Extensive Firefox 4 support, including:
Performance improvements:
b1Improved startup time by a factor of 7.
b6Further improved startup time.
b1Significant completion speed improvements, especially for JavaScript.
b6Added site-local and script-local groups:
Added the :group command to define and select groups.
Added the -group flag to :abbreviate, :autocmd, :command, :map, :style, and friends.
Mappings and commands can now be bound to groups which execute only for certain websites.
Autocommands, commands, mappings, and styles are now automatically added to per-script groups so that most traces of a script can be easily purged.
Greatly improved private mode support and :sanitize command.
b3Full integration with Firefox data clearing dialogs.
b3Support for sanitizing items at shutdown.
b1Fine-grained control over what data is sanitized and for what timespan.
b1Support for sanitizing reference to particular hosts, everywhere from command-line and message history to option values and cookies.
b1New and much more powerful incremental search implementation. Improvements over the standard Firefox find include:
Starts at the cursor position in the currently selected frame, unlike Firefox, which always starts at the start of the first frame.
Returns the cursor and viewport to their original position on cancel.
Backtracks to the first successful match after pressing backspace.
Supports reverse incremental search.
Input boxes are not focused when matches are highlighted.
Ex command parsing improvements, including:
b1Multiple Ex commands may now be separated by |
b3Commands can continue over multiple lines in RC files by prefixing the continuation lines with a \
b1The \ character is no longer treated specially within single quotes, i.e., 'fo\o''bar' ⇒ fo\o'bar
b4The command line is now hidden by default. Added c, C, and M to 'guioptions'.
Hints mode improvements, including:
b1Added g; continued extended hints mode, which allows selecting multiple hints. Removed ;F.
b3Hints are now updated after scrolling and window resizing.
b5;s now prompts for a filename on the command-line rather than in a dialog.
b4 b3Added ;a and ;S modes for creating bookmarks and search keywords.
b2Added 'hintkeys' option.
b1Added "transliterated" option to 'hintmatching'.
General completion improvements
b2JavaScript completion improvements, including:
The prototype of the function whose arguments are currently being typed is displayed during completion.
Non-enumerable global properties are now completed for the global object, including XMLHttpRequest and encodeURI.
b1The concept of completion contexts is now exposed to the user (see :contexts), allowing for powerful and fine-grained completion system customization.
b4The external editor can now be configured to open to a given line number and column, used for opening source links and editing input fields with i_<C-i>. See :h 'editor'.
b4 b7Improved macro-string support, including automatic elision of optional elements, and array subscripts.
Mapping changes:
b4It's now possible to map keys in many more modes, including Hint, Multi-line Output, and Menu.
b6Added site-specific mapping groups and related command changes.
b6Added 'timeout' and 'timeoutlen' options.
b6Added <A-b> to execute a builtin mapping.
b6Added <A-m>l and <A-m>s to aid in the construction of macros.
b6Added <Pass> pseudo-key.
b6Removed the implicit page load delays during macro playback.
b6Added the base modes Base, Main, and Command which other modes inherit key bindings from.
Command changes:
b4:viusage, :optionusage and :exusage were replaced with :listkeys, :listoptions and :listcommands, providing more powerful and consistent interactive help facility (improvements include listing keys for modes other than Normal, filtering the output, and linking to source code locations).
b6 b7:downloads now opens a download list in the multi-line output buffer. Added -sort flag.
b7:style now supports regexp site-filters on Firefox 6+.
b7:qa closes only the current window, per Vim.
b7Added :exit command.
b7Added :dlclear command.
b6:extensions has been replaced with a more powerful :addons.
b6:javascript! now opens a Read Eval Print Loop.
b6Added -arg flag to :map.
b6Added -literal flag to :command.
b6Added :completions command.
b3Added :cookies command.
b2:extadd now supports remote URLs as well as local files on Firefox 4.
b5Added -charset and -post to :bmark.
b2Added -keyword, -tags, -title to :delbmarks.
b5Added :extrehash, :exttoggle, :extupdate, and :rehash commands.
b6:abclear, :comclear and :mapclear have been substituted by a bang now accepted by :unabbreviate, :delcommand and :unmap, respectively.
b4Added :feedkeys command.
b4Added -sort option to :history.
b2Added several new options, including -javascript, to :abbreviate and :map.
