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 * $wgGroupsAddToSelf and $wgGroupsRemoveFromSelf now work more like
  35   $wgAddGroups and $wgRemoveGroups, where the user must belong to a specified
  36   group in order to add or remove those groups from themselves.
  37   Backwards compatibility is maintained.
  38 * $wgRestrictDisplayTitle controls if the use of the {{DISPLAYTITLE}} magic
  39   word is restricted to titles equivalent to the actual page title. This
  40   is true per default, but can be set to false to allow any title.
  41 * $wgSpamRegex may now be an array of multiple regular expressions.
  42 * $wgAjaxSearch has been removed; use $wgEnableMWSuggest instead.
  43 * Editing the MediaWiki namespace is now unconditionally restricted to people
  44   with the editinterface right, configuring this in $wgNamespaceProtection
  45   is not required.
  46 * $wgAllowExternalImagesFrom may now be an array of multiple strings.
  47 * Introduced $wgEnableImageWhitelist to toggle the on-wiki external image
  48   whitelist on or off.
  49
  50 === New features in 1.14 ===
  51
  52 * New URL syntaxes for Special:ListUsers - 'Special:ListUsers/USER' and
  53   'Special:ListUsers/GROUP/USER', in addition to the older syntax
  54   'Special:ListUsers/GROUP' where GROUP is a valid group name.
  55 * Configurable per-namespace and per-page notices for the edit form,
  56   respectively MediaWiki:Editnotice-# where # is the namespace number, and
  57   MediaWiki:Editnotice-#-PAGENAME where # is the page's namespace number and
  58   PAGENAME is the page name minus the namespace prefix.
  59 * (bug 8068) New __INDEX__ and __NOINDEX__ magic words allow user control of
  60   search engine indexing on a per-article basis.
  61 * Handheld stylesheet options
  62 * Added 'DoEditSectionLink' hook as a cleaner unified version of the old
  63   'EditSectionLink' and 'EditSectionLinkForOther' hooks.  Note that the
  64   'EditSectionLinkForOther' hook has been removed, but 'EditSectionLink' is
  65   run in all cases instead, so extensions using the old hooks should still work
  66   if they ran roughly the same code for both hooks (as is almost certain).
  67 * Signature (~~~~) "cleaning", i.e. template removal, can be disabled with
  68   $wgCleanSignatures=false
  69 * Extensions can use the SkinBuildSidebar hook to modify the content of the
  70   sidebar and add custom portlets to it
  71 * Added 'MakeGlobalVariablesScript' hook for extensions to be able to add vari-
  72   ables into into the output of Skin::makeVariablesScript
  73 * (bug 13846) Added $wgAddGroups and $wgRemoveGroups display on
  74   Special:ListGroupRights
  75 * (bug 14377) Add a date selector to history pages
  76 * (bug 15007) New 'pagetitle-view-mainpage' message allows the HTML <title> of
  77   the main page to be customized
  78 * Added $wgDisableTitleConversion to disabling the conversion for all pages on
  79   the wiki
  80 * Added 'noconvertlink' toggle that can be set per user preferences, also
  81   added 'convertlink=no|yes' on GET requests whether have the link titles
  82   being converted or not
  83 * (bug 14921) Special:Contributions/: add user name to <title>
  84   Patch by Emufarmers
  85 * Unescape more "safe" characters when producing URLs, for added prettiness
  86 * Introduced a new hook 'SkinAfterContent' that allows extensions to add text
  87   after the page content and article metadata. Updated all skins and skin
  88   templates to work with that hook.
  89 * (bug 14929) removeUnusedAccounts.php now supports 'ignore-touched' and
  90   'ignore-groups'. Patch by Louperivois
  91 * (bug 15127) Work around minor display glitch in Opera.
  92 * By default, reject file uploads that look like ZIP files, to avoid the
  93   so-called GIFAR vulnerability.
  94 * (bug 15141) Give ability to only list protected pages with the cascading
  95   option enabled on Special:ProtectedPages
  96 * (bug 15157) Special:Watchlist has the same options as Special:Watchlist:
  97   Show/Hide logged in users, Show/Hide anonymous, Invert namespace selection
  98 * Added hook 'UserrightsChangeableGroups' to allow modification of what
  99   groups may be added or removed via the Special:UserRights interface.
 100 * HTML entities like &nbsp; now work (are not escaped) in edit summaries.
 101 * (bug 13815) In the comment for page moves, use the colon-separator message
 102   instead of a hardcoded colon.
