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 * Language conversion support for category pages
  34 * $wgStyleSheetDirectory is no longer an alias for $wgStyleDirectory;
  35 * ...and more!
  36
  37 Need to merge:
  38 * stuff
  39
  40
  41 == Version Enotif+Eauthent EN+EA v2.00/CVS, 14.12.2004 ==
  42 written by Thomas Gries, Berlin and Markus Arndt, Munich
  43
  44 Executive summary for the impatient reader:
  45
  46 Enotif adds e-mail notification to MediaWiki and sends e-mails
  47 to watching users when a watch-listed page or user_talk page is changed
  48 http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=454
  49 Visit the complete documentation on http://meta.wikipedia.org/Enotif
  50
  51 Eauthent is a mechanism to use a temporary one-time password cycle
  52 to check whether the email address a user has entered is a valid one.
  53 http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=866
  54 Visit the complete documentation on http://meta.wikipedia.org/Eauthent
  55
  56 The current patch has only been checked for (see DefaultSettings.php):
  57
  58 - php mail()
  59   ( = not using PEAR:Mail() module --- I do not know anyone who uses that)
  60   $wgSMTP = false;
  61 - MySQL database
  62   ( = not using PostgreSQL --- I do not know anyone who uses that)
  63   $wgDBtype = "mysql";
  64   $wgSearchType = "MyISAM";
  65
  66 - STILL TODO:
  67   NEW (newpageletter) and CORR (minoreditletter) markers needs
  68   corresponding "spacers"
  69
  70 - table user_newtalk dropped; changes on usertalk pages and their
  71   notifications are now fully handled via existing table watchlist
  72   The user interface and behavious is unchanged to previous version.
  73 - updaters.inc for compatibility with older mediawiki tables:
  74   the conversion script converts existing user_newtalk entries
  75   watchlist table entries
  76   (user_newtalk) id ==> (watchlist) NS_USER_TALK:namefromId(id) timestamp=1
  77 - minor bug fixes:
  78   updated marker now correctly shown on watchlist page
  79   watching users number display with enhanced RC view + RCUseModStyle
  80 - wfUrlencode() instead of rawurlencode() in enotif mails
  81 - duplicate enotif code moved from UserTalkUpdate.php and
  82   merged into UserMailer.php and using usermailer() solely
  83 - fixed an enotif mail text error for user names with spaces
  84 - fixed missing part for suppressing watching user number
  85
  86 v1.36:
  87 magic watchlist shows and counts now only the content page, notwithstanding
  88 the content and talk page are stored separately in watchlist.
  89 * bug fixed: rawurlencode for pagetitles in enotif mails
  90 * bug fixed: link to userpages of anonymous user are correct now
  91
  92 * Enotif v1.34
  93  bugs fixed regarding missing $oldid parameter
  94
  95 * v1.33
  96 * Details:
  97  Implements almost all enotif options as user preferences.
  98  These are only shown on the user preference page, if they are globally
  99  enabled by the corresponding admin option in DefaultSettings.php.
 100  Added admin feature to let enotifs appear to come from the page editor.
 101  This facilitates automatic mail sorting and anti-spam filtering; feature was
 102  originally proposed by Nick Triantos, thank you !
 103  Page editor's email address is however only shown, if this user enabled
 104  the option "reveal my email address" in user preferences. Otherwise,
 105  the enotifs appear to come from WikiAdmin as usual (tricky to program,
 106  but simply trust the algorithm. or look into UserMailer.php and
 107  UserTalkPage.php).
 108
 109 * Changes from previous enotif versions
 110 * v1.31 is an improved version with many security and also cosmetic changes
 111  applied after two first reviews by Brion Vibber. v1.31 is basically the same as
 112  the older Enotif v1.30 and v1.22 versions.
 113
 114  Added UseMod style for recent changes view so that only the most recent
 115  change of any page is listed. The (diff) and (hist) still allow to retrieve the
 116  older versions at users' discretion, but the RC view is much cleaner for
 117  trusted environments such as medium-size companies or family wikis.
