* Changes and New Features in matlab-emacs

** New in 5.0

*** Syntax tables / Strings and Comments / Font lock

   Command and String syntax handling is now managed using syntax-table customization

   This results in:
     * More flavors of syntax highlighting around commands and strings, including all of:
        * strings, unterminated strings, commanddual strings
        * comments, cellbreak comments, pragma comments, ignored comments, ellipssis
     * Accurate differentiation between 'char arrays' and "strings" and quoted charts.
     * Performance improvements for comment/string parsing.

   There is a new shorter 'ignore' comment type that starts with:  %^

   In addition, font lock of keywords is now more robust, with keywords not being
   highlighted when they are not being used in the correct scope.

*** Syntactic block navigation

   With proper syntax table support now available, built-in emacs commands that depend on
   sexp now work, such as:
   * up-list
   * forward-sexp
   * kill-sexp
   * mark-sexp

   In addition, commands that work with defuns now all work correctly, such as:
   * mark-defun
   * narrow-to-defun

   All custom commands that used to implement these syntax behaviors have been removed, or
   had their bindings removed, including:
   * matlab-beginning-of-command
   * matlab-end-of-command
   * matlab-forward-sexp
   * matlab-backward-sexp
   * matlab-indent-sexp
   * matlab-beginning-of-defun
   * matlab-end-of-defn

  In addition syntactic block navigation is faster, where very large files can now be navigated
  in fractions of a second that used to take a few minutes.

*** Support for block validation

  Block navigation now does validation, for example, 'property' keywords should only occur
  inside a classdef, and 'arguments' keywords should only occur inside a function.

  This means that you can now have variables and functions named 'property' and
  'arguments' of those words occur outside valid locations.

*** Indentation

  Indentation performance is greatly improved.  Based on our tests, large files that used
  to take 10 minutes to indent will now complete in just 1 or 2 seconds.

  Several new indentation features exist, such as:
  * correct indentation of arguemnts blocks
  * improved indentation of function argument lists that span multiple lines.
  * improved indentation around block comments
  * improved indentation accuracy in classdef, property, method blocks.
  * more accurate indentation of continuations
  
  Some indentation features were removed, such as:
  * Max indent distance support inside function call args
  * Max indent distance support inside switch statements
  * Line-up rules inside ( ), [ ], and { } have changed subtly dependeing on
    context after the opening (, [, or {.

  Specialty indentation commands have been removed:
  * matlab-indent-sexp

  Electric indentation has been added to block keywords such as end, else, case, etc.

  Lots of bug fixes and general improvements for handling edge cases.

*** matlab-return & friends removed

  The 'matlab-return' and related functions have all been removed.  Features of these
  commands are now part of Emacs' built in handling for RETURN and no longer need to be
  part of matlab mode.

*** File type detection

  File type detection has been improved.  Previously matlab mode detected if functions had
  ends, and if functions were indented.  It now detects more cases, and displays results
  in the status line.

  The list of detectable features are:
  * function  (with no end)
  * function .. end
  * classdef .. end
  * scripts
  * empty files

  Functions with ends also detect if function bodies are indented.  Other kinds of
  functions will always indent.

  The check for the type of file is also auto-re-detected on save, so if you change the
  type of file while editing, it will automatically adjust.

*** Auto verify changes

  Auto verify on save has been updated.

  1. verify classname added - this will fix class names for you
  2. verify add ends - this now asks questions less often, or not at all.
     In addition, it has a more robust algorithm for adding ends.

*** mlint support questions

  mlint mode now supports many more auto fix behaviors, including:
  * missing ends - with nicer guess for where the end goes.
  * function name - auto fix function, class, and method names.

  Plus several minor bug fixes.

*** Support for older Emacsen

  Support for Emacs older than Emacs 24 has been dropped.  Many of the special
  compatability layers needed to change, and the new code has not been tested against
  older versions of Emacs.  As a result, many compatability layers were removed.

*** Test suite improvements

   The test suite that is part of matlab-emacs project has many more test points, and has
   added support for testing font lock, performance, and other features.

*** matlab-emacs maintenance mode

There is now a support file 'matlab-maint' that simplifies the task of building and
testing matlab-mode during development.  Consider using this library if you intend to
develop matlab-mode.


** News in 4.0

*** Debugging 

Emacs debugging of MATLAB code is back!

: M-x matlab-shell
: >> dbstop in file.m

This is a significant improvement over the version that used to exist
years ago. There are many improvements and fixes. Full debugging
support is provided. You can debug MATLAB scripts, functions,
packages, and classes. The debugger integration is using Emacs gud.
You have the following capabilities when in a MATLAB M-file:

: C-x C-a C-b    Set a breakpoint on current source line (dbstop)
: C-x C-a C-d    Delete the breakpoint(s) on the current source line (dbclear)
: C-x C-a C-s    Step a single line of code, stepping into functions (dbstep in)
: C-x C-a C-n    Next a single line of code stepping over functions (dbstep)
: C-x C-a <      Move up the next enclosing stack frame (dbup)
: C-x C-a >      Move down the next inner stack frame (dbdown)
: C-x C-a C-f    Finish, quit (dbquit)

*** matlab-shell: News

1. matlab-shell editing of M-files now opens the M-file in Emacs without requiring setup.

   : >> edit file.m

   will open file.m in your Emacs session. To do this, matlab-shell
   leverages the Emacs server mode to have MATLAB send the file to be
   edited to Emacs. matlab-shell will launch a unique server process for
   you if needed.

2. In matlab-shell, errors are hyperlinked and left-mouse clickable
   (in addition to middle or RET clickable). Errors are also shown in
   an error font.

3. In matlab-shell, RET on output lines (i.e. non-command lines) no longer causes lots of unnecessary noise.

5. In matlab-shell, tab completion is much more responsive. matlab-shell is compatible with
   company-mode. If you have install company-mode, you will get tab completion pop-ups.

6. In matlab-shell, "run cell" and "run region" capabilities are now executed in the base
   workspace.

*** Menu

- The MATLAB menu for M-files is now always present. Prior, there would be cases where the menu
  disappears. The MATLAB menu also contains a new Debug sub-menu.

*** Performance 
- There are a number of performance improvements, meaning emacs is
  more responsive. For example, in matlab-shell, Emacs is more
  responsive when processing long output lines from MATLAB.

*** Bug fixes
- There are a number of bug fixes.

*** Quotes

- Single and double quote strings are now supported. MATLAB calls
  single-quote strings char array's and double quote strings are
  referred to as strings.

*** Prog mode

Matlab mode is now a derived mode, based on /prog mode/.

*** Support for older Emacsen

Support for Emacsen older than 20 has been removed. Xemacs supports
has not touched, but has also not been tested, so it might be buggy.
The current Matlab version has been successfully compiled with GNU
emacs 24,25,26 and 27. There have been difficulties to compile it with
Xemacs 21.4.X or 21.5.X, this issue is currently not resolved.

*** Loading 
Faster load time by moving rarely used content into other files.

*** Completion 

TAB completion in the shell was revamped (but should act mostly the same)