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 ** NOTE TO COMMITTERS: Before 1.5.0 release, rearrange these nicely
   7 ** and move 1.4 stuff to HISTORY.
   8
   9 == MediaWiki 1.5 ==
  10
  11 New exciting things! Need further work and testing...
  12 * user groups/permissions scheme
  13 * e-mail change notifications
  14 * 'live preview' reduces preview reload burden on supported browsers
  15 * Schema reworking: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_Database_Schema_Changes/October_2004
  16 * New WikiSyntax: -- turns into &mdash; or &ndash; depending on context
  17 * (bug 15) Allow editors to view diff of their change before actually submitting an edit
  18 * (bug 190) Hide your own edits on the watchlist
  19 * (bug 510): Special:Randompage now works for other namespaces than NS_MAIN.
  20 * (bug 1015) support for the full wikisyntax in <gallery> captions.
  21 * (bug 1105) A "Destination filename" (save as) added to Special:Upload Upload.
  22 * (bug 1352) Images on description pages now get thumbnailed regardless of whether the thumbnail is larger than the original.
  23 * (bug 1662) A new magicword, {{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}} returns the abbreviation of the current month
  24 * (bug 1668) 'Date format' supported for other languages than English, see:
  25   http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-March/028364.html
  26 * (bug 1739) A new magicword, {{REVISIONID}} give you the article or diff database
  27   revision id, useful for proper citation.
  28 * (bug 1998) Updated the Russian translation.
  29 * It's now possible to invert the namespace selection at Special:Allpages and Special:Contributions
  30 * No longer using sorbs.net to check for open proxies by default.
  31 * What was $wgDisableUploads is now $wgEnableUploads, and should be set to true if one wishes to enable uploads.
  32 * Supplying a reason for a block is no longer mandatory
  33 * ...and more!
  34
  35 Need to merge:
  36 * stuff
  37
  38
  39 == Version Enotif+Eauthent EN+EA v2.00/CVS, 14.12.2004 ==
  40 written by Thomas Gries, Berlin and Markus Arndt, Munich
  41
  42 Executive summary for the impatient reader:
  43
  44 Enotif adds e-mail notification to MediaWiki and sends e-mails
  45 to watching users when a watch-listed page or user_talk page is changed
  46 http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=454
  47 Visit the complete documentation on http://meta.wikipedia.org/Enotif
  48
  49 Eauthent is a mechanism to use a temporary one-time password cycle
  50 to check whether the email address a user has entered is a valid one.
  51 http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=866
  52 Visit the complete documentation on http://meta.wikipedia.org/Eauthent
  53
  54 The current patch has only been checked for (see DefaultSettings.php):
  55
  56 - php mail()
  57   ( = not using PEAR:Mail() module --- I do not know anyone who uses that)
  58   $wgSMTP = false;
  59 - MySQL database
  60   ( = not using PostgreSQL --- I do not know anyone who uses that)
  61   $wgDBtype = "mysql";
  62   $wgSearchType = "MyISAM";
  63
  64 - STILL TODO:
  65   NEW (newpageletter) and CORR (minoreditletter) markers needs
  66   corresponding "spacers"
  67
  68 - table user_newtalk dropped; changes on usertalk pages and their
  69   notifications are now fully handled via existing table watchlist
  70   The user interface and behavious is unchanged to previous version.
  71 - updaters.inc for compatibility with older mediawiki tables:
  72   the conversion script converts existing user_newtalk entries
  73   watchlist table entries
  74   (user_newtalk) id ==> (watchlist) NS_USER_TALK:namefromId(id) timestamp=1
  75 - minor bug fixes:
  76   updated marker now correctly shown on watchlist page
  77   watching users number display with enhanced RC view + RCUseModStyle
  78 - wfUrlencode() instead of rawurlencode() in enotif mails
  79 - duplicate enotif code moved from UserTalkUpdate.php and
  80   merged into UserMailer.php and using usermailer() solely
  81 - fixed an enotif mail text error for user names with spaces
  82 - fixed missing part for suppressing watching user number
  83
  84 v1.36:
  85 magic watchlist shows and counts now only the content page, notwithstanding
  86 the content and talk page are stored separately in watchlist.
  87 * bug fixed: rawurlencode for pagetitles in enotif mails
  88 * bug fixed: link to userpages of anonymous user are correct now
  89
  90 * Enotif v1.34
  91  bugs fixed regarding missing $oldid parameter
  92
  93 * v1.33
  94 * Details:
  95  Implements almost all enotif options as user preferences.
  96  These are only shown on the user preference page, if they are globally
  97  enabled by the corresponding admin option in DefaultSettings.php.
  98  Added admin feature to let enotifs appear to come from the page editor.
  99  This facilitates automatic mail sorting and anti-spam filtering; feature was
 100  originally proposed by Nick Triantos, thank you !
