RELEASE-NOTES-1.21

   1 Security reminder: MediaWiki does not require PHP's register_globals. If you
   2 have it on, turn it '''off''' if you can.
   3
   4 == MediaWiki 1.21 ==
   5
   6 THIS IS NOT A RELEASE YET
   7
   8 MediaWiki 1.21 is an alpha-quality branch and is not recommended for use in
   9 production.
  10
  11 === Configuration changes in 1.21 ===
  12 * (bug 29374) $wgVectorUseSimpleSearch is now enabled by default.
  13 * Deprecated $wgAllowRealName is removed. Use $wgHiddenPrefs[] = 'realname'
  14   instead.
  15 * (bug 39957) Added $wgUnwatchedPageThreshold, specifying minimum count
  16   of page watchers required for the number to be accessible to users
  17   without the unwatchedpages permission.
  18 * $wgBug34832TransitionalRollback has been removed.
  19
  20 === New features in 1.21 ===
  21 * (bug 38110) Schema changes (adding or dropping tables, indicies and
  22   fields) can be now be done separately from from other changes that
  23   update.php makes.  This is useful in environments that use database
  24   permissions to restrict schema changes but allow the DB user that
  25   MediaWiki normally runs as to perform other changes that update.php
  26   makes.  Schema changes can be run seperately.  See the file UPGRADE
  27   for more information.
  28 * (bug 34876) jquery.makeCollapsible has been improved in performance.
  29 * Added ContentHandler facility to allow extensions to support other content
  30   than wikitext. See docs/contenthandler.txt for details.
  31 * New feature was developed for showing high-DPI thumbnails for high-DPI mobile
  32   and desktop displays (configurable with $wgResponsiveImages).
  33 * Added new backend to represent and store information about sites and site
  34   specific configuration.
  35 * jQuery upgraded from 1.8.2 to 1.8.3.
  36 * jQuery UI upgraded from 1.8.23 to 1.8.24.
  37 * Added separate fa_sha1 field to filearchive table. This allows sha1
  38   searches with the api in miser mode for deleted files.
  39 * Add initial and programmatic sorting for tablesorter.
  40 * Add the event "sortEnd.tablesorter", triggered after sorting has completed.
  41 * The Job system was refactored to allow for different backing stores for
  42   queues as well as cross-wiki access to queues, among other things. The schema
  43   for the DB queue was changed to support better concurrency and reduce
  44   deadlock errors.
  45 * Added ApiQueryORM class to facilitate creation of query API modules based on
  46   tables that have a corresponding ORMTable class.
  47 * (bug 40876) Icon for PSD (Adobe Photoshop) file types.
  48 * (bug 40641) Implemented Special:Version/Credits with a list of contributors.
  49 * (bug 7851) Implemented one-click AJAX patrolling.
  50 * The <data>, <time>, <meta>, and <link> elements are allowed within WikiText
  51   for use with Microdata.
  52 * The HTML5 <mark> tag has been whitelisted.
  53 * Added ParserCloned hook for when the Parser object is cloned.
  54 * Added AlternateEditPreview hook to allow extensions to replace the page
  55   preview from the edit page.
  56 * Added EditPage::showStandardInputs:options hook to allow extensions to add
  57   new fields to the "editOptions" area of the edit form.
  58 * Upload stash DB schema altered to improve upload performance.
  59 * The following global functions are now reporting deprecated warnings in
  60   debug mode: wfMsg, wfMsgNoTrans, wfMsgForContent, wfMsgForContentNoTrans,
  61   wfMsgReal, wfMsgGetKey, wfMsgHtml, wfMsgWikiHtml, wfMsgExt, wfEmptyMsg. Use
  62   the Message class, or the global method wfMessage.
  63 * Added $wgEnableCanonicalServerLink, off by default. If enabled, a
  64   <link rel=canonical> tag is added to every page indicating the correct server
  65   to use.
  66 * Debug message emitted by wfDebugLog() will now be prefixed with the group
  67   name when its logged to the default log file. That is the case whenever the
  68   group has no key in wgDebugLogGroups, that will help triage the default log.
  69 * (bug 24620) Add types to LogFormatter.
  70 * jQuery JSON upgraded from 2.3 to 2.4.0.
