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
  39 === New features in 1.14 ===
  40
  41 * New URL syntaxes for Special:ListUsers - 'Special:ListUsers/USER' and
  42   'Special:ListUsers/GROUP/USER', in addition to the older syntax
  43   'Special:ListUsers/GROUP' where GROUP is a valid group name.
  44 * Configurable er-namespace and per-page notices for the edit form,
  45   respectively MediaWiki:Editnotice-# where # is the namespace number, and
  46   MediaWiki:Editnotice-#-PAGENAME where # is the page's namespace number and
  47   PAGENAME is the page name minus the namespace prefix.
  48 * (bug 8068) New __INDEX__ and __NOINDEX__ magic words allow user control of
  49   search engine indexing on a per-article basis.
  50 * Handheld stylesheet options
  51 * Added 'DoEditSectionLink' hook as a cleaner unified version of the old
  52   'EditSectionLink' and 'EditSectionLinkForOther' hooks.  Note that the
  53   'EditSectionLinkForOther' hook has been removed, but 'EditSectionLink' is
  54   run in all cases instead, so extensions using the old hooks should still work
  55   if they ran roughly the same code for both hooks (as is almost certain).
  56 * Signature (~~~~) "cleaning", i.e. template removal, can be disabled with
  57   $wgCleanSignatures=false
  58 * Extensions can use the SkinBuildSidebar hook to modify the content of the
  59   sidebar and add custom portlets to it
  60 * Added 'MakeGlobalVariablesScript' hook for extensions to be able to add vari-
  61   ables into into the output of Skin::makeVariablesScript
  62 * (bug 13846) Added $wgAddGroups and $wgRemoveGroups display on
  63   Special:ListGroupRights
  64 * (bug 14377) Add a date selector to history pages
  65 * (bug 15007) New 'pagetitle-view-mainpage' message allows the HTML <title> of
  66   the main page to be customized
  67 * Added $wgDisableTitleConversion to disabling the conversion for all pages on
  68   the wiki
  69 * Added 'noconvertlink' toggle that can be set per user preferences, also
  70   added 'convertlink=no|yes' on GET requests whether have the link titles
  71   being converted or not
  72 * (bug 14921) Special:Contributions/: add user name to <title>
  73   Patch by Emufarmers
  74 * Unescape more "safe" characters when producing URLs, for added prettiness
  75 * Introduced a new hook 'SkinAfterContent' that allows extensions to add text
  76   after the page content and article metadata. Updated all skins and skin
  77   templates to work with that hook.
  78 * (bug 14929) removeUnusedAccounts.php now supports 'ignore-touched' and
  79   'ignore-groups'. Patch by Louperivois
  80 * (bug 15127) Work around minor display glitch in Opera.
  81 * By default, reject file uploads that look like ZIP files, to avoid the
  82   so-called GIFAR vulnerability.
  83 * (bug 15141) Give ability to only list protected pages with the cascading
  84   option enabled on Special:ProtectedPages
  85 * (bug 15157) Special:Watchlist has the same options as Special:Watchlist:
  86   Show/Hide logged in users, Show/Hide anonymous, Invert namespace selection
  87 * Added hook 'UserrightsChangeableGroups' to allow modification of what
  88   groups may be added or removed via the Special:UserRights interface.
  89
  90 === Bug fixes in 1.14 ===
  91
  92 * (bug 14907) DatabasePostgres::fieldType now defined.
  93 * (bug 14659) Passing the default limit param to Special:Recentchanges no more
  94   falls back to the user option
  95 * (bug 14954) Fix regression in Modern and Simple skins
  96 * Recursion loop check added to Categoryfinder class
  97 * Fixed few performance troubles of large job queue processing
  98 * Not setting various parameters in Foreign Repos now fails more gracefully
  99 * (bug 2333) Redirects are properly rendered when previewing an edit.
