--- a/NEWS Sun Apr 22 14:16:46 2012 +0200
+++ b/NEWS Sun Apr 22 16:33:41 2012 +0200
@@ -869,6 +869,14 @@
*** System ***
+* USER_HOME settings variable points to cross-platform user home
+directory, which coincides with HOME on POSIX systems only. Likewise,
+the Isabelle path specification "~" now expands to $USER_HOME, instead
+of former $HOME. A different default for USER_HOME may be set
+explicitly in shell environment, before Isabelle settings are
+evaluated. Minor INCOMPATIBILITY: need to adapt Isabelle path where
+the generic user home was intended.
+
* ISABELLE_JDK_HOME settings variable points to JDK with javac and jar
(not just JRE).