Summary of important user-visible changes for version 8 (yyyy-mm-dd):
---------------------------------------------------------------------

### General improvements

- Octave's libraries are now built using symbol visibility by default.
That means that less symbols are exported from these libraries.
Configure with `--disable-lib-visibility-flags` to export all symbols
(as in previous versions).

- `filter` is now 5X faster, which also speeds up `deconv`, `fftfilt`
and `arma_rnd` by the same amount.

- `integral` can now output a second argument passing the error
measurement used by the underlying integrator.

- `perms` now accepts a second argument "unique" to return only unique
permutations for inputs with repeated elements.  It is faster and takes
less memory to call `perms ('aaaabbbbcccc', "unique")` than to call
`unique (perms ('aaaabbbbcccc'), "rows")`.

- `quadgk` can now accept the `ArrayValued` input parameter to handle
array-valued input functions.

### Graphical User Interface


### Graphics backend

- Additional properties have been added to the `figure` graphics object:
    * `"innerposition"` (equivalent to `"position"`)
    * `"windowstate"` (not yet implemented)

- Legend now features a new property `"itemhitfcn"`, allowing the execution of a
callback function when a legend item is clicked.

### Matlab compatibility

- `inline` functions now support all Matlab methods.  The performance
  of `inline` functions has also been improved.

- `sub2ind` now supports index values outside of the size specified by
  the subscripts.

- `cylinder` now accepts a scalar for the radius argument.

- `clock` now has an optional second output `ISDST` which indicates if
  Daylight Savings Time is in effect for the system's time zone.

- `print` now accepts option `-image` to specify the "opengl" renderer
  and `-vector` to specify the "painters" renderer.

- `format` now accepts the option "default", which is equivalent to
  calling `format` without any options to reset the default state.

- `quadgk` now stops iterating when `error <= tolerance` while the previous
  condition was `error < tolerance`.

- `var` and `std` now optionally output a second argument containing the mean
  or weighted mean.

- `integral` can now accept the 'ArrayValued' option in combination with
  'RelTol' and 'WayPoints'.

- The default state for certain graphics properties has been made
  consistent with Matlab.

  Object      | Property         | Default State
  ------------|------------------|------------
  `figure`    | `"dockcontrols"` | `"on"`

### Alphabetical list of new functions added in Octave 8

* `pagectranspose`
* `pagetranspose`
* `uifigure`

### Deprecated functions, properties, and operators

The following functions and properties have been deprecated in Octave 8
and will be removed from Octave 10 (or whatever version is the second
major release after 8):

- Functions

  Function               | Replacement
  -----------------------|------------------
  `shift`                | `circshift`
  `sparse_auto_mutate`   | none (see below)

- The `sparse_auto_mutate` function no longer has any effect on Octave's
  behavior.  Previously, after calling `sparse_auto_mutate (true)`,
  Octave would automatically convert sparse matrices to full when a
  sparse matrix required more memory than simply using full matrix
  storage.  This setting was `false` by default for compatibility with
  Matlab.  Now you must manually convert to full storage when desired.


- Properties

  The following property names are discouraged, but there is no fixed
  date for their removal.

  Object           | Property    | Replacement
  -----------------|-------------|------------
  `uimenu`         | `label`     | `text`
  `uimenu`         | `callback`  | `menuselectedfcn`

The following functions were deprecated in Octave 6 and have been removed
from Octave 8.

- Functions

  Function               | Replacement
  -----------------------|------------------
  `runtests`             | `oruntests`

- The environment variable used by `mkoctfile` for linker flags is now
  `LDFLAGS` rather than `LFLAGS`.  `LFLAGS` was deprecated in Octave 6,
  and will be removed in a future version of Octave.

### Old release news

- [Octave 7.x](etc/NEWS.7)
- [Octave 6.x](etc/NEWS.6)
- [Octave 5.x](etc/NEWS.5)
- [Octave 4.x](etc/NEWS.4)
- [Octave 3.x](etc/NEWS.3)
- [Octave 2.x](etc/NEWS.2)
- [Octave 1.x](etc/NEWS.1)