b4Added :mksyntax command to auto-generate Vim syntax files.
b7Added 's' and 'e' flags to :pageinfo command.
b7Extension manipulation commands, including :extenable, :extdisable, and :exttoggle, now accept a -types argument.
b7:tabmove now moves to the position of tab N, not after it. Without arguments it no longer moves the tab to the end of the list.
b1:open now only opens files beginning with /, ./, ../, or ~/
b4:saveas now provides completions for default file names, and automatically chooses a filename when the save target is a directory.
b6:sidebar now accepts a ! flag to toggle the sidebar rather than open it unconditionally.
b3Added :yank command.
b4:delmarks, :marks and :qmarks now also accept ranges, same as :delqmarks.
b4:command now accepts comma-separated alternative command names.
b4:command -complete custom now also accepts a completions array, see :h :command-completion-custom.
Improvements to :style and :highlight:
b4Added -link flag to :highlight.
b2Added -agent flag to :style.
b4The -append flag now updates existing properties rather than simply appending its arguments to the previous value.
b4Active filters are now highlighted in :style listings.
b4:style-related commands now divide their completions between those active and inactive for the current site.
b4CSS property name completion is now available.
b6:delstyle, :styleenable, :styledisable and :styletoggle accept a ! to operate on all styles.
b7Added Find highlighting group.
IMPORTANT option changes:
b2Option value quoting has changed. List options will no longer be split at quoted commas and the option name, operators, and = sign may no longer be quoted. This will break certain automatically-generated configuration files. See :help stringlist.
b4Boolean options no longer accept an argument.
b2'cdpath' and 'runtimepath' no longer treat ",," specially. Use "." instead.
b2'extendedhinttags' is now a regexpmap rather than a string.
b4 b7'guioptions' default value has changed.
b6'hinttags' and 'extendedhinttags' now treat their values as CSS selectors by default.
b4'incsearch', 'hlsearch', 'ignorecase', and 'smartcase' have been replaced with 'incfind', 'hlfind', and 'findcase'.
b4'laststatus' has been replaced with the "s" flag in 'guioptions'.
b4'linksearch' has been removed. The \l search modifier can still be used for this purpose.
b2'loadplugins' is now a regexplist option rather than a boolean.
b4'mapleader' is now an option rather than a :let variable.
b6'passkeys' is now a sitemap with key chain support rather than a regexpmap.
b6'showmode' is now a regexplist.
b4'showstatuslinks' and 'showtabline' are now [string] options.
b2IMPORTANT: Command script files now use the *.penta file extension.
b1IMPORTANT: Plugins are now loaded from the 'plugins/' directory in 'runtimepath' rather than 'plugin/'.
Option changes:
b1Added stringmap, regexplist, and regexpmap option types.
b2Added "bookmarks", "diverted", and "links" to 'activate' option.
b2Added 'altwildmode' and c_<A-Tab> command-line key binding.
b2Added 'autocomplete' option for specifying which completion groups should be auto-completed.
b1Added 'banghist' option.
b3Added 'cookies', 'cookieaccept', and 'cookielifetime' options.
b7Added 'downloadsort' option.
b1Replaced 'focuscontent' with 'strictfocus'.
b7Made 'strictfocus' a sitemap.
b1'complete' now defaults to "slf" but file completion only triggers when the URL begins as above.
b7Added 'jumptags' option.
b7Added 's' flag to 'pageinfo' and changed default value.
b3Added 'passkeys' option.
b7Added 'passunknown' option.
b3Changed 'urlseparator' default value to "|".
b2Added "passwords" and "venkman" dialogs to :dialog.
b7Make 'showmode' a stringlist option.
b2Added 'wildanchor' option.
b2Added BookmarkChange, BookmarkRemove autocommands.
b2Removed the :source line at the end of files generated by :mkpentadactylrc.
b1gf now toggles between source and content view. The | key binding has been removed.
b1Page zoom information is now shown in the status bar, and change in zoom status no longer appears in :messages.
b1Added ZO, ZI, ZM, and ZR as aliases for zO, zI, zM, and zR.
b1Completion list now behaves better when the multi-line output window is displayed.
Major help system improvements:
b2Removed :beep.
b2Removed :edit, :tabedit, and :winedit aliases.
b2Removed :play.