RELEASE-NOTES

   1 = MediaWiki release notes =
   2
   3 Security reminder: MediaWiki does not require PHP's register_globals
   4 setting since version 1.2.0. If you have it on, turn it *off* if you can.
   5
   6 == MediaWiki 1.14 ==
   7
   8 THIS IS NOT A RELEASE YET
   9
  10 MediaWiki is now using a "continuous integration" development model with
  11 quarterly snapshot releases. The latest development code is always kept
  12 "ready to run", and in fact runs our own sites on Wikipedia.
  13
  14 Release branches will continue to receive security updates for about a year
  15 from first release, but nonessential bugfixes and feature developments
  16 will be made on the development trunk and appear in the next quarterly release.
  17
  18 Those wishing to use the latest code instead of a branch release can obtain
  19 it from source control: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download_from_SVN
  20
  21 === Configuration changes in 1.14 ===
  22
  23 * $wgExemptFromUserRobotsControl is an array of namespaces to be exempt from
  24   the effect of the new __INDEX__/__NOINDEX__ magic words.  (Default: null, ex-
  25   empt all content namespaces.)
  26 * $wgForwardSearchUrl has been removed entirely. Documented setting since 1.4
  27   has been $wgSearchForwardUrl.
  28 * (bug 15080) $wgOverrideSiteFeed has been added. Setting either
  29   $wgSiteFeed['rss'] or 'atom' to a URL will override the default Recent Changes
  30   feed that appears on all pages.
  31 * $wgSQLiteDataDirMode has been introduced as the default directory mode for
  32   SQLite data directories on creation. Note this setting is separate from
  33   $wgDirectoryMode, which applies to all normal directories created by MediaWiki.
  34
  35 === New features in 1.14 ===
  36
  37 * New URL syntaxes for Special:ListUsers - 'Special:ListUsers/USER' and
  38   'Special:ListUsers/GROUP/USER', in addition to the older syntax
  39   'Special:ListUsers/GROUP' where GROUP is a valid group name.
  40 * Configurable er-namespace and per-page notices for the edit form,
  41   respectively MediaWiki:Editnotice-# where # is the namespace number, and
  42   MediaWiki:Editnotice-#-PAGENAME where # is the page's namespace number and
  43   PAGENAME is the page name minus the namespace prefix.
  44 * (bug 8068) New __INDEX__ and __NOINDEX__ magic words allow user control of
  45   search engine indexing on a per-article basis.
  46 * Handheld stylesheet options
  47 * Added 'DoEditSectionLink' hook as a cleaner unified version of the old
  48   'EditSectionLink' and 'EditSectionLinkForOther' hooks.  Note that the
  49   'EditSectionLinkForOther' hook has been removed, but 'EditSectionLink' is
  50   run in all cases instead, so extensions using the old hooks should still work
  51   if they ran roughly the same code for both hooks (as is almost certain).
  52 * Signature (~~~~) "cleaning", i.e. template removal, can be disabled with
  53   $wgCleanSignatures=false
  54 * Extensions can use the SkinBuildSidebar hook to modify the content of the
  55   sidebar and add custom portlets to it
  56 * Added 'MakeGlobalVariablesScript' hook for extensions to be able to add vari-
  57   ables into into the output of Skin::makeVariablesScript
  58 * (bug 13846) Added $wgAddGroups and $wgRemoveGroups display on
  59   Special:ListGroupRights
  60 * (bug 14377) Add a date selector to history pages
  61 * (bug 15007) New 'pagetitle-view-mainpage' message allows the HTML <title> of
  62   the main page to be customized
  63 * Added $wgDisableTitleConversion to disabling the conversion for all pages on
  64   the wiki
  65 * Added 'noconvertlink' toggle that can be set per user preferences, also
  66   added 'convertlink=no|yes' on GET requests whether have the link titles
  67   being converted or not
  68 * (bug 14921) Special:Contributions/: add user name to <title>
  69   Patch by Emufarmers
  70 * Unescape more "safe" characters when producing URLs, for added prettiness
  71 * Introduced a new hook 'SkinAfterContent' that allows extensions to add text
  72   after the page content and article metadata. Updated all skins and skin
  73   templates to work with that hook.
  74 * (bug 14929) removeUnusedAccounts.php now supports 'ignore-touched' and
  75   'ignore-groups'. Patch by Louperivois
  76 * (bug 15127) Work around minor display glitch in Opera.
  77 * By default, reject file uploads that look like ZIP files, to avoid the
  78   so-called GIFAR vulnerability.