 118
 119 * Enotif v1.30 redesign after review by Brion Vibber 25.10.2003
 120
 121 * v1.22 "updated (since my last visit)" also shown for users without stored
 122  email address in preferences, so that they can see, what watched pages
 123  have changed.
 124 * show "updated (since my last visit)" markers in RC, history and watchlist
 125 * Systemvariables to suppress updated marker in all views
 126 * show number of watching users in RC and on bottom of articles in
 127  classic skin and in monobook skin
 128 * Systemvariables in DefaultSettings.php to enable or disable features
 129 * v1.21 now suppresses displaying the marker "updated (since my last visit)"
 130  in recent changes view for the older (already visited) versions of watched
 131  pages - i.e. page versions before the enotif was sent do not bear that
 132  marker any longer.
 133 * enotif mails come with a link to the diff view between current and last
 134  visited version of the watching user.
 135 *database structure is changed automatically when installing via the
 136  recommended way (starting index.php and re-using the old database name).
 137         run php /maintenance/update.php
 138  OR see /maintenance/archives/patch-email-notification.sql and apply the
 139  command
 140         ALTER TABLE  watchlist
 141         ADD (wl_notificationtimestamp varchar(14) binary NOT NULL default '0');
 142  manually to your database, which does not harm the non notification versions
 143
 144 *adding a page x to the watchlist does automatically add a watch
 145   for the accompanying talk_page talk:x and vice versa;
 146
 147 == MediaWiki 1.4 BETA ==
 148
 149 [Not everything is 100% working in beta yet, the installer needs fixes still.]
 150
 151 Major changes from 1.3.x:
 152 * Support for table prefixes for better sharing with other web apps
 153 * (?) PostgreSQL support
 154 * Optional article validation voting features
 155 * 'Recentchanges Patrol' to mark new edits that haven't yet been viewed
 156 * Support for faster C++ diff module (WikiDiff extension)
 157 * More scary link caching modes
 158 * Old manually maintained log pages replaced with searchable Special:Log
 159 * Skins system more modular: templates and CSS are now in /skins/
 160 * New user preference for limitting the image size for images on image description
 161   pages
 162 * Error pages no more offer edit / talk / watch links (bug #502)
 163 * Allow user to preview article on first edit (bug #530)
 164 * New dark background skin named Amethyst (thanks Sorwena and Sorkhiri)
 165 * [[RFC 1234]] will now make an internal link (bug #479)
 166 * PhpTal skins shown bogus 'What links here' etc on special pages (bug #511)
 167 * Experimental code to manage user and group rights (Special:Userlevels)
 168 * UI language switching
 169 * Adding filter and username exact search match for Special:Listusers (bug #770)
 170 * Special:Listadmins outdated, use Special:Listusers instead (bug #857)
 171 * Traditional/Simplified Chinese conversion
 172 * New tag "<gallery>" to generate a table of image thumbnails
 173 * Installer die if it can not write LocalSettings.php (bug #733)
 174 * Various special pages no more show the rss/atom feed links (bug #705)
 175 * Support for external authentication plug-ins
 176 * (bug 114) use category backlinks in Special:Recentchangeslinked
 177 * ... and more!
 178
 179 === Caveats ===
 180
 181 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
 182 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
 183 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
 184 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
 185 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
 186
 187 The new 'MonoBook' skin is not compatible with PHP 5 due to bugs in the
 188 underlying PHPTAL library. It will be automatically disabled when running
 189 on PHP5; the older look and feel will be used instead.
 190
 191
 192 For notes on 1.3.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 193
 194
 195 === Online documentation ===
 196
 197 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 198 built up on Meta-Wikipedia, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 199 License:
 200
 201   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents
 202
 203
 204 === Mailing list ===
 205
 206 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 207 wikitech-l list:
 208
 209   http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 210
 211
 212 === IRC help ===
 213
 214 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net