 100 * (bug 14972) Use localized alias of Special:Search on all search forms
 101 * (bug 11035) Special:Search should have descriptive <title>
 102 * Special pages are now not subject to special handling for "self-links"
 103 * (bug 15053) Syntactically incorrect redirects with another link in them
 104   no longer redirect to the second link
 105 * (bug 15049) Fix for CheckUser extension's log search: usernames containing
 106   a "-" were incorrectly turned into bogus IP range searches.
 107   Patch by Max Semenik.
 108 * (bug 15055) Talk page notifications no longer attempt to send mail when
 109   user's e-mail address is invalid or unconfirmed
 110 * (bug 12370) Add throttle on password attempts. Defaults to max 5 attempts in 5
 111   minutes.
 112 * (bug 15016) 'Templates used on this page' list in view source should be
 113   wrapped in a div with class "templatesUsed"
 114 * (bug 14868) Setting $wgFeedDiffCutoff to 0 now disables generation of the diff
 115   entirely, not just the display of it.
 116 * (bug 6387) Introduced new setting $wgCategoryPrefixedDefaultSortkey which
 117   allows having the unprefixed page title as the default category sortkey
 118 * (bug 15079) Add class="ns-talk" / "ns-subject" to <body>. Also added
 119   ns-special to special pages.
 120 * (bug 15052) Skins should add their name as a class in <body>
 121 * (bug 14165, bug 14294) Wikimedia specific configuration in convertGrammar()
 122   for several languages was removed. The settings have been put in extension
 123   WikimediaMessages. Patch for Czech by Danny B.
 124 * (bug 15101) Displaying only bots edits in Special:Recentchanges now works
 125   again
 126 * (bug 13770) Fixed incorrect detection of PHP's DOM module
 127 * (bug 14790) Export of category pages when using Category: prefix now actually
 128   gives results
 129
 130 === API changes in 1.14 ===
 131
 132 * Registration time of users registered before the DB field was created is now
 133   shown as empty instead of the current time.
 134 * API search now falls back to fulltext search by default when using Lucene
 135   or other engine which doesn't support a separate title search function.
 136   This means you can use API search on Wikipedia without explicitly adding
 137   &srwhat=text to the query.
 138 * Added iiprop=bitdepth to imageinfo and aiprop=bitdepth to allimages
 139 * (bug 14713) API-specific permissions (such as 'writeapi' and 'apihighlimits'
 140   are now listed on action=help
 141 * (bug 15044) Added requestid parameter to api.php to facilitate distinguishing
 142   between requests
 143 * (bug 15048) Added limit field for multivalue parameters to action=paraminfo
 144   output.
 145 * When the limit on multivalue parameters is exceeded, a warning is issued
 146
 147 === Languages updated in 1.14 ===
 148
 149 MediaWiki supports over 300 languages. Many localisations are updated
 150 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed.
 151
 152 (no changes yet)
 153
 154 == Compatibility ==
 155
 156 MediaWiki 1.14 requires PHP 5 (5.1 recommended). PHP 4 is no longer supported.
 157
 158 PHP 5.0.x fails on 64-bit systems due to serious bugs with array processing:
 159 http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=34879
 160 Upgrade affected systems to PHP 5.1 or higher.
 161
 162 MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade.
 163 At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.
 164
 165
 166 == Upgrading ==
 167
 168 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons repository,
 169 make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to
 170 database schema changes.
 171
 172 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 173 new database fields are filled with data.
 174
 175 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database
 176 changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could
 177 break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 178
 179 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 180
 181
 182 === Caveats ===
 183
 184 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
 185 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
 186 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
 187 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
 188 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
 189
 190 For notes on 1.13.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 MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 197 License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in
 198 the public domain) :
 199
 200   http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 201
 202
 203 === Mailing list ===
 204
 205 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 206 wikitech-l list:
 207
 208   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 209
 210 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 211
 212   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 213
 214 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 215 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 216
 217
 218 === IRC help ===
 219
 220 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net