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 * (bug 8068) New __INDEX__ and __NOINDEX__ magic words allow user control of
  38   search engine indexing on a per-article basis.
  39 * Handheld stylesheet options
  40 * Added 'DoEditSectionLink' hook as a cleaner unified version of the old
  41   'EditSectionLink' and 'EditSectionLinkForOther' hooks.  Note that the
  42   'EditSectionLinkForOther' hook has been removed, but 'EditSectionLink' is
  43   run in all cases instead, so extensions using the old hooks should still work
  44   if they ran roughly the same code for both hooks (as is almost certain).
  45 * Signature (~~~~) "cleaning", i.e. template removal, can be disabled with
  46   $wgCleanSignatures=false
  47 * Extensions can use the SkinBuildSidebar hook to modify the content of the
  48   sidebar and add custom portlets to it
  49 * Added 'MakeGlobalVariablesScript' hook for extensions to be able to add vari-
  50   ables into into the output of Skin::makeVariablesScript
  51 * (bug 13846) Added $wgAddGroups and $wgRemoveGroups display on
  52   Special:ListGroupRights
  53 * (bug 14377) Add a date selector to history pages
  54 * (bug 15007) New 'pagetitle-view-mainpage' message allows the HTML <title> of
  55   the main page to be customized
  56 * Added $wgDisableTitleConversion to disabling the conversion for all pages on
  57   the wiki
  58 * Added 'noconvertlink' toogle that can be set per user preferences, also
  59   added 'convertlink=no|yes' on GET requests whether have the link titles
  60   being converted or not
  61 * (bug 14921) Special:Contributions/: add user name to <title>
  62   Patch by Emufarmers
  63 * Unescape more "safe" characters when producing URLs, for added prettiness
  64 * Introduced a new hook 'SkinAfterContent' that allows extensions to add text
  65   after the page content and article metadata. Updated all skins and skin
  66   templates to work with that hook.
  67
  68 === Bug fixes in 1.14 ===
  69
  70 * (bug 14907) DatabasePostgres::fieldType now defined.
  71 * (bug 14659) Passing the default limit param to Special:Recentchanges no more
  72   falls back to the user option
  73 * (bug 14954) Fix regression in Modern and Simple skins
  74 * Recursion loop check added to Categoryfinder class
  75 * Fixed few performance troubles of large job queue processing
  76 * Not setting various parameters in Foreign Repos now fails more gracefully
  77 * (bug 2333) Redirects are properly rendered when previewing an edit.
  78 * (bug 14972) Use localized alias of Special:Search on all search forms
  79 * (bug 11035) Special:Search should have descriptive <title>
  80 * Special pages are now not subject to special handling for "self-links"
  81 * (bug 15053) Syntactically incorrect redirects with another link in them
  82   no longer redirect to the second link
  83 * (bug 15049) Fix for CheckUser extension's log search: usernames containing
  84   a "-" were incorrectly turned into bogus IP range searches.
  85   Patch by Max Semenik.
  86 * (bug 15055) Talk page notifications no longer attempt to send mail when
  87   user's e-mail address is invalid or unconfirmed
  88 * (bug 12370) Add throttle on password attempts. Defaults to max 5 attempts in 5 minutes.
  89 * (bug 15016) 'Templates used on this page' list in view source should be wrapped
  90   in a div with class "templatesUsed"
  91 * (bug 14868) Setting $wgFeedDiffCutoff to 0 now disables generation of the diff
  92   entirely, not just the display of it.
  93 * (bug 6387) Introduced new setting $wgCategoryPrefixedDefaultSortkey which
  94   allows having the unprefixed page title as the default category sortkey
  95 * (bug 15079) Add class="ns-talk" / "ns-subject" to <body>. Also added ns-special to
  96   special pages.
  97 * (bug 15052) Skins should add their name as a class in <body>
  98
  99 === API changes in 1.14 ===
 100
 101 * Registration time of users registered before the DB field was created is now
 102   shown as empty instead of the current time.
 103 * API search now falls back to fulltext search by default when using Lucene
 104   or other engine which doesn't support a separate title search function.
 105   This means you can use API search on Wikipedia without explicitly adding
 106   &srwhat=text to the query.
 107 * Added iiprop=bitdepth to imageinfo and aiprop=bitdepth to allimages
 108 * (bug 14713) API-specific permissions (such as 'writeapi' and 'apihighlimits'
 109   are now listed on action=help
 110 * (bug 15044) Added requestid parameter to api.php to facilitate distinguishing
 111   between requests
 112 * (bug 15048) Added limit field for multivalue parameters to action=paraminfo
 113   output.
 114 * When the limit on multivalue parameters is exceeded, a warning is issued
 115
 116 === Languages updated in 1.14 ===
 117
 118 MediaWiki supports over 300 languages. Many localisations are updated
 119 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed.
 120
 121 (no changes yet)
 122
 123 == Compatibility ==
 124
 125 MediaWiki 1.14 requires PHP 5 (5.1 recommended). PHP 4 is no longer supported.
 126
 127 PHP 5.0.x fails on 64-bit systems due to serious bugs with array processing:
 128 http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=34879
 129 Upgrade affected systems to PHP 5.1 or higher.
 130
 131 MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade.
 132 At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.
 133
 134
 135 == Upgrading ==
 136
 137 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons repository,
 138 make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to
 139 database schema changes.
 140
 141 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 142 new database fields are filled with data.
 143
 144 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database
 145 changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could
 146 break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 147
 148 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 149
 150
 151 === Caveats ===
 152
 153 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
 154 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
 155 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
 156 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
 157 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
 158
 159 For notes on 1.13.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 160
 161
 162 === Online documentation ===
 163
 164 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 165 built up on MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 166 License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in
 167 the public domain) :
 168
 169   http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 170
 171
 172 === Mailing list ===
 173
 174 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 175 wikitech-l list:
 176
 177   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 178
 179 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 180
 181   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 182
 183 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 184 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 185
 186
 187 === IRC help ===
 188
 189 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net