The following changes are courtesy of Mr. Autrijus Tang:

  * There is a new -e option to make-slides; it specifies an encoding
    layer that is installed on the input filehandles.  For example,
    you may use 

        make-slides -e euc-jp MyTalk.slides

    says that the file 'MyTalk.slides' and the subsidiary *AMBLE
    files, TOC_* files, and so on, are written in the euc-jp encoding.
    All output HTML will be written in utf8, regardless of '-e'.

  * Instead of a canned header, the contents of a TOC_HEAD file are
    appended to the beginning of the table of contents.  Similarly,
    the contents of TOC_TAIL are appended to the end.

  * The sequence " // " is translated to a line break.  

  * PREAMBLE, INAMBLE, and POSTABMLE files may now include the
    sequences

        $MJD_PREV_FILE
        $MJD_LAST_FILE
        $MJD_FIRST_FILE

    which will expand to the names of the previous, the last, and the
    first HTML slide files, respectively.  (These are analogous to the
    $MJD_NEXT_FILE sequence which has been in the package for years.)

 * The generated HTML contains <LINK REL...> tags to specify the
   start, last, next, and previous files.  (See
   http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/types.html#type-links) 

Moreover:  

  * The PREAMBLE file has been reinstated.  If it exists, its contents
    are inserted into the <HEAD> section of every slide.

  * The handling of [Z[...]Z] ecapes has changed; it is now
    configurable.  If you have a file called ESCAPE_CODES, it will be
    read for escape code definitions.  The file should have the
    following format:

        R       #ff0000
        G       #00ff00
        B       #0000ff
        E       sub { "&$_;" }
        V       purple
        C       sub { qq{<FONT COLOR="purple"><B><TT>$_</TT></B></FONT>} }

    The left column is the letter used in the escape code.  For
    example, the first line defines the meaning of the [R[...]R] code.
    The rest of the line is the definition.  If the definition begins
    with "sub ", it is taken to be a piece of Perl code which is
    compiled into an anonymous subroutine.  The subroutine is invoked
    with the escaped text as its argument and is expected to return
    the expanded version of the escaped text.  As a convenience, the
    escaped text will also be placed in $_ when the subroutine is
    called.  If the definition does not begin with "sub ", then the
    effect of the escape sequence is to set the escaped text in
    typewriter-style font and the specified color.

    Lines in the ESCAPE_CODES file whose leftmost nonblank character
    is '#' are considered to be comments, and are ignored.

    If there is no ESCAPE_CODES file, a default table is used.  The
    default table is shown above.  

    Autrijus Tang was also responsible for the addition of the
    [E[...]E] escape, which generates an HTML entity.

  * Preformatted lines that begin with '#*' were formerly set in
    boldface purple text.  They are now set in whatever style is
    dictated by the [C[...]C] escape code.  This defaults to boldface
    purple.

  * The distribution contains a new subdirectory, 'Sample-Ambles',
    which contains examples of PREAMBLE, INAMBLE, POSTAMBLE, TOC_HEAD,
    TOC_TAIL, and ESCAPE_CODES files.  In particular, Autrijus
    contributed examples that demonstrate how to use Javascript to
    autofocus control on the 'next' link, and how to use the HTML
    'accesskey' attribute to set up key shortcuts for the 'next' and
    'previous' links.  I would welcome contributions to be distributed
    in this directory.

  * The 'Strong Typing' example has moved into its own directory,
    'Example-1'.  There's a new example, "Conference Presentation
    Judo", in directory 'Example-2'.

  * The Makefile is substantially improved.  Supplied in the main
    directory is a generic Makefile that provides useful default
    targets; slides sets can have individual Makefiles that inherit
    the functions of the generic Makefile.  The examples show how to
    do this.  The generic Makefile includes targets for building the
    HTML and PS versions of the talk, 2-up and 4-up versions;
    generating listings of warnings, and so on. 