 103 * Allow <gallery> to accept image names without an Image: prefix
 104 * Add tooltips to rollback and undo links
 105 * BMP images are now displayed as PNG
 106 * (bug 13471) Added NUMBERINGROUP magic word
 107 * (bug 11884) Now support Flash EXIF attribute
 108 * Show thumbnails in the file history list, patch by User:Agbad
 109 * Added support of piped wikilinks using double-width brackets
 110 * Added an on-wiki external image whitelist. Items in this whitelist are
 111   treated as regular expression fragments to match for when possibly
 112   displaying an external image inline.
 113 * (bugs 15405, 15436) Sort more currency types correctly in sortable tables
 114 * (bug 15422) Sort more different types of numbers in sortable tables
 115 * (bug 2889) MediaWiki:Print.css applies to the printable version
 116 * Category counts (e.g. from {{PAGESINCATEGORY:}}) should be more accurate for
 117   small categories
 118
 119 === Bug fixes in 1.14 ===
 120
 121 * (bug 14907) DatabasePostgres::fieldType now defined.
 122 * (bug 14659) Passing the default limit param to Special:Recentchanges no more
 123   falls back to the user option
 124 * (bug 14954) Fix regression in Modern and Simple skins
 125 * Recursion loop check added to Categoryfinder class
 126 * Fixed few performance troubles of large job queue processing
 127 * Not setting various parameters in Foreign Repos now fails more gracefully
 128 * (bug 2333) Redirects are properly rendered when previewing an edit.
 129 * (bug 14972) Use localized alias of Special:Search on all search forms
 130 * (bug 11035) Special:Search should have descriptive <title>
 131 * Special pages are now not subject to special handling for "self-links"
 132 * (bug 15053) Syntactically incorrect redirects with another link in them
 133   no longer redirect to the second link
 134 * (bug 15049) Fix for CheckUser extension's log search: usernames containing
 135   a "-" were incorrectly turned into bogus IP range searches.
 136   Patch by Max Semenik.
 137 * (bug 15055) Talk page notifications no longer attempt to send mail when
 138   user's e-mail address is invalid or unconfirmed
 139 * (bug 12370) Add throttle on password attempts. Defaults to max 5 attempts in 5
 140   minutes.
 141 * (bug 15016) 'Templates used on this page' list in view source should be
 142   wrapped in a div with class "templatesUsed"
 143 * (bug 14868) Setting $wgFeedDiffCutoff to 0 now disables generation of the diff
 144   entirely, not just the display of it.
 145 * (bug 6387) Introduced new setting $wgCategoryPrefixedDefaultSortkey which
 146   allows having the unprefixed page title as the default category sortkey
 147 * (bug 15079) Add class="ns-talk" / "ns-subject" to <body>. Also added
 148   ns-special to special pages.
 149 * (bug 15052) Skins should add their name as a class in <body>
 150 * (bug 14165, bug 14294) Wikimedia specific configuration in convertGrammar()
 151   for several languages was removed. The settings have been put in extension
 152   WikimediaMessages. Patch for Czech by Danny B.
 153 * (bug 15101) Displaying only bots edits in Special:Recentchanges now works
 154   again
 155 * (bug 13770) Fixed incorrect detection of PHP's DOM module
 156 * (bug 14790) Export of category pages when using Category: prefix now actually
 157   gives results
 158 * Avoid recursive crazy expansions in section edit comments for pages which
 159   contain '/*' in the title
 160 * Fix excessive memory usage when parsing pages with lots of links
 161 * $wgSpamRegex now matches the edit summary and page move descriptions in
 162   addition to body text.
 163 * Navigation links to images available from a shared repository (like Commons)
 164   from their local talk pages no longer appear as redlinks
 165 * Action=purge on ForeignApiFiles now works (purges their thumbnails and
 166   description pages).
 167 * (bug 15303) Title conversion for templates wasn't working in some cases.
 168 * (bug 15264) Underscores in Special:Search/Foo_bar parameters were taken
 169   literally; now converting them to spaces per expectation.
 170 * (bug 15342) "Invert" checkbox now works correctly when selecting main
 171   namespace in Special:Watchlist
 172 * (bug 15172) 'Go' button of Special:Recentchanges now on the same line as the
 173   last input element (like Special:Watchlist too)
 174 * (bug 15351) Fix fatal error for invalid section fragments in autocomments
 175 * Fixed intermittent deadlock errors involving objectcache table queries.
