Since version 5.10.0 there exists a "ChangeLog-VERSION" file for the
news in each Maxima version.
Look there for changes in recent versions.


Release notes for Maxima 5.10.0 (notes compiled 2006/09/10)
See ChangeLog-5.10.0 for a more detailed list

 * Expand and revise Maxima reference manual (all languages)

 * Maxima Windows installer bundles wxMaxima user interface

 * Fast integer factorization (function ifactors and friends)

 * Improvements to plotting functions

 * Improvements to Xmaxima user interface

 * Several bug fixes to definite integral functions

 * Several new add-on packages

 * Many minor improvements

 * Many bug fixes


-----------------------------------------------------------
Release notes for Maxima 5.9.3 (notes compiled 2006/03/22)
See ChangeLog-5.9.3 for a more detailed list

 * Expand build system to handle internationalization for Spanish
   and Portuguese. UTF-8 and Latin-1 locales are supported by
   Maxima if the underlying Lisp implementation supports the
   locales. See README.i18n

 * Revision and expansion of linear algebra functions
   (share/linearalgebra)

 * Revisions of floating-point function evaluation (sqrt,
   trigonometric functions)

 * Replace existing definition of conjugate with a much more
   extensive implementation

 * Revision of evaluation and simplification of sum and product

 * Revision and expansion of reference manual (English, Spanish,
   and Portuguese)

 * Bring Spanish and Portuguese translations of reference manual
   into the on-line help system

 * New add-on packages

 * Bug fixes 


-----------------------------------------------------------
Release notes for Maxima 5.9.2 (2005/10/11)
See ChangeLog-5.9.2 for a more detailed list

(1) The Maxima parser is now entirely case-sensitive.
    Built-in keywords, functions, and variables are all lowercase only

(2) Revision of reference manual

(3) Translation of reference manual to Spanish and Portuguese

(4) Enhancements to tensor packages (Atensor, Ctensor, Itensor)

(5) Enhancements and bug fixes in special functions
    (Airy, Bessel, gamma, elliptic, and hypergeometric functions)

(6) Improved TeXmacs interface with 2-d input

(7) Discrete plots in plot2d

(8) Several new add-on packages

(9) Miscellaneous bug fixes

(10) Various source code clean-ups


-----------------------------------------------------------
These are the release notes for Maxima 5.9.1. For a detailed list of
changes in this release, see the file ChangeLog.

The updates and new features in Maxima 5.9.1 fall into three
categories: infrastructure, functionality and bug fixes.

1) Infrastructure

   a) Windows
      - A command-line version of Maxima is now available in
        addition to the xmaxima GUI. The new command-line version
        supports batch mode as well as interfacing with other
        programs such as Emacs.
      - Clisp is now a supported lisp on Windows.

   b) Support for external interfaces
      - Maxima now provides a mechanism for robust interface to
        external front-ends such as TeXmacs.

   c) Lisp debugger disables by default
      - Maxima will no longer dump the user into the lisp debugger
        when it encounters an error. The debugger can be re-enabled
        if desired.

   d) More Lisp implementations supported
      - CMUCL, Clisp and GCL support is actively maintained.
      - SBCL, ACL, and OpenMCL support is included, but no active
        maintainers for Maxima using these Lisps have yet volunteered.

   e) Static installs
      - Maxima installs are now independent of the Lisp
        implementation for CMUCL, Clisp and GCL. This will simplify 
	binary distributions as well as removing problems caused by
        Lisp upgrades breaking existing Maxima installations.

   f) "Pure" Lisp builds
      - It is now possible to build Maxima using nothing but
        Lisp. See the file INSTALL.lisp for details.

   g) Simplified use of shell scripts
      - The use of shell scripts in Maxima has been greatly
        simplified. The old maxima-run-lisp script has been
        completely eliminated.
	- Maxima is now more portable.
        - Porting to non-Unix platforms is simplified.
	- Maxima is easier to maintain.

   h) rmaxima
      - rmaxima is a simple new front-end that gives Maxima better
        command-line editing abilities, including persistent history,
        for Lisps that did not have it before, e.g., CMUCL. rmaxima
        requires the external program rlwrap. rmaxima is not currently
        compatible with Clisp.
   
   i) Test suite improvements
      - The test suite is now available at run time through the
        new command run_testsuite().
      - Test suite output has been made more readable.

   j) GCL performance increase
      - Maxima now takes better advantage of GCL's optimization
        features. The result is a substantially faster exectuable.

2) Functionality

   a) Enhanced plotting
      - 2D Adaptive plotting allows smooth plotting even in the
        presence of singularities. The 2D plotting algorithms were
        adapted from Yacas, <http://yacas.sourceforge.net>.
      - Maxima's default plotter is now gnuplot. The gnuplot
        interface has been greatly enhanced; see
        <http://maxima.sourceforge.net> for examples.

   b) New input/output labels
      - Before this release, the labels input, output, and
        intermediate output were C#, D# and E#. They are now %i#, %o#
   	and %t#, respectively. This change was made because many
    	users became confused when labels such as C1 clashed with
   	user-defined variables with similar names.
      - The old behavior can be restored by with the commands:
      	    inchar:C ; outchar:D ; linechar:E ; 

   b) Quadpack
      - The quadpack routines for robust numerical integration have
        been added.

   c) Tensor
      - The tensor package is now being actively maintained.

   d) Differential Equations
      - Enhanced differential equation solvers have been added. See
        share/contrib/diffequations. 

3) Bug fixes
   
   Many bugs found in Maxima 5.9.0 have been fixed. Many bugs still
   exist, however. The 5.9.3 release will focus primarily on bug
   fixes. (The 5.9.2 release will focus only on case-sensitivity
   issues.)
