IDLWAVE 5.0 -- http://idlwave.org

Announcing a major new release of IDLWAVE.  Fed up with endlessly
scouring for help topics in the new RSI PDF manuals?  Tired of the
finger gymnastics and button hunting when debugging and stepping
through code?  Wish you could scan files for their routine info
system-wide, or avoid scanning altogether?  Easily swayed by
rapid-fire question-based marketing techniques?  Then this release is
for you.

====> New features: <====

- A new high-quality HTML-based help system, displayed in your
  favorite browser (or using an Emacs-local browser).  It's converted
  directly from RSI's IDL manuals with all links preserved, and makes
  use of the same fast context-based lookup you already know and love,
  including right-clicking on completion items and routine info
  entries.  You can use all of your favorite browser features
  (history, bookmarking, etc.).  Windows users can even by-pass the
  browser and directly access the MS HTMLHelp system included with
  IDL.

- Introducing a new routine information catalog system: Library
  Catalogs.  Directory-specific, portable and automatically discovered
  and loaded anywhere on the IDL search path, library catalogs are
  stored in special ".idlwave_catalog" files, and many popular
  libraries already ship with them.  Use the provided cataloging tool
  to scan your own directories, tagging routines with a unique library
  name.  Scan code libraries available system-wide once for all to
  use, or use a nightly cron job to re-scan rapidly changing code, and
  keep all routine information up to date.  See
  http://idlwave.org/idlwave.html#CATALOGS.  Library maintainers: you
  can scan your libraries now using the cataloging tool bundled with
  IDLWAVE, or available separately at
  http://idlwave.org/download/idlwave_catalog.

- The best thing to happen to debugging since conditional breakpoints:
  Electric Debug Mode, a new interface to IDLWAVE's debugging commands
  inspired by the Emacs Lisp E-debug mode.  Whenever a breakpoint is
  hit (or, optionally, a run-time error is encountered), the
  appropriate buffers are put in Electric Debug Mode.  This mode
  provides lightning fast stepping, shortcut-driven expression
  examination, breakpoint operations, and more, all using single
  keystrokes.  Look for "*Debugging*" in the mode line, and read more
  about it at http://idlwave.org/idlwave.html#EDEBUG.

- Help is now available on system variable tags within the new HTML
  help system.

- Breakpoint glyphs (where available) are now different for both
  conditional and "after" breakpoints, and are displayed in a separate
  margin, to preserve indentation.

- Two new commands for moving among breakpoint positions in a buffer
  are available on C-c C-d [ and C-c C-d [.

- New command for setting a breakpoint at the beginning of the
  enclosing routine (C-c C-d C-j).

- Completion commands can be given two prefix arguments (e.g. C-u C-u
  M-Tab) to prompt for a regular expression to limit the search.
  Great for finding routines when you only recall part of the name.

- Continuations following a routine or function call, but before any
  arguments, now make the reasonable assumption that you continued to
  get yourself more space, and default back to the basic indent.

- Filename completion for external shell commands (e.g. '$ ls').


====> Bug fixes: <=====

- History recall in the Shell for multi-line statements now avoids
  accumulating clutter.

- Breakpoint scanning works for breakpoints with both AFTER and
  CONDITION set.

- Fixed rarely seen incorrect sorting order for shadowed routines with
  valid filenames.

As always, find all of this and more at:

   http://idlwave.org

Thanks to Bob Portmann, Dick Jackson, and most of all Carsten Dominik
for help assembling and testing this release.

Happy Coding!

JD

==========================================================================
IDLWAVE Tip of the Month:

Eager to try the new HTML help system but don't like the idea of a
separate browser window cluttering your desktop?  Try "w3m" -- a fast,
full-featured browser which can be run inside an Emacs window.  You'll
need to download and install the browser itself (http://www.w3m.org)
and the Emacs mode files (http://emacs-w3m.namazu.org/).  Then, simply
stick:

(autoload 'w3m-browse-url "w3m" "Interface for w3m on Emacs." t)
(setq idlwave-help-browser-function 'w3m-browse-url)
;; Close my help window when w3m closes.
(defadvice w3m-close-window (after idlwave-close activate)
  (if (boundp 'idlwave-help-frame)
      (idlwave-help-quit)))

in your .emacs file, after making sure the mode files can be found on
your load-path; for this you might need something like:

(setq load-path (append 
                 `("/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp"
                   "/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/w3m")
                 load-path))

at the beginning of your .emacs.  Don't forget to download and install
the IDLv5.6 HTML help files from http://idlwave.org, if you haven't
already.

Note that you can use "M" at any time inside of w3m to load up the
page in an external browser.
==========================================================================