--- a/NEWS	Tue Aug 20 11:07:53 2013 -0700
+++ b/NEWS	Tue Aug 20 11:31:58 2013 -0700
@@ -43,29 +43,28 @@
       endfunction
     endfunction
 
- ** 'emptymatch', 'noemptymatch' options added to regular expressions.
+ ** Line continuations inside character strings have changed.
 
-    With this addition Octave now accepts the entire set of Matlab options
-    for regular expressions.  'noemptymatch' is the default, but 'emptymatch'
-    has certain uses where you need to match an assertion rather than actual
-    characters.  For example, 
-
-    regexprep ('World', '^', 'Hello ', 'emptymatch')
-      => Hello World
-
-    where the pattern is actually the assertion '^' or start-of-line.
+    The sequence '...' is no longer recognized as a line continuation
+    inside a character string.  A backslash '\' followed by a newline
+    character is no longer recognized as a line continuation inside
+    single-quoted character strings.  Inside double-quoted character
+    strings, a backslash followed by a newline character is still
+    recognized as a line continuation, but the backslash character must
+    be followed *immediately* by the newline character.  No whitespace or
+    end-of-line comment may appear between them.
 
- ** For compatibility with Matlab, the regexp, regexpi, and regexprep
-    functions now process backslash escape sequences in single-quoted pattern
-    strings.  In addition, the regexprep function now processes backslash
-    escapes in single-quoted replacement strings.  For example,
-    
-    regexprep (str, '\t', '\n')
+ ** Backslash as a continuation marker outside of double-quoted strings
+    is now deprecated.
 
-    would search the variable str for a TAB character (escape sequence \t)
-    and replace it with a NEWLINE (escape sequence \n).  Previously the
-    expression would have searched for a literal '\' followed by 't' and
-    replaced the two characters with the sequence '\', 'n'.
+    Using '\' as a continuation marker outside of double quoted strings
+    is now deprecated and will be removed from a future version of
+    Octave.  When that is done, the behavior of
+
+      (a \
+       b)
+
+    will be consistent with other binary operators.
 
  ** Redundant terminal comma accepted by parser
 
@@ -77,29 +76,6 @@
      c,...
     ] = deal (1,2,3)
 
- ** Line continuations inside character strings have changed.
-
-    The sequence '...' is no longer recognized as a line continuations
-    are inside character strings.  A backslash followed by a newline
-    character is no longer recognized as a line continuation inside
-    single-quoted character strings.  Inside double-quoted character
-    strings, a backslash followed by a newline character is still
-    recognized as a line continuation but the backslash character must
-    be followed immediately by the newline character.  No whitespace or
-    end-of-linecomment may appear between them.
-
- ** Backslash as a continuation marker outside of double-quoted strings
-    is now deprecated.
-
-    Using '\' as a continuation marker outside fo double quoted strings
-    is now deprecated and will be removed from a future version of
-    Octave.  When that is done, the behavior of
-
-      (a \
-       b)
-
-    will be consistent with other binary operators.
-
  ** Octave now has limited support for named exceptions
 
     The following syntax is now accepted:
@@ -128,6 +104,30 @@
     Octave:array-as-scalar => Octave:array-to-scalar
     Octave:array-as-vector => Octave:array-to-vector
 
+ ** 'emptymatch', 'noemptymatch' options added to regular expressions.
+
+    With this addition Octave now accepts the entire set of Matlab options
+    for regular expressions.  'noemptymatch' is the default, but 'emptymatch'
+    has certain uses where you need to match an assertion rather than actual
+    characters.  For example, 
+
+    regexprep ('World', '^', 'Hello ', 'emptymatch')
+      => Hello World
+
+    where the pattern is actually the assertion '^' or start-of-line.
+
+ ** For compatibility with Matlab, the regexp, regexpi, and regexprep
+    functions now process backslash escape sequences in single-quoted pattern
+    strings.  In addition, the regexprep function now processes backslash
+    escapes in single-quoted replacement strings.  For example,
+    
+    regexprep (str, '\t', '\n')
+
+    would search the variable str for a TAB character (escape sequence \t)
+    and replace it with a NEWLINE (escape sequence \n).  Previously the
+    expression would have searched for a literal '\' followed by 't' and
+    replaced the two characters with the sequence '\', 'n'.
+
  ** The m-files in the image directory have been overhauled.
 
