To:	 vim-dev@vim.org
Subject: Vim version 5.0p ALPHA available!
Date:	 Mon, 20 Oct 97 10:50:52 +0200
From:	 Bram Moolenaar <mool@oce.nl>

Hello all,

Yet another ALPHA version.  Quite a few bugs got fixed.  The list of changes
remaining for a beta release only got a little bit shorter.  I intend to
spend less time on e-mail and more time on the todo list to coming weeks!


Changes:

- Use &option instead of 'option in expressions.  [I didn't use *option,
  because the * could be interpreted as the multiply operator].

- For highlighting in a color term: When an item has both a color and an
  attribute (e.g., bold), the color is written last.  When the bold really
  sets a color too, the real color wins.  When they add up (color + bold =
  bright color) it should still work.

- When called "ex", always start in compatible mode.

- Expanding '%', '#' and '<some>' in expressions must now be done with
  expand().  Avoids overloading the '%' operator.

- Win32 GUI: Use the Windows default colors for fore/background.


Added:

- Support a '|' after an expression, for ":let", ":execute", ":echo", ":if",
  ":elseif" and ":while".

- 'string' to expressions.  Backslashes have no special meaning.  Esp. useful
  for MS-DOS filenames and regexp patterns.

- ":redir" command.  Redirect output of messages to a file.  Added the
  "bugreport.vim" file, for reporting information about Vim when finding a
  bug.

- "errmsg" internal variable.  Contains the last error message (Paul Moore).

- Win32 GUI: Added patch from Paul Moore to support the windows system
  colors as "Sys_*".

- Win32 GUI: Added code to handle dropped files a bit better.  Don't split
  the window if the current buffer can be abandoned.  (Moore)

- Allow several "+cmd" and "-c cmd" arguments. (Moore)

- Implementation of "silent" mode, for "ex -s".  Doesn't output any messages
  anymore.

- Unary '-' for expressions.  '!' can be repeated.  And '!' and '-' can be
  mixed: "-!'tw'".

- Allow a <LF> in a ":help" command argument to end the help command, so
  another command can follow.

- "nd" termcap entry.  Used for moving the cursor right in the GUI, to avoid
  removing one line of pixels from the last bold character.

- 'hkmapp' option, phonetic Hebrew mapping (Ilya Dogolazky).

- Support for SNiFF+ connection, inside #ifdef USE_SNIFF.  (Leherbauer)


Fixed:

- For "ex -s", don't write (error) messages.  Other output may still
  happen.
- "ex -s <script" didn't work like Ex.  Was reading too many characters at a
  time.

- Block 0 of the swap file was only written after 'updatetime'.
  Could cause spurious "ATTENTION" messages.

- The abbreviation ":ab #i #include" could not be removed.

- Search pattern in autocommand could still change the search
  offset for the last used search pattern.

- Expression could not contain a negative number.

- Win32 console: Crash when using the CTRL or caps-lock key.  Optimization
  needs to be turned on at the right place!

- strpart() didn't handle out-of-bounds arguments correctly.

- CTRL-L completion (longest common match) on command line didn't work
  properly for case-insensitive systems (MS-DOS, Windows, etc.).  (suggested
  by Richard Kilgore).

- Removed the use of the executable name for Unix.  It was too complicated to
  work around all the side effects.

- Win32 GUI: CTRL-6 should give CTRL-^, but CTRL-ALT-6 not.  CTRL-- now
  correclty gives CTRL-_. (Parmelan)

- Crash when setting Menu highlighting before the GUI has started.

- Syntax highlighting with syncing on C comments, didn't handle strings that
  continue on the next line correctly.

- Drawing problems:
  - In the GUI, drawing bold text could start too far to the left (when
    uncovering part of the window).
  - In the GUI, with highlighting, a single character for Visual highlighting
    would sometimes remain at the start of a long line with highlighting in
    the last column.
  - Displaying cursor was not synchronized with other displaying.  Caused
    several display errors.  For example, when the last two lines in the file
    start with spaces, "dd" on the last line copied text to the (then) last
    line.
  - Win32 GUI: Display garbage now and then.  E.g.: "gvim -u NONE", ":s/\(//"
    gives spuruous "m".  Replaced SW_INVALIDATE by 0.

- "@=" now prompts for an expression.  ":@=" also works now, and
  inserts a colon in front of each line, as the docs say.  Same for ":@.".

- For terminals that can hide the cursor ("vi" termcap entry),
  resizing the window caused the cursor to disappear.

- Using an invalid mark in an Ex address didn't abort the command.

- Win32 GUI: When checking the window size to fit on the screen, "on top"
  windows were not taken into account. (Cook)

- Help files were stored in the viminfo buffer list without a path.

- GUI: Setting highlighting for Menu or Scrollbar in the .vimrc didn't work.


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 5.0p 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-5.0p.tar.gz
	ftp://ftp.oce.nl/pub/misc/vim/beta-test/unix/vim-50o-50p.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-5.0p.tar.gz

Later this will contain things that don't go in the normal distribution, when
it becomes too large.  The src/W32GUIvc4.mak file is another candidate.

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

Have fun!