Less version 701

Version 701 was released for beta testing on 15 May 2026.

These are the differences between version 692 and version 701:

• Add --hilite-target option and -DJ to color target line (github #745).
• Add --past-eof option.
• Add --end-prompt option.
• Add --emouse and --rmouse options, and horizontal mouse scrolling and dragging (github #744).
• Add -DT option to format tilde lines (github #725).
• Change OSC 8 link handling: replace LESS_OSC8_xxx with LESS_OSC8_OPEN_xxx. Remove %O from prompt expansion as no longer needed. Any use of environment variables LESS_OSC8_xxx need to be manually changed to use LESS_OSC8_OPEN_xxx.
• Add ?o to prompt strings, to detect whether an OSC 8 link is selected.
• When scrolling past end-of-file or before beginning-of-file, stop when exactly one line is left on screen.
• Make -w/-W highlight lines when moving backward as well as forward (github #729).
• Display pattern in "Pattern not found" message (github #731).
• Allow m and M commands to take a numeric argument to specify the line to be marked (github #736).
• Allow ' command to take a numeric argument to specify the screen position on which to place the marked line.
• Allow lesskey to map keypad ENTER with \kpe (github #761).
• Add "noaction" as a possible action in #line-edit section in a lesskey file (github #761).
• Support POSIX character classes with the built-in V8 regex library (github #732).
• Change | command to pipe just one line if the marked line is at the top of the screen (github #733).
• If OSC8 handler command begins with "-", suppress command echo, and if it begins with ctrl-P, suppress "done" message (github #747).
• Don't ask for confirmation when input is a binary file and stdout is redirected. Fixes infinite loop in that situation (github #719).
• Make early error messages go to stderr if stdout is redirected (github #719).
• Don't retry read after read error; fixes hang when attempting to read a directory or other unreadable file (github #741).
• Fix incorrect restoration of saved mark if not at top of screen.
• With --save-marks, don't save a mark that was cleared with ESC-m.
• Fix buffer overflow when using malformed lesskey file (github #721).
• Fix unexpected scrolling past end of file (github #720).
• Fix bug when env var in LESSKEY_CONTENT partially matches env var defined in lesskey file (github #727).
• Fix bug when env var in lesskey file matches tail of env var used by less (github #728).
• Fix command parsing bug when one command is a substring of another. Also fixes --no-paste option (github #724).
• Fix incorrect display using --color to set character attributes without color, such as -DS-u (github #730).
• Fix crash when tags file contains invalid line number 0 (github #743).
• Fix build when tparm() doesn't use varargs (github #748).
• Fix prompt overflow when filtering with long prompt (github #749).
• Fix incorrect highlighting when change -i while filtering (github #750).
• Fix erroneous error mesage using --show-preproc-error with some shells (github #753).
• Fix erroneous highlighting when using a search pattern containing more than 5 pairs of parentheses with PCRE2 (github #754).
• When ^X interrupts F mode, discard pending keys as is done when ^C interrupts it (github #757).
• Fix bug in Windows where pressing any key during "waiting for data" would prevent a subsequent ^X from working.
• Fix erroneous display in some situations when using LESS_LINES (github #759).
• Fix erroneous display after certain messages are displayed in a very narrow terminal (github #760).
• Don't init terminal if stdout is not a tty (github #768).
• Fix bug clicking OSC 8 link that crosses a screen line boundary (github #775).
• Fix beeps when resizing window on Windows (github #771).
• Fix beeps when paging continuously on Windows (github #772).