     The principal benefit is that Octave will now no longer automatically
@@ -142,8 +142,8 @@
     with imread instead of a RGB image if the colormap was not requested
     as output.
 
- ** The colormap function now provides new options--"list", "register",
-    and "unregister"--to list all available colormap functions, and to
+ ** The colormap function now provides new options---"list", "register",
+    and "unregister"---to list all available colormap functions, and to
     add or remove a function name from the list of known colormap
     functions.  Packages that implement extra colormaps should use these
     commands with PKG_ADD and PKG_DEL statements.
@@ -196,6 +196,11 @@
     In addition two new error functions erfi (imaginary error function) and
     dawson (scaled imaginary error function) have been added.
 
+ ** The glpk function has been modified to reflect changes in the GLPK
+    library.  The "round" and "itcnt" options have been removed.  The
+    "relax" option has been replaced by the "rtest" option.  The numeric
+    values of error codes and of some options have also changed.
+
  ** The default name of the Octave crash dump file is now called
     octave-workspace instead of octave-core.
 
@@ -222,11 +227,6 @@
       helpdlg    listdlg   questdlg
       inputdlg   msgbox    warndlg
 
- ** The glpk function has been modified to reflect changes in the GLPK
-    library. The "round" and "itcnt" options have been removed. The
-    "relax" option has been replaced by the "rtest" option. The numeric
-    values of error codes and of some options have also changed.
-
  ** Other new functions added in 3.8.0:
                                                   
       atan2d                     erfi             jit_startcnt
@@ -241,10 +241,12 @@
       dawson                     imformats        shrinkfaces               
       dblist                     importdata       splinefit                 
       debug_jit                  isaxes           stemleaf                  
-      doc_cache_create           iscolormap       strjoin   
-      ellipj                     isequaln         struct2hdl                
-      ellipke                    jit_debug        tetramesh                 
-      erfcinv                    jit_enable       waterfall 
+      desktop                    iscolormap       strjoin    
+      doc_cache_create           isequaln         struct2hdl 
+      ellipj                     jit_debug        tetramesh                 
+      ellipke                    jit_enable       waterfall                 
+      erfcinv                    
+
 
  ** Deprecated functions.
 
@@ -286,7 +288,7 @@
     The internal class <Octave_map> has been deprecated in Octave 3.8 and will
     be removed from Octave 3.12 (or whatever version is the second major
     release after 3.8).  Replacement classes are <octave_map> (struct array)
-    or <octave_scalar_map> for single structure.
+    or <octave_scalar_map> for a single structure.
 
 Summary of important user-visible changes for version 3.6:
 ---------------------------------------------------------

--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/scripts/miscellaneous/desktop.m	Tue Aug 20 11:31:58 2013 -0700
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+## Copyright (C) 2013 John W. Eaton
+##
+## This file is part of Octave.
+##
+## Octave is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+## under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+## the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at
+## your option) any later version.
+##
+## Octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
+## WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+## MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
+## General Public License for more details.
+##
+## You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+## along with Octave; see the file COPYING.  If not, see
+## <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Function File} {} @var{used} = desktop ("-inuse")
+## Return true if the desktop (GUI) is currently in use.
+## @seealso{isguirunning}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function retval = desktop (arg)
+
+  if (nargin == 0)
+    if (isguirunning ())
+      return;  # desktop() is a NOP when GUI running
+    else
+      print_usage ();
+    endif
+  elseif (nargin > 1)
+    error ('desktop: only one argument, "-inuse", is allowed');
+  endif
+  
+  switch (tolower (arg))
+    case "-inuse"
+      retval = isguirunning ();
+    otherwise
+      print_usage ();
+  endswitch
+
+endfunction
+
+
+## Test input validation
+%!error <only one argument "-inuse"> desktop (1,2)
+%!error desktop ("-invalid_option")
+

--- a/scripts/miscellaneous/module.mk	Tue Aug 20 11:07:53 2013 -0700
+++ b/scripts/miscellaneous/module.mk	Tue Aug 20 11:31:58 2013 -0700
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
   miscellaneous/copyfile.m \
   miscellaneous/debug.m \
   miscellaneous/delete.m \
+  miscellaneous/desktop.m \
   miscellaneous/dir.m \
   miscellaneous/dos.m \
   miscellaneous/dump_prefs.m \