!!Interface changes
+* It is now possible to cancel background export processes. A menu entry
+ to do so will appear on the Document menu when such a process is underway.
+ The LFUN for this is export-cancel. One can also click on the 'spinner'
+ to cancel export.
+
+* The items on the Edit menu have been reordered, and many of the shortcuts
+ have been changed so that they are more intuitive in the case of often
+ used items. We understand that this may frustrate some users and apologize,
+ while noting that menu shortcuts can always be customized by copying the
+ stdmenus.inc file to the user directory and editing it.
!!Documents compilation process and images conversion
+* LyX now uses utf8 encoding per default for all languages. This does not affect
+ existing documents. Note that LyX also does not touch personal defaults and templates.
+ That is to say, if you still see traditional encoding preset for new documents,
+ you can change that by selecting "Unicode (utf8) [default]" and hitting "Save
+ as Documents Defaults" afterwards. Your personal templates need to be changed manually
+ if desired.
+
+* LyX defaults to the "HE8" LaTeX font encoding with Hebrew if the
+ "Culmus" LaTeX fonts are installed.
+* Documents that use TeX fonts can only be compiled with XeTeX if the input
+ encoding is set to "utf8-plain" or "ascii".
!!!The following pref variables were added in 2.4:
!!!The following pref variables are obsoleted in 2.4:
+* \font_encoding
+ The font encoding is now automatically set depending on the document
+ fonts and languages.
+
* \use_qimage
This is no longer necessary due to the rewrite of the painter.
+* \use_pixmap_cacheqimage
+ There is no evidence that this painting mode was useful anymore.
+
+* \date_insert_format
+ The function date-insert has been removed and superseded by info-insert date.
+ The latter does not need a pref value anymore.
+
!!!The following new LyX functions have been introduced in 2.4:
+* paragraph-select is a new convenience function to select the paragraph
+ surrounding the actual cursor position.
+
+* buffer-write-as-template is a new convenience function to ease saving a document
+ in the (personal) templates folder.
+
+* export-cancel: Used to cancel background export processes.
+
+* tabular-style-insert: Insert a table in a specified style.
!!!The following LyX functions have been changed in 2.4:
+* set-graphics-group was renamed to graphics-set-group.
+
+* info-insert buffer vcs-*: renamed to info-insert vcs *
+
+* file-insert: optional second parameter "ignorelang" to make the insertion
+ ignore the inserted file's main language (and rather adapt it to the insertion
+ context's language).
+
+
+!!!The following LyX functions have been removed in 2.4:
+
+* date-insert: obsoleted by info-insert date.
+
!!!The following LyX documents have been moved in 2.4:
+* As a result of a major restructuring of the templates and example
+ directories, almost all examples and templates files have been renamed and
+ moved to subfolders that reflect the layout category.
+ The files now have much more decriptive (and longer) names, and they use
+ URL encoding for specific special characters such as '(', ')' and '&'.
+ Notably also the file that opens for new users has been renamed (from
+ splash.lyx to Welcome.lyx).
!!!The following new folders have been added to the LyX directory
+* The examples and templates directories have been completely re-organized.
+ They are now much more structured (by means of layout categories) and thus
+ consist of many new subfolders.
+
!!!The following preferences files have been removed from the tarball in 2.4:
!!Changes with respect to external programs and libraries in 2.4:
+* The Qt5 libraries are now used by default. In order to link against
+ Qt4 the configure option --disable-qt5 has to be used.
+
!!Known issues in version 2.4.0
!!Caveats when upgrading from earlier versions to 2.4.x
+* Autotools monolithic build option for building LyX binaries was removed,
+ for compilation speedup use parallel building on multiple cores instead.
+
+!! If upgrading from a LyX version before 2.3.0
+
+* Please additionally see the release notes from the versions in-between:
+ https://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/ReleaseNotes
+* Several ttf fonts (esint10.ttf, stmary10.ttf, wasy10.ttf) were changed
+ to reflect the fact that newer Qt libraries do not support displaying certain
+ codepoints anymore (bug #8493, #10161).
+ Distribution packagers need to repack those font files in case they are
+ delivering the fonts as a separated package dependent from core LyX.