 101  Page editor's email address is however only shown, if this user enabled
 102  the option "reveal my email address" in user preferences. Otherwise,
 103  the enotifs appear to come from WikiAdmin as usual (tricky to program,
 104  but simply trust the algorithm. or look into UserMailer.php and
 105  UserTalkPage.php).
 106
 107 * Changes from previous enotif versions
 108 * v1.31 is an improved version with many security and also cosmetic changes
 109  applied after two first reviews by Brion Vibber. v1.31 is basically the same as
 110  the older Enotif v1.30 and v1.22 versions.
 111
 112  Added UseMod style for recent changes view so that only the most recent
 113  change of any page is listed. The (diff) and (hist) still allow to retrieve the
 114  older versions at users' discretion, but the RC view is much cleaner for
 115  trusted environments such as medium-size companies or family wikis.
 116
 117 * Enotif v1.30 redesign after review by Brion Vibber 25.10.2003
 118
 119 * v1.22 "updated (since my last visit)" also shown for users without stored
 120  email address in preferences, so that they can see, what watched pages
 121  have changed.
 122 * show "updated (since my last visit)" markers in RC, history and watchlist
 123 * Systemvariables to suppress updated marker in all views
 124 * show number of watching users in RC and on bottom of articles in
 125  classic skin and in monobook skin
 126 * Systemvariables in DefaultSettings.php to enable or disable features
 127 * v1.21 now suppresses displaying the marker "updated (since my last visit)"
 128  in recent changes view for the older (already visited) versions of watched
 129  pages - i.e. page versions before the enotif was sent do not bear that
 130  marker any longer.
 131 * enotif mails come with a link to the diff view between current and last
 132  visited version of the watching user.
 133 *database structure is changed automatically when installing via the
 134  recommended way (starting index.php and re-using the old database name).
 135         run php /maintenance/update.php
 136  OR see /maintenance/archives/patch-email-notification.sql and apply the
 137  command
 138         ALTER TABLE  watchlist
 139         ADD (wl_notificationtimestamp varchar(14) binary NOT NULL default '0');
 140  manually to your database, which does not harm the non notification versions
 141
 142 *adding a page x to the watchlist does automatically add a watch
 143   for the accompanying talk_page talk:x and vice versa;
 144
 145 == MediaWiki 1.4 BETA ==
 146
 147 [Not everything is 100% working in beta yet, the installer needs fixes still.]
 148
 149 Major changes from 1.3.x:
 150 * Support for table prefixes for better sharing with other web apps
 151 * (?) PostgreSQL support
 152 * Optional article validation voting features
 153 * 'Recentchanges Patrol' to mark new edits that haven't yet been viewed
 154 * Support for faster C++ diff module (WikiDiff extension)
 155 * More scary link caching modes
 156 * Old manually maintained log pages replaced with searchable Special:Log
 157 * Skins system more modular: templates and CSS are now in /skins/
 158 * New user preference for limitting the image size for images on image description
 159   pages
 160 * Error pages no more offer edit / talk / watch links (bug #502)
 161 * Allow user to preview article on first edit (bug #530)
 162 * New dark background skin named Amethyst (thanks Sorwena and Sorkhiri)
 163 * [[RFC 1234]] will now make an internal link (bug #479)
 164 * PhpTal skins shown bogus 'What links here' etc on special pages (bug #511)
 165 * Experimental code to manage user and group rights (Special:Userlevels)
 166 * UI language switching
 167 * Adding filter and username exact search match for Special:Listusers (bug #770)
 168 * Special:Listadmins outdated, use Special:Listusers instead (bug #857)
 169 * Traditional/Simplified Chinese conversion
 170 * New tag "<gallery>" to generate a table of image thumbnails
 171 * Installer die if it can not write LocalSettings.php (bug #733)
 172 * Various special pages no more show the rss/atom feed links (bug #705)
 173 * Support for external authentication plug-ins
 174 * (bug 114) use category backlinks in Special:Recentchangeslinked
 175 * ... and more!
 176
 177 === Caveats ===
 178
 179 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
 180 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
 181 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
 182 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
 183 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
 184
 185 The new 'MonoBook' skin is not compatible with PHP 5 due to bugs in the
 186 underlying PHPTAL library. It will be automatically disabled when running
 187 on PHP5; the older look and feel will be used instead.
 188
 189
 190 For notes on 1.3.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 191
 192
 193 === Online documentation ===
 194
 195 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 196 built up on Meta-Wikipedia, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 197 License:
 198
 199   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents
 200
 201
 202 === Mailing list ===
 203
 204 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 205 wikitech-l list:
 206
 207   http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 208
 209
 210 === IRC help ===
 211
 212 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net