  71 * Added GetDoubleUnderscoreIDs hook, for modifying the list of magic words.
  72 * DatabaseUpdater class has two new methods to ease extensions schema changes:
  73   dropExtensionIndex and renameExtensionIndex.
  74 * New preference type - 'api'. Preferences of this type are not shown on
  75   Special:Preferences, but are still available via the action=options API.
  76 * (bug 39397) Hide rollback link if a user is the only contributor of the page.
  77 * $wgPageInfoTransclusionLimit limits the list size of transcluded articles
  78   on the info action. Default is 50.
  79 * Added action=createaccount to allow user account creation.
  80 * (bug 40124) action=options API also allows for setting of arbitrary
  81   preferences, provided that their names are prefixed with 'userjs-'. This
  82   officially reenables the feature that was undocumented and defective
  83   in MW 1.20 (saving preferences using Special:Preferences cleared any
  84   additional fields) and which has been disabled in 1.20.1 as a part of
  85   a security fix (bug 42202).
  86 * Added the ability to limit the wall clock time used by shell processes,
  87   as well as the CPU time. Configurable with $wgMaxShellWallClockTime.
  88 * Added $wgWhitelistReadRegexp for regex whitelisting.
  89 * (bug 5346) Categories that are redirects will be displayed italic in
  90   the category links section at the bottom of a page.
  91 * (bug 43915) New maintenance script deleteEqualMessages.php.
  92
  93 === Bug fixes in 1.21 ===
  94 * (bug 40353) SpecialDoubleRedirect should support interwiki redirects.
  95 * (bug 40352) fixDoubleRedirects.php should support interwiki redirects.
  96 * (bug 9237) SpecialBrokenRedirect should not list interwiki redirects.
  97 * (bug 34960) Drop unused fields rc_moved_to_ns and rc_moved_to_title from
  98   recentchanges table.
  99 * (bug 32951) Do not register internal externals with absolute protocol,
 100   when server has relative protocol.
 101 * (bug 39005) When purging proxies listed in $wgSquidServers using HTTP PURGE
 102   method requests, we now send a Host header by default, for Varnish
 103   compatibility. This also works with Squid in reverse-proxy mode. If you wish
 104   to support Squid configured in forward-proxy mode, set
 105   $wgSquidPurgeUseHostHeader to false.
 106 * (bug 37020) sql.php with readline eats semicolon.
 107 * (bug 11748) Properly handle optionally-closed HTML tags when Tidy is
 108   disabled, and don't wrap HTML-syntax definition lists in paragraphs.
 109 * (bug 41409) Diffs while editing an old revision should again diff against the
 110   current revision.
 111 * (bug 41494) Honor $wgLogExceptionBacktrace when logging non-API exceptions
 112   caught during API execution.
 113 * (bug 37963) Fixed loading process for user options.
 114 * (bug 26995) Update filename field on Upload page after having sanitized it.
 115 * (bug 41793) Contribution links to users with 0 edits on Special:ListUsers
 116   didn't show up red.
 117 * (bug 41899) A PHP notice no longer occurs when using the "rvcontinue" API
 118   parameter.
 119 * (bug 42036) Account creation emails now contain canonical (not
 120   protocol-relative) URLs.
 121 * (bug 41990) Fix regression: API edit with redirect=true and lacking
 122   starttimestamp and basetimestamp should not cause an edit conflict.
 123 * (bug 41706) EditPage: Preloaded page should be converted if possible and
 124   needed.
 125 * (bug 41886) Rowspans are no longer exploded by tablesorter until the table is
 126   actually sorted.
 127 * (bug 2865)  User interface HTML elements don't use lang attribute.
 128   (completed the fix by adding the lang attribute to firstHeading).
 129 * (bug 42173) Removed namespace prefixes on Special:UncategorizedCategories.
 130 * (bug 36053) Log in "returnto" feature forgets query parameters if no
 131   title parameter was specified.
 132 * (bug 42410) API action=edit now returns correct timestamp for the new edit.
 133 * (bug 14901) Email notification mistakes log action for new page creation.
