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' toggle 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 * (bug 14929) removeUnusedAccounts.php now supports 'ignore-touched' and
  68   'ignore-groups'. Patch by Louperivois
  69 * (bug 15127) Work around minor display glitch in Opera.
  70 * By default, reject file uploads that look like ZIP files, to avoid the
  71   so-called GIFAR vulnerability.
  72
  73 === Bug fixes in 1.14 ===
  74
  75 * (bug 14907) DatabasePostgres::fieldType now defined.
  76 * (bug 14659) Passing the default limit param to Special:Recentchanges no more
  77   falls back to the user option
  78 * (bug 14954) Fix regression in Modern and Simple skins
  79 * Recursion loop check added to Categoryfinder class
  80 * Fixed few performance troubles of large job queue processing
  81 * Not setting various parameters in Foreign Repos now fails more gracefully
  82 * (bug 2333) Redirects are properly rendered when previewing an edit.
  83 * (bug 14972) Use localized alias of Special:Search on all search forms
  84 * (bug 11035) Special:Search should have descriptive <title>
  85 * Special pages are now not subject to special handling for "self-links"
  86 * (bug 15053) Syntactically incorrect redirects with another link in them
  87   no longer redirect to the second link
  88 * (bug 15049) Fix for CheckUser extension's log search: usernames containing
  89   a "-" were incorrectly turned into bogus IP range searches.
  90   Patch by Max Semenik.
  91 * (bug 15055) Talk page notifications no longer attempt to send mail when
  92   user's e-mail address is invalid or unconfirmed
  93 * (bug 12370) Add throttle on password attempts. Defaults to max 5 attempts in 5
  94   minutes.
  95 * (bug 15016) 'Templates used on this page' list in view source should be
  96   wrapped in a div with class "templatesUsed"
  97 * (bug 14868) Setting $wgFeedDiffCutoff to 0 now disables generation of the diff
  98   entirely, not just the display of it.
  99 * (bug 6387) Introduced new setting $wgCategoryPrefixedDefaultSortkey which
 100   allows having the unprefixed page title as the default category sortkey
 101 * (bug 15079) Add class="ns-talk" / "ns-subject" to <body>. Also added
 102   ns-special to special pages.
 103 * (bug 15052) Skins should add their name as a class in <body>
 104 * (bug 14165, bug 14294) Wikimedia specific configuration in convertGrammar()
 105   for several languages was removed. The settings have been put in extension
 106   WikimediaMessages. Patch for Czech by Danny B.
 107 * (bug 15101) Displaying only bots edits in Special:Recentchanges now works
 108   again
 109 * (bug 13770) Fixed incorrect detection of PHP's DOM module
 110 * (bug 14790) Export of category pages when using Category: prefix now actually
 111   gives results
 112
 113 === API changes in 1.14 ===
 114
 115 * Registration time of users registered before the DB field was created is now
 116   shown as empty instead of the current time.
 117 * API search now falls back to fulltext search by default when using Lucene
 118   or other engine which doesn't support a separate title search function.
 119   This means you can use API search on Wikipedia without explicitly adding
 120   &srwhat=text to the query.
 121 * Added iiprop=bitdepth to imageinfo and aiprop=bitdepth to allimages
 122 * (bug 14713) API-specific permissions (such as 'writeapi' and 'apihighlimits'
 123   are now listed on action=help
 124 * (bug 15044) Added requestid parameter to api.php to facilitate distinguishing
 125   between requests
 126 * (bug 15048) Added limit field for multivalue parameters to action=paraminfo
 127   output.
 128 * When the limit on multivalue parameters is exceeded, a warning is issued
 129
 130 === Languages updated in 1.14 ===
 131
 132 MediaWiki supports over 300 languages. Many localisations are updated
 133 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed.
 134
 135 (no changes yet)
 136
 137 == Compatibility ==
 138
 139 MediaWiki 1.14 requires PHP 5 (5.1 recommended). PHP 4 is no longer supported.
 140
 141 PHP 5.0.x fails on 64-bit systems due to serious bugs with array processing:
 142 http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=34879
 143 Upgrade affected systems to PHP 5.1 or higher.
 144
 145 MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade.
 146 At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.
 147
 148
 149 == Upgrading ==
 150
 151 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons repository,
 152 make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to
 153 database schema changes.
 154
 155 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 156 new database fields are filled with data.
 157
 158 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database
 159 changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could
 160 break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 161
 162 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 163
 164
 165 === Caveats ===
 166
 167 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
 168 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
 169 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
 170 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
 171 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
 172
 173 For notes on 1.13.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 174
 175
 176 === Online documentation ===
 177
 178 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 179 built up on MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 180 License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in
 181 the public domain) :
 182
 183   http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 184
 185
 186 === Mailing list ===
 187
 188 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 189 wikitech-l list:
 190
 191   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 192
 193 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 194
 195   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 196
 197 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 198 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 199
 200
 201 === IRC help ===
 202
 203 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net