I'm happy to announce the release of Patcher version 4.0. This is a major release introducing many new features and enhancements.

Patcher is a tool designed to automate and ease the maintenance of archive-based projects. It provides assistance in building, reporting and committing patches, as well as in handling the corresponding ChangeLog entries, for example by creating skeletons. Patcher is the official tool for XEmacs development.

NEW FEATURES

• Support floating projects and temporary relocation allowing to use the same project descriptor for various directories.
• Support for automatic detection of submodules via the :submodule-detection-function project option and the patcher-detect-submodules function. Currently supported RCS submodules are Mercurial and Git via the functions 'patcher-hg-detect-submodules.
• Support ephemeral ChangeLogs thanks to a new :change-logs-status project option. Ephemeral ChangeLogs are not stored in ChangeLog files, but exist only temporarily for mail or log message insertion (See ChangeLogs Status in the documentation).
• ChangeLog minor mode providing easy navigation through the mail/ChangeLog buffers cycle via C-c C-p n, C-c C-p p, C-c C-p N, C-c C-p P and C-c C-p m (See ChangeLogs Navigation in the documentation).
• Support for switching to mail buffer and inserting ChangeLogs at once via C-c C-p l from ChangeLog buffers.
• patcher-mail-insert-change-logs gets a prefix argument allowing to temporarily change the ChangeLogs appearance. It also supports inserting ChangeLogs even when the project is set not to.
• Additional binding for patcher-logmsg-commit: C-c C-p c
• Commit command buffer is now editable Commit is done via C-c C-p c or C-c C-c (patcher-cmtcmd-commit).
• Fontification of commit command and log message buffers with comment syntax and initial informative help. See new Patcher faces.
• Support for commit or log message canceling via C-c C-z.
• Support for project abortion via C-c C-p k or C-c C-k in all relevant buffers, including ChangeLogs.
• Support Subject: header modification in mail adaptation routines via a new project option :subject-rewrite-format.
• Support project-wide dynamic subject modification via C-c C-p S in both mail and log message buffers.
• Implement :kill-source-files-after-sending project option
• Support for source file saving
• Support for CVS diff's broken exit code policy via a new project option: :ignore-diff-status.

FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS

• Improved support for temporary subprojects making them behave like permanent ones (with a specific subdirectory and set of files).
• Much better error handling including exit code checking for external processes.
• Improved support for overlapping Patcher instances through buffer and file referencing for both ChangeLog and source files.
• Documentation rewrite and sections organization cleanup
• More checks for project consistency including missing or spurious ChangeLog entries, source diffs, undiffable and uncommittable projects etc.
• Improved project rediffing including support for partially generated ChangeLog skeletons, and interactive prompting for skeleton un/re-generation.

BACKWARD INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES

• Mercurial themes renamed from 'mercurial to 'hg in order to remain consistent with the other RCS theme names.
• ChangeLogs insertion in mail buffers rebound to C-c C-p l
• Compressed ChangeLogs insertion in logmsg buffers rebound to C-c C-p L
• Removed directory-sep-char hacks until the need for it raises again. Probably better implemented via project options anyway.
• Diff commands can no longer be changed from patcher-mail-adapt but instead, the prefix argument allows for temporary subproject specification.
• patcher-*-subproject entry points removed since they are no longer needed (see above).
• Removed :kill-source-file-after-diffing option
• :kill-source-files-after-sending renamed to :kill-sources-after-sending
• patcher-mail-check-change-logs-insertion is now a project option named :check-change-logs-insertion.
• patcher-mail-check-commit-action is now a project option named :check-commit.
• :change-logs-diff-command option now understands nil instead of 'diff
• The 'packed ChangeLogs appearance has been renamed to 'pack