To: vimdev@prz.tu-berlin.de
Subject: Vim version 5.0c ALPHA available!
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 97 09:49:58 +0200
From: Bram Moolenaar <mool@oce.nl>

Hello all,

The sun is shining, the daffodils are blooming, it's a beautiful spring day.
A good day to start a whole new Vim release!

The main new things in 5.0:
- Syntax highlighting (see ":help syntax").
- Ex mode (see ":help ex-mode") and the last few other vi-compatible items.
- ":if" and ":let" commands et.al.; expression evaluation. (see ":help eval).
- Interface to Perl and Python. (see ":help perl" and ":help python").
- "-" command line argument: read file from stdin. (see ":help --").
- And many, many more.  See the (revised!) on-line help system.

The GUI version for Windows is still being worked on.

Besides a lot of nice new functionality, there are probably also a lot of
nasty new bugs.  That's why this is an ALPHA release, and it's only announced
on vimdev.  Not that's it a secret, but I would like to keep this to a small
group first.  We should get rid the most obvious problems before reaching a
larger audience.

I hope that all who promised to send patches, will make them against version
5.0c.  I have tried to include most of the patches that I received, but there
are still quite a few things that have been planned to be included (see the
todo list, which is tooooo long).  But, people are waiting impatiently for
syntax highlighting, so let's try to get 5.0 tested and released asap.

Right now, I would like to concentrate on the syntax of the new commands.
If you have remarks, let's discuss this on vimdev.  We need this to settle
down, before too many people are using this version.  But first check the todo
file, there are still a few things that didn't get included yet (maybe you can
indicate a priority for certain items).  Be prepared for following releases to
have a few changes in commands, options, etc.!

I only made a syntax file for C so far.  Please have a try to make syntax
files for other languages.  Send them to vimdev, so we can include each others
ideas, and come up with the best syntax file for each language.  Please
try not to over-do it, it should still be usable on a not-so-fast computer.
Limit the number of used colors to eight, so it still works on an MS-DOS
console (Linux, for example).  Try using keywords as much as possible, it's
much faster than using regular expressions.

NOTE: To save me time and worries, this is a source-code only release.
Binary versions will be made for later versions.  You can compile it yourself,
if you like, all the required stuff is included.

You can find Vim 5.0c in the usual place:

	ftp://ftp.oce.nl/pub/misc/vim/beta-test/unix/vim-5.0c.tar.gz

And on the mirrors (within in a couple of days).

Have fun!