  79 * (bug 15141) Give ability to only list protected pages with the cascading
  80   option enabled on Special:ProtectedPages
  81 * (bug 15157) Special:Watchlist has the same options as Special:Watchlist:
  82   Show/Hide logged in users, Show/Hide anonymous, Invert namespace selection
  83
  84 === Bug fixes in 1.14 ===
  85
  86 * (bug 14907) DatabasePostgres::fieldType now defined.
  87 * (bug 14659) Passing the default limit param to Special:Recentchanges no more
  88   falls back to the user option
  89 * (bug 14954) Fix regression in Modern and Simple skins
  90 * Recursion loop check added to Categoryfinder class
  91 * Fixed few performance troubles of large job queue processing
  92 * Not setting various parameters in Foreign Repos now fails more gracefully
  93 * (bug 2333) Redirects are properly rendered when previewing an edit.
  94 * (bug 14972) Use localized alias of Special:Search on all search forms
  95 * (bug 11035) Special:Search should have descriptive <title>
  96 * Special pages are now not subject to special handling for "self-links"
  97 * (bug 15053) Syntactically incorrect redirects with another link in them
  98   no longer redirect to the second link
  99 * (bug 15049) Fix for CheckUser extension's log search: usernames containing
 100   a "-" were incorrectly turned into bogus IP range searches.
 101   Patch by Max Semenik.
 102 * (bug 15055) Talk page notifications no longer attempt to send mail when
 103   user's e-mail address is invalid or unconfirmed
 104 * (bug 12370) Add throttle on password attempts. Defaults to max 5 attempts in 5
 105   minutes.
 106 * (bug 15016) 'Templates used on this page' list in view source should be
 107   wrapped in a div with class "templatesUsed"
 108 * (bug 14868) Setting $wgFeedDiffCutoff to 0 now disables generation of the diff
 109   entirely, not just the display of it.
 110 * (bug 6387) Introduced new setting $wgCategoryPrefixedDefaultSortkey which
 111   allows having the unprefixed page title as the default category sortkey
 112 * (bug 15079) Add class="ns-talk" / "ns-subject" to <body>. Also added
 113   ns-special to special pages.
 114 * (bug 15052) Skins should add their name as a class in <body>
 115 * (bug 14165, bug 14294) Wikimedia specific configuration in convertGrammar()
 116   for several languages was removed. The settings have been put in extension
 117   WikimediaMessages. Patch for Czech by Danny B.
 118 * (bug 15101) Displaying only bots edits in Special:Recentchanges now works
 119   again
 120 * (bug 13770) Fixed incorrect detection of PHP's DOM module
 121 * (bug 14790) Export of category pages when using Category: prefix now actually
 122   gives results
 123
 124 === API changes in 1.14 ===
 125
 126 * Registration time of users registered before the DB field was created is now
 127   shown as empty instead of the current time.
 128 * API search now falls back to fulltext search by default when using Lucene
 129   or other engine which doesn't support a separate title search function.
 130   This means you can use API search on Wikipedia without explicitly adding
 131   &srwhat=text to the query.
 132 * Added iiprop=bitdepth to imageinfo and aiprop=bitdepth to allimages
 133 * (bug 14713) API-specific permissions (such as 'writeapi' and 'apihighlimits'
 134   are now listed on action=help
 135 * (bug 15044) Added requestid parameter to api.php to facilitate distinguishing
 136   between requests
 137 * (bug 15048) Added limit field for multivalue parameters to action=paraminfo
 138   output.
 139 * When the limit on multivalue parameters is exceeded, a warning is issued
 140
 141 === Languages updated in 1.14 ===
 142
 143 MediaWiki supports over 300 languages. Many localisations are updated
 144 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed.
 145
 146 (no changes yet)
 147
 148 == Compatibility ==
 149
 150 MediaWiki 1.14 requires PHP 5 (5.1 recommended). PHP 4 is no longer supported.
 151
 152 PHP 5.0.x fails on 64-bit systems due to serious bugs with array processing:
 153 http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=34879
 154 Upgrade affected systems to PHP 5.1 or higher.
 155
 156 MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade.
 157 At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.
 158
 159
 160 == Upgrading ==
 161
 162 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons repository,
 163 make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to
 164 database schema changes.
 165
 166 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 167 new database fields are filled with data.
 168
 169 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database
 170 changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could
 171 break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 172
 173 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 174
 175
 176 === Caveats ===
 177
 178 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
 179 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
 180 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
 181 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
 182 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
 183
 184 For notes on 1.13.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 185
 186
 187 === Online documentation ===
 188
 189 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 190 built up on MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 191 License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in
 192 the public domain) :
 193
 194   http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 195
 196
 197 === Mailing list ===
 198
 199 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 200 wikitech-l list:
 201
 202   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 203
 204 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 205
 206   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 207
 208 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 209 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 210
 211
 212 === IRC help ===
 213
 214 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net