Q7.0.4: What’s new in SXEmacs 22.1.2?

• autoconf 2.59 compatible configure scripts – Youngs, Purvis.

  Many configure options have changed. Please run ./configure --help to see what the new options are.

• Most win32 code is now gone – Youngs, Freundt.
• describe-installation report libc version on Slackware – Youngs.
• etags.c updated to Francesco’s version 17.11 – Youngs.
• Support ls --dired properly – Sperber.
• FFI (Foreign Function Interface) updates – Zajcev.

  One of the most exciting things is that this version of SXEmacs can download files from the internet _without_ the need of any XEmacs packages being installed. If you have libcurl and enable FFI in SXEmacs at build time, you can:

  (require 'ffi-curl)
  (curl:download "http://www.somedomain.com/path/file"
                 "/tmp/file")
  

  To put your mind at ease, libcurl is NOT needed to build SXEmacs. The above will work even if you install libcurl after building/installing SXEmacs.

• Don’t echo GC messages for non-string GC’ing – Zajcev.

  This drastically reduces the number of "Garbage Collecting" messages that you see in the echo area. Garbage collection is still happening, it is just not in your face as much.

• movemail.c security fixes – Oskarsson.
• PUI’s *packages* buffer enhancements – Koch.
• Saner fallbacks for ‘backup-buffer’ – Youngs.

  Based on an idea from JWZ, if the backup can’t be written, try in ‘auto-save-directory’, and if that fails, fall back to $HOME.

• OpenSSL support – Freundt.

  Of course. The OpenSSL library itself is actually separated into two libraries: libcrypto and libssl. libcrypto is the part which comes to elisp with the current API. libssl is planned for the near future.

  With this interface/gateway we now have access to the wonderful world of static cryptography (static here means no handshake/protocols/etc.).

  The API contains:

  • the OpenSSL PRNG = (pseudo) random number generator to provide generating cryptographically secure randomness
  • the OpenSSL MDs (message digests) to provide all sorts of hashing (we had an md5 implementation already)
  • the HMAC aka keyed hashing aka message authentication code to provide hashes secured by a password
  • the CIPHER engine (i.e. symmetric crypto systems) to provide encryption/decryption routines secured by a password
  • the PKEY engine (i.e. asymmetric crypto systems) to provide generation and distribution of private/public key pairs (as probably known by gpg)
  • the HYBRIDe engine aka PKCS aka public key crypto systems to provide encryption based on (foreign) public keys and decryption with own private keys to provide also digital signatures and verification (as probably known by gpg)
• Remove most of the generated files from the repo – Youngs, Freundt.
• Allow suppression of WM decorations – Turnbull.

  This makes balloon-help windows infinitely better behaved. Thank you very much, Steve T.

• Fontify *scratch* buffer according to user’s settings – Kehoe.
• Fix bug hanging SXEmacs when yanking > 260kb – Kehoe.
• lispref manual updated for SXEmacs – Freundt.
• PostgreSQL updates (mainly doc updates) – Frenudt.