 176   Use a separate database connection for the objectcache table to avoid
 177   long-lasting locks on that table.
 178 * Respect file restrictions in the file history list
 179 * (bug 15399) Odd/even classes on sortable tables' rows could be slow for large
 180   tables, and have been disabled by default.
 181 * (bug 15482) Special:Recentchangeslinked has no longer two submit buttons
 182 * (bug 15292) New message notification for unregistred users now works again
 183 * (bug 14398) mwsuggest.js: Let width of container be configurable
 184
 185
 186 === API changes in 1.14 ===
 187
 188 * Registration time of users registered before the DB field was created is now
 189   shown as empty instead of the current time.
 190 * API search now falls back to fulltext search by default when using Lucene
 191   or other engine which doesn't support a separate title search function.
 192   This means you can use API search on Wikipedia without explicitly adding
 193   &srwhat=text to the query.
 194 * Added iiprop=bitdepth to imageinfo and aiprop=bitdepth to allimages
 195 * (bug 14713) API-specific permissions (such as 'writeapi' and 'apihighlimits'
 196   are now listed on action=help
 197 * (bug 15044) Added requestid parameter to api.php to facilitate distinguishing
 198   between requests
 199 * (bug 15048) Added limit field for multivalue parameters to action=paraminfo
 200   output.
 201 * When the limit on multivalue parameters is exceeded, a warning is issued
 202 * list=search doesn't list missing pages any more
 203 * (bug 15178) Added clshow to prop=categories to allow filtering for hidden/
 204   non-hidden categories
 205 * (bug 15228) Combining revids= and redirects now throws a warning instead of an
 206   error, and still resolves redirects generated by the generator.
 207 * list={backlinks,embeddedin,imageusage} now return arrays with keys 0, 1, 2,
 208   etc. (AKA lists) instead of arrays with pageIDs as keys (AKA hash tables)
 209   for consistency with other list modules.
 210 * Added action=watch
 211 * (bug 15275) apprefix and related parameters ignore spaces at the end
 212 * action=edit no longer throws unknown error 228  when trying to create an empty
 213   section with section=new
 214 * Database replication lag doesn't cause all action=edit requests to return the
 215   nochange flag any more
 216 * (bug 15392) ApiFormatBase::formatHTML now uses $wgUrlProtocols.
 217 * (bug 15444) action=edit returns "Unknown error: ``AS_END''" where it should
 218   return just "Unknown error"
 219 * (bug 15448) YAML output returns empty values instead of 0
 220 * (bug 15445) Added action=patrol
 221 * (bug 15466) Added action=purge
 222 * (bug 15486) action=block ignores autoblock parameter
 223 * (bug 15492) added rcprop=loginfo to list=recentchanges
 224
 225 === Languages updated in 1.14 ===
 226
 227 MediaWiki supports over 300 languages. Many localisations are updated
 228 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed.
 229
 230 * Fiji Hindi (Devanagari script) (hif-deva)
 231 * Krio (kri)
 232 * Lezghian (lez)
 233 * Laz (lzz)
 234 * Niuean (niu)
 235 * Oromo (om)
 236 * Plautdietsch (pdt)
 237 * Tarantino (roa-tara)
 238 * Serbo-Croatian (sh)
 239
 240 == Compatibility ==
 241
 242 MediaWiki 1.14 requires PHP 5 (5.1 recommended). PHP 4 is no longer supported.
 243
 244 PHP 5.0.x fails on 64-bit systems due to serious bugs with array processing:
 245 http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=34879
 246 Upgrade affected systems to PHP 5.1 or higher.
 247
 248 MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade.
 249 At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.
 250
 251
 252 == Upgrading ==
 253
 254 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons repository,
 255 make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to
 256 database schema changes.
 257
 258 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 259 new database fields are filled with data.
 260
 261 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database
 262 changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could
 263 break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 264
 265 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 266
 267
 268 === Caveats ===
 269
 270 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
 271 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
 272 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
 273 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
 274 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
 275
 276 For notes on 1.13.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 277
 278
 279 === Online documentation ===
 280
 281 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 282 built up on MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 283 License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in
 284 the public domain) :
 285
 286   http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 287
 288
 289 === Mailing list ===
 290
 291 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 292 wikitech-l list:
 293
 294   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 295
 296 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 297
 298   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 299
 300 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 301 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 302
 303
 304 === IRC help ===
 305
 306 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net