> Subject: Vim version 5.0m ALPHA available!
> Date: Wed, 27 Aug 97 11:51:29 +0200

Hello all,

Yet another ALPHA version.  Lots of changes done, still quite a few left
before a beta release...


Changes:

- syntax highlighting changes:
  - Changed "contains group1 group2" to "contains=group1,group2".  You will
    need to adjust you syntax files!
  - Allow options and arguments for :syn commands in any order.

- Replaced the reg({name}) function with @r.

- Changed the "-V" argument to accept a count, which is used to set the new
  'verbose' option.  This is used to change which messages are given.


Added:

- syntax highlighting additions:
  - Added "nextgroup=group3,group4" argument.  This makes it possible to
    concatenate a number of groups.
  - Added the "skipnl", "skipwhite" and "skipempty" options, to tell if a
    nextgroup can be on the next line, after white space or after an empty
    line.
  - Added "current_syntax" variable to syntax files, to make public which
    syntax file is currently active.
  - Added the "$VIM/syntax/nosyntax.vim" file, an easy way to switch syntax
    highlighting off.
  - Added ":syntax on" and "syntax off" as a shortcut for loading
    "syntax.vim" and "nosyntax.vim".
  - Added "mysyntaxfile" and "myscriptsfile", to be able to define your own
    syntax highlighting without trouble.

- Improved GUI scrollbar handling when redrawing is slower than the
  scrollbar events are generated.

- Added ":let @r = {expr}".

- Added "count" built-in variable: Last count given for a Normal mode command.

- Added col(), virtcol() and line() functions to expression evaluation.
  Gets column or line nr for cursor or mark position.
- Made getline() also accept "." for cursor line and "'a" for mark line.

- Added ":crewind" and ":clast" for consistency.

Fixed:

- Win32 (GUI):
  - Fixed: "Close" menu entry and X button (destoy window) killed Vim.  Now
    Vim only exits if there are no modified files.
  - For the ":sh" command, there is no "hit any key" prompt anymore.
  - Fixed: When gvim.exe was in a path that included a space, arguments
    were not handled correctly.
  - Removed Thread stuff again, it caused more problems than it solved.
    Now only the scrollbar doesn't work properly, but redrawing is much
    better (still not 100%).

- mouse would not work directly after ":gui", because full_screen
  isn't set, which causes starttermcap() not to do its work.

- Win32 and Unix version: Removed 1100 character limit on external commands.

- Made repeated CTRL-X CTRL-N not break undo, and "." repeats the whole
  insertion.  Also fixes not being able to backspace over a word that has
  been inserted with CTRL-N.

- ":unmap", ":unab" and ":unmenu" did not accept a double quote, it
  was seen as the start of a comment.  Now it's Vi compatible.

- GUI Motif fixed: Adding a lot of menu items, when the menu bar goes into
  two rows, this only happened after adding another menu item.  Deleting
  menu items, reducing the number of rows, now also works.  But it still
  doesn't work on HPUX...

- Crash when using tags, with OLD_STATIC_TAGS undefined.

- With ":g/pat/s//foo/c", a match in the first line was scrolled off
  of the screen, so you could not see it.
- When using ":s//c", with 'nowrap' set, a match could be off the
  side of the screen, so you could not see it.

- When 'helpfile' was set to a fixed, non-absolute path in
  feature.h, Vim would crash.  mch_Fullname() can now handle file names in
  read-only memory. (Lottem)

- The command "2".p" caused the last inserted text to be executed as
  commands. (Acevedo)

- crash with "vim -r <filename>", when NOT prepending a dot to the
  swap file name.

- Repeating Insert completion could fail if there are special
  characters in the text. (Acevedo)
- Redo of CTRL-E or CTRL-Y in Insert mode interpreted special
  characters as commands.

- buffer_exists() function didn't work properly for buffer names
  with a symbolic link in them (e.g. when using buffer_exists(#)).

- Removed the "MOTIF_COMMENT" construction from Makefile.  It now works
  with FreeBSD make, and probably with NeXT make too.

- Avoid hit-return message when not able to write viminfo on exit.

- When one file shown in two windows, Visual selection mixed up
  cursor position in current window and other window.

- When trying to execute an autocommand, also try matching the pattern with
  the short file name.  Helps when short file name is different from full
  file name (expanded symbolic links).

- Removed highlighting from intro messsage.

- Included check for -lXmu in configure, no longer needed to edit the
  Makefile for this.

- buffer list in .viminfo file didn't include the path.  This only
  worked when starting vim in the same directory as last time.  Now it
  works always.

- "vim -", reading from the terminal, would hang, because the
  terminal was in RAW mode.

- When doing ":e!", a cursor in another window on the same buffer
  could become invalid, leading to "ml_get: invalid lnum" errors.


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 can, all the required stuff is included.

You can find Vim 5.0m in the usual place.  Including a diff, for those who
want to save on bandwidth (should work fine this time).

	ftp://ftp.oce.nl/pub/misc/vim/beta-test/unix/vim-5.0m.tar.gz
	ftp://ftp.oce.nl/pub/misc/vim/beta-test/unix/vim-50l-50m.diff.gz

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

There is also this file, which now contains all the Farsi files:

	ftp://ftp.oce.nl/pub/misc/vim/beta-test/extra/vime-5.0m.tar.gz

Later this will contain things that don't go in the normal distribution,
when it becomes too large.  The src/Vim_vc4.mak file is another candidate.

Another NOTE: Please don't discuss this in the "vim" mailing list.
This is for developers only!  At least for now.

Have fun!
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