code and fixes or, if that's not possible, a donation. Here, report the changes between Emacs 22 and Emacs 23 with respect to the Aquamacs distribution. Further changes can be found in the NEWS file for Emacs 23.
• Aquamacs has a new icon in the Dock, designed by graphic designer Jessica Walker (jekawacaneer@gmail.com).
• The Aquamacs application has been renamed to Aquamacs.app (from Aquamacs Emacs.app).
• Spell-checking now uses the system-wide dictionaries in all the languages supported on OS X. The standard spelling user interface is available as well as the traditional Emacs `ispell' interface (which also uses the system-wide spelling mechanism). Configure the use of GNU 'aspell' through the 'spell-program-name' variable if desired. Code by Nathaniel Cunningham.
• Dialogs have been vastly improved: they appear as sheets over the frames where they belong, contain better UI elements (as in the case of the dialog displayed before quitting Aquamacs, which was once called ``dialog from hell'' before receiving a makeover). The standard Enter, Space and Esc keys (and more) are supported. ``File Save'' panels also appear as sheets.
• Toolbars can now be configured through the normal customization panel. Right-click on the toolbar, use the Options/View menu item (or use M-x ns-tool-bar-customize). The chosen icons are persistent; toolbar customizations are, however, tied to the toolbars set by modes. That means that users can chose a different set of icons to display in latex-mode, for instance. The `ns-tool-bar-display-mode' variable now supports label-only toolbars. Right-click on the toolbar to change; or use M-x customize or Preferences.el to set it to `labels' in order to only show labels. The former meaning of this value (showing labels and icons) is now `both' (or, usually, nil, the default).
• Fonts and colors of all (mode-specific) faces can now be configured using the standard font and color panels. The Options / Appearance menu provides a function to show the font panel, which leads to buttons for foreground and background colors. We also have a menu item for the color panel separately, from where colors can be dragged&dropped directly onto any piece of text to customize its face. Holding down the Option key will, instead, set the face's background color.
• The printing system has been revised; the standard print and page setup dialogs are used inside the application. The print dialog now appears more quickly. (Note: over-long lines will always be wrapped at word boundaries when printing. Clipping or horizontal pagination are not supported at this time.)
• When printing, double spaces are formatted as such and can be used to align text. Reported by George Nurser.
• It is now possible to customize behavior of right Option/Alternate, Command and Control modifiers independently of the left ones using new entries in the (renamed) ``Option, Command, Meta keys'' menu (in Options) or the new customization variables named `ns-right-alternate-modifier' (etc). Patch by Marcin Koziej.
• Tabs are now available via the A-1..9 (Command-1..9) keybindings. `Split-window-vertically' is now bound to A-M-2 (Command Option 2), 'split-window-horizontally' is A-M-3 (Command Option 3).
• HTML and PDF export functions have changed: PDF export can be achieved as in any Mac application via the Print dialog. Use the new Copy as HTML function in the Edit menu to copy formatted text including all the coloring into the clipboard in HTML format. Many other applications, including presentation software, can then display the formatted text and keep it editable.
• Keyboard bindings are displayed more consistently in the menus now. Throughout Aquamacs, Mac standard key descriptions are used (this may be configured using the variable `ns-use-mac-modifier-symbols'). Users should be aware that manuals and tutorials will often refer to keys such as C-x (X or Control X), and that keys like M-q correspond to the chosen Meta key modifier, normally the Option key.
• Fullscreen mode works largely as before in Mac OS X 10.6; in older versions of OS X, it will unconditionally take over the full screen (Dock and menu are not visible).
• `aquamacs-find-file' (C-x C-f) will ask for confirmation if you first complete partial filename input in the minibuffer, but then attempt to create a new file.
• Completion is, in many cases, more powerful by completing to the left and the right of the input string. Customize the option 'completion-styles' to control this.
• Command-ñow cycles backward to the previously selected frame ('raise-previous-frame'). Patch by Matthew Dempsky.
• Internally, Emacs is based on a superset of Unicode now. Emacs also uses Cocoa, a modern technology that facilitates program development and maintenance, supports 64-bit computing on Macs and allows for better integration of applications with the operating system and other applications.
• As per Emacs 23, Aquamacs now supports multi-file commits in distributed version-control systems through the VC-dir package.
• Soft wrapping is called `visual-line-mode' internally now, and the former Aquamacs mode of the same name is now a customization variable called 'line-move-visual', which is enabled by default. `Longlines-mode' is considered obsolete. Users with manual customizations should adjust their settings.
• .wiki files now open in wikipedia-mode.
• Aquamacs uses "Python-mode'' by default now for Python source files. Users who prefer the original Emacs python package can switch by including (require 'python) in their Preferences.el file. Code by Barry Warsaw.
• Ruby mode has been revised to match and track the latest version included with GNU Emacs.
• Many more improvements between Emacs 22 and Emacs 23. See etc/NEWS at http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/NEWS.23.1. NB, many of the items listed there do not apply to Mac OS X.
• DocView mode is no longer used to display PDF and other files (it didn't work well).
• Even when the Option modifier keys are set up to be handled by the system (rather than being Meta - see Options - Option Key menu), Option-Arrow and Option-Delete key combinations lead to wordwise operations (they are recognized as Meta). (Set the new 'ns-alternate-meta-special-codes' to nil to disable.)
• Aquamacs 2.x requires Mac OS X 10.6, or 10.5.8 or later. (OS X 10.4 users may compile from source at their own risk.)

Requirements: PPC (G3, G4, G5) or Intel Mac.