AUCTeX 12.2 released

[mose]

Release notes for AUCTeX 12.2 with preview-latex
================================================

AUCTeX provides by far the most wide-spread and sophisticated
environment for editing LaTeX, TeX, ConTeXt and Texinfo documents with
Emacs.  Combined with packages like RefTeX, flyspell and others it is
pretty much without peer as a comprehensive authoring solution for a
large variety of operating system platforms and TeX distributions.  It
supports document-dependent completion and syntax highlighting, easily
accessible menus, jumping to error locations in the source file, a
number of editing shortcuts, intelligent indentation and filling of
text during entry, and WYSIWYG previews of graphical elements like
math formulas right in the Emacs source buffer, by virtue of its
preview-latex component.

One part of the preview-latex subsystem is the central `preview.sty'
file that is independently useful for a number of applications and is
available in unbundled form from CTAN.[1]

AUCTeX needs volunteers in particular for non-programming tasks:
documentation writing, tutorials, translations, reference material,
sleuth work, testing.

New features and fixed bugs in this release
-------------------------------------------

AUCTeX reflects the changes in LaTeX2e 2019-10-01 release.
'filecontents' environment now takes an optional argument and can
be used anywhere in a document.  The macros '\Ref' and
'\labelformat' are moved from 'varioref.sty' to LaTeX kernel.
amsmath has a new macro '\overunderset'.

A new method is implemented in preview-latex to adjust the
foreground colors of generated images to those of Emacs, when the
LaTeX command produces PDF.  The traditional method became invalid
because of the change introduced in Ghostscript 9.27.
Unfortunately, the new method doesn't work due to a bug in
Ghostscript 9.27 and is valid only for Ghostscript > 9.27.  There
is also a fallback method for gs 9.27 users which displays plain
"black on white" images.  For successful function of preview-latex,
the users are encouraged to set up the new user option
'preview-pdf-color-adjust-method' to choose appropriate option
among the three: new, traditional and fallback method.

AUCTeX has support for the Flymake package in Emacs 26 or newer.
To enable, call 'M-x flymake-mode RET' or add this to your '.emacs'
file:
     (add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook #'flymake-mode)

The way the option 'TeX-record-buffer' is used was corrected.  It
was used in just the opposite way as the document says.  Erase the
customization if you have customized this option since it now acts
in reverse to your expectation.

A former customize option 'japanese-TeX-command-list' is removed.
Use 'japanese-TeX-engine-default', or if it's really necessary,
customize 'TeX-command-list' directly if the task which the option
used to carry is required.

Support for standard LaTeX without e-TeX extension is now very
limited.  It doesn't work if raw TeX code is put on the command
line to invoke latex command.  It also fails for region compilation
('C-c C-r' and so on) with documents of non-ascii file name.  In
addition, it no longer works with preview-latex.  We consider this
incompatibility is permissible because e-TeX extension is enabled
for standard LaTeX by default long ago.  LaTeX variants such as
XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX are not affected.

Key binds in Texinfo mode are improved.  Typing '$', '^', '_' and
'\' now just self-inserts without pointless side effects in Texinfo
mode.

In addition, the option 'TeX-electric-escape' is now effective in
Texinfo mode.  When it is enabled, typing '@' will invoke
'TeX-electric-macro' offering completion in similar style with
other TeX modes of AUCTeX.

Fontification support for 'biblatex' package is improved and
updated to macros provided by package version 3.12.  For qualified
lists, at least 2 mandatory arguments are fontified.

Support for column specifiers 'w' and 'W' provided by 'array'
package is added to 'array.el'.  The correct counting of columns
only works when the 'align' parameter is enclosed in braces, e.g.,
'w{l}{3cm}'.  The short version 'wl{3cm}' is not supported.

Entries for 'PDF Tools' are added in
'TeX-view-program-list-builtin' for Windows and macOS. This viewer
can be configured under these operating systems with an entry like
this in an init file:
     (setq TeX-view-program-selection '((output-pdf "PDF Tools")))

Several other bugs were fixed, many minor features were added.

Requirements
------------

It is required that you use at least GNU Emacs 24.

The preview-latex subsystem requires image support.

You'll also need a working LaTeX installation and Ghostscript.
dvipng[2] (version 1.4 or later), a very fast DVI converter, can be
used to speed up the conversion.

Availability
------------

The easiest way for getting AUCTeX is installing it with GNU ELPA, see
<URL:https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/auctex.html> for more information.
Other download options are available at
<URL:https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/auctex/>.  At release time, we provide the
source tarball.  You can also use versions of Emacs that already
include AUCTeX or a software package management system for your
operating system which provides you with the latest release.

A separate directory for each release contains some stuff from the
tarball, such as ChangeLog, printable manuals, and a reference sheet.
The download area is mirrored to the directory support/auctex on CTAN.
AUCTeX is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.

You'll find more information at the web site of AUCTeX
<URL:https://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/>, including its mailing list
addresses.

Future development and additional information
---------------------------------------------

AUCTeX is proceeding as a GNU project with the long-term intent of
merging it into Emacs.  For that reason, all new contributors need to
assign copyright to their contributions to the FSF (the usual
procedure for Emacs contributors).  The same holds for past
contributors.  The principal authors and maintainers have already done
so, but it would require a diligent and diplomatic volunteer to find
and ask the rest.

Current AUCTeX managers are Arash Esbati, Mosè Giordano, and Tassilo
Horn.  Everybody is welcome to contribute to the project by reporting
bugs and suggesting improvements, but the most effective way of
helping AUCTeX development remains volunteering for tasks.

The following people contributed to this release series (in
alphabetical order): Ivan Andrus, Ralf Angeli, Masayuki Ataka,
Mohammad Hossein Bateni, Fabrice Ben Hamouda, Thomas Baumann, Vincent
Belaïche, Berend de Boer, Alex Branham, Uwe Brauer, Ken Brown, Joshua
Buhl, Jean-François Burnol, Patrice Dumas, Arash Esbati, Werner Fink,
Miguel Frasson, Peter S. Galbraith, Mosè Giordano, Patrick Gundlach,
Jobst Hoffmann, Tassilo Horn, Yvon Hevel, Orlando Iovino, Mads Jensen,
Arne Jørgensen, David Kastrup, Ikumi Keita, Philip Kime, Oleh Krehel,
Joost Kremers, Frank Küster, Jan-Åke Larsson, Matthew Leach, Antoine
Levitt, Leo Liu, Vladimir Lomov, Stefan Monnier, Dan Nicolaescu, Piet
van Oostrum, Nicolas Richard, Augusto Ritter Stoffel, Florent Rougon,
Santiago Saavedra, Davide G. M. Salvetti, Rüdiger Sonderfeld, Holger
Sparr, Mike Sperber, Reiner Steib, Christian Schlauer, Shiro Takeda,
Mark Trettin (Please accept our apologies if we forgot somebody.)

Footnotes:

[1]  <URL:https://www.ctan.org/pkg/preview>

[2]  dvipng is available via its project page
<URL:https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/dvipng> and from CTAN.

--
Mosè Giordano, on behalf of the AUCTeX team