The main improvement here is a configure script based on Malcolm
Purvis's new configure.ac (with contributions from SuSE).  The
regression test is in tests/autoconf/regressiontest.pl.  Please see
INSTALL for Malcolm's notes on the new script.  Especially, the
options now conform to the GNU --enable-feature --with-library
convention, so many options have been renamed.  It also explains how
to use the regression test.  (BTW, Malcolm, feel free to commit
configure.ac improvements to the sjt-xft branch for the next few weeks
if that's convenient for you.)  Note that sjt-xft can be used to build
a non-Xft XEmacs by using --with-xft=none, so you can use this branch
to play around with configure even if you're not ready for Xft.
With substantial unmerged activity from Ben recently, it is a little
behind the times, but most of Ben's activity has been in docs.
Mainline 21.5 was last merged into sjt-xft about a month ago; another
merge will happen in the very near future.
In XEmacs/Xft itself, little change; maybe over the next couple of
weeks I'll have more time, or perhaps Aidan or Eric will.  However
  - Verbosity of existing debug output has been dramatically reduced,
    but new fprintfs have been added.
  - A crash in strikeout faces has been fixed.
  - The abort when translating from Ichar to Unicode has been removed.
  - Building without Mule has been fixed and Works For Me in light
    testing.
  - A few minor bugs have been fixed, but you probably won't notice in
    among the scorpions and snakes that remain.
Use "cvs checkout -r sjt-xft xemacs", or you can get the patch on
XEmacs Patches.
Enjoy!
-- 
Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering   University of Tsukuba
http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/        Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
        Economics of Information Communication and Computation Systems
          Experimental Economics, Microeconomic Theory, Game Theory