Docutils Release Notes

Author:	Felix Wiemann
Contact:	Felix.Wiemann@ososo.de
Date:	2006-01-09
Revision:	4261
Web site:	http://docutils.sourceforge.net/
Copyright:	This document has been placed in the public domain.

This document summarizes the major changes in recent releases. For a more detailed list of changes, please see the Docutils History.

Contents

Release 0.4 (2006-01-09)
Release 0.3.9 (2005-05-26)
Release 0.3.7 (2004-12-24)
Release 0.3.5 (2004-07-29)

Release 0.4 (2006-01-09)

Note

Docutils 0.4.x is the last version that will support Python 2.1. Docutils 0.5 will not be compatible with Python 2.1; Python 2.2 or later will be required.

Docutils 0.4.x is the last version that will make compromises in its HTML output for Netscape Navigator 4. Docutils 0.5 will require more up-to-date browsers (the exact definition is to be determined).

Components:

Added an S5/HTML writer and the rst2s5.py front end: multi-platform, multi-browser HTML slide shows.
The newlatex2e writer is nearing completion.
Added a DocTree reader, publish_doctree and publish_from_doctree convenience functions, for document tree extraction and reprocessing.

reStructuredText:

Added directives: "container" (generic block-level container), "default-role" (role used for `backtick` syntax), "title" (document title metadata), and "date" (generate the current local date, for substitution definitions).
Length units are now supported for image sizes.
Added standard definition files for special characters etc.

Internationalization:

Added Japanese and Simplified Chinese language mappings, and support for double-width CJK-characters in tables and section titles.

Documentation:

Added a guide for distributors (package maintainers) and a guide for developers.

General:

Added significant Emacs support for reST.
Added a --strip-comments option.
--embed-stylesheet is now the default for the HTML writer (rather than --link-stylesheet).

Release 0.3.9 (2005-05-26)

Added "file_insertion_enabled" and "raw_enabled" settings.
Added auto-enumerated lists.
Added "header" and "footer" directives.
Added "list-table" directive.
Added support for section subtitles.
Added "field_name_limit" and "option_limit" settings to HTML writer.
Added "cloak_email_addresses" setting to HTML writer.
UTF-8 BOMs are now removed from the input stream.

Release 0.3.7 (2004-12-24)

A special "line block" syntax has been added. (Also see the quick reference.)
Empty sections are now allowed.
A "raw" role has been added.
The LaTeX writer now escapes consecutive dashes (like "--" or "---") so that they are no longer transformed by LaTeX to en or em dashes. (Please see the FAQ for how to represent such dashes.)
A dependency recorder has been added.
A directive has been added for compound paragraphs.

Release 0.3.5 (2004-07-29)

Improved, extended and reorganized the documentation.
Added "csv-table" directive.