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I attempted to install Emacs 24.4 through homebrew with the following command:

brew install emacs --HEAD --use-git-head --cocoa --with-gnutls

It ended up installing (a development build toward what might become) Emacs 25. I haven't been able to find any information about Emacs' roadmap, but since this version is in development I'd assume there is some sort of plan. What are the major features that are planned for Emacs 25?

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  • 1
    There really isn't a written roadmap. You can read NEWS, but those things are already implemented (and some may also be subject to change before the release).
    – Dmitry
    May 25, 2015 at 18:45
  • "but since this version is in development I'd assume there is some sort of plan" Worth mentioning: Emacs is always in development, with or without a plan (save any feature-freeze periods).
    – Malabarba
    Aug 12, 2015 at 14:46
  • 2
    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's news, not asking how to solve a problem.
    – ideasman42
    Dec 6, 2019 at 7:56

3 Answers 3

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You have already installed a development build of (what will become) Emacs 25. (Emacs 25 has not yet been released.)

So use C-h N to read the NEWS. It is specifically an outline description of all that will be new in Emacs 25.

There is little sense in people repeating that information here. Of course, particular people might want to draw attention to their favorite changes. Nothing wrong with that.

Remember: Ask Emacs first. If you can't seem to find the info you want from Emacs itself, then ask elsewhere. But you will do yourself a favor by learning to ask Emacs.

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The NEWS file for Emacs 25 is available at http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/etc/NEWS?h=emacs-25 - it currently has about 400 items.

Since it's closer to release now, here is a (subjective) list of some of the major features included so far - items are subject to change. There are other features that might make it in also (x-widgets? someone more involved might know of the major features being worked on):

  • Improved rectangle editing - corners can go past EOL, C-x C-x cycles through the corners, string-rectangle provides a dynamic preview of results of inserting a string before all lines of the rectangle
  • New command describe-symbol - works for functions, variables, faces, etc., bound to C-h o by default
  • list-packages loads list of packages asynchronously in the background
  • C-h l shows commands run also
  • New package Project provides generic infrastructure for dealing with projects
  • New package Xref replaces etags front-end and UI - M-, to return to previous location
  • New command comment-line
  • New library seq for sequence manipulation functions - work on lists, strings, and vectors
  • New library map works on alists, hash-tables and arrays
  • Support for dynamically loaded binary modules (e.g. .so files for POSIX)
  • Successive single char deletions are collapsed in the undo-log
  • New macro define-advice

And some other interesting things:

  • Improved package dependency management - packages which were installed as dependencies are marked as such
  • Compression/decompression handling in Dired
  • Elisp has support for generators
  • New function alist-get
  • Initial scratch message is interpreted as a doc string
  • Prog-mode has support for multi-mode indentation
  • Symbols can be unprettified while point is inside them
  • M-s M-w uses eww to search web for selected text
  • eww renders variable width fonts, adds new command eww-toggle-fonts
  • Call quick-calc with prefix argument to insert result into buffer
  • New macro let-alist - allows one to let binds values stored in an alist
  • New function directory-files-recursively returns all matching files (recursively) under a directory
  • New variable inhibit-message inhibits message from displaying messages in echo area
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When Emacs 25 will be released you'll find its NEWS file here: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/news

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