Autodecoding images defaults to "off".

lmd> If it's so horrible why is it in 21.1.14? Because 21.1.x is long since frozen. This isn't a critical bug, it's just a pain in the neck whose elimination should wait for a new release, namely 21.4. As Hrvoje points out, it's not "horrible," it's simply extremely rude to certain kinds of users. The problem is that it does not use the higher-level interfaces designed to provide the convenience for users like you, and minimal obstruction to users with more complex needs. An explicit decision was made to default such "rude" features "off", and besides the image-mode autoconversions jka-compr and many Mule character set conversions[1] (at least) have been defaulted to off in 21.4. Teaching them manners, and possibly reenabling them by default, is on the agenda, but we so far have rarely gotten complaints. We'll see what happens now that the code base is publically released. You can workaround for now by adding (setq format-alist (append '(image/jpeg "JPEG image" "\377\330\377\340\000\020JFIF" image-decode-jpeg nil t image-mode) '(image/gif "GIF image" "GIF8[79]" image-decode-gif nil t image-mode) '(image/png "Portable Network Graphics" "\211PNG" image-decode-png nil t image-mode) ;; XPM files are C program text, and as such should not ;; be autodecoded by default. Uncomment if you like. ; '(image/x-xpm "XPM image" "/\\* XPM \\*/" ; image-decode-xpm nil t image-mode) ;; TIFF files have lousy magic '(image/tiff "TIFF image" "II\\*\000" image-decode-tiff nil t image-mode) ;; TIFF 6.0 big-endian '(image/tiff "TIFF image" "MM\000\\*" image-decode-tiff nil t image-mode) ;; TIFF 6.0 little-endian format-alist)) to your init file. Note XPMs are commented out. I'll add this change and workaround to NEWS, and put a Custom interface (per Steve Youngs's implicit suggestion) on my todo list. Footnotes: [1] Extraneous ones, such as Chinese and KOI8-R decoding in Japanese locales. -- University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences Tel/fax: +81 (298) 53-5091 _________________ _________________ _________________ _________________ What are those straight lines for? "XEmacs rules."