 134   Enotif no longer sends "page has been created" notifications for some log
 135   actions. The following events now have a correct message: page creation,
 136   deletion, move, restore (undeletion), change (edit). Parameter
 137   $CHANGEDORCREATED is deprecated in 'enotif_body' and scheduled for removal in
 138   MediaWiki 1.23.
 139 * (bug 457) In the sidebar of Vector, CologneBlue, Monobook, and Monobook-based
 140   skins, the heading levels have been changed from (variously per skin)
 141   <h4>, <h5> or <h6> to only <h3>s, with a <h2> hidden heading above them.
 142   If you are styling or scripting the headings in a custom way, this change
 143   will require updates to your site's CSS or JS.
 144 * (bug 41342) jquery.suggestions should cancel any active (async) fetches
 145   before it triggers another fetch.
 146 * (bug 42184) $wgUploadSizeWarning missing second variable.
 147 * (bug 34581) removeUnusedAccounts.php maintenance script now ignores newuser
 148   log when determining whether an account is used.
 149 * (bug 43379) Gracefully fail if rev_len is unavailable for a revision on the
 150   History page.
 151 * (bug 42949) API no longer assumes all exceptions are MWException.
 152 * (bug 41733) Hide "New user message" (.usermessage) element from printable view.
 153 * (bug 39062) Special:Contributions will display changes that don't have
 154   a parent id instead of just an empty bullet item.
 155 * (bug 37209) "LinkCache doesn't currently know about this title" error fixed.
 156 * wfMerge() now works if $wgDiff3 contains spaces
 157 * (bug 43052) mediawiki.action.view.dblClickEdit.dblClickEdit should trigger
 158   ca-edit click instead opening URL directly.
 159 * (bug 43964) Invalid value of "link" parameter in <gallery> no longer produces
 160   a fatal error.
 161
 162 === API changes in 1.21 ===
 163 * prop=revisions can now report the contentmodel and contentformat.
 164   See docs/contenthandler.txt.
 165 * action=edit and action=parse now support contentmodel and contentformat
 166   parameters to control the interpretation of page content.
 167   See docs/contenthandler.txt for details.
 168 * (bug 35693) ApiQueryImageInfo now suppresses errors when unserializing metadata.
 169 * (bug 40111) Disable minor edit for page/section creation by API.
 170 * (bug 41042) Revert change to action=parse&page=... behavior when the page
 171   does not exist.
 172 * (bug 27202) Add timestamp sort to list=allimages.
 173 * (bug 43137) Don't return the sha1 of revisions through the API if the content is
 174   revision-deleted.
 175 * ApiQueryImageInfo now also returns imageinfo for redirects.
 176 * list=alltransclusions added to enumerate every instance of page embedding
 177 * list=alllinks & alltransclusions now allow both 'from' and 'continue' in
 178   the same query. When both are present, 'from' is simply ignored.
 179 * list=alllinks & alltransclusions now allow 'unique' in generators, to yield
 180   a list of all link/template target pages instead of source pages.
 181 * BREAKING CHANGE: list=logevents output format changed for details of some log
 182   types. Specifically, details that were formerly reported under a key like
 183   "4::foo" will now be reported under a key of simply "foo".
 184 * BREAKING CHANGE: '??_badcontinue' error code was changed to '??badcontinue'
 185   for all query modules.
 186 * ApiQueryBase adds 'badcontinue' error code if module has 'continue' parameter.
 187 * (bug 35885) Removed version parameter and all getVersion() methods.
 188 * action=options now takes a "resetkinds" option, which allows only resetting
 189   certain types of preferences when the "reset" option is set.
 190 * (bug 36751) ApiQueryImageInfo now returns imageinfo for the redirect target
 191   when queried with &redirects=.
 192 * (bug 31849) ApiQueryImageInfo no longer gets confused when asked for info on
 193   a redirect and its target.
 194 * (bug 43849) ApiQueryImageInfo no longer throws exceptions with ForeignDBRepo
 195   redirects.
 196 * On error, any warnings generated before that error will be shown in the result.
 197
 198 === API internal changes in 1.21 ===
 199 * For debugging only, a new global $wgDebugAPI removes many API restrictions when true.
 200   Never use on the production servers, as this flag introduces security holes.
 201   Whenever enabled, a warning will also be added to all output.
 202
 203 === Languages updated in 1.21 ===
 204
 205 MediaWiki supports over 350 languages. Many localisations are updated
 206 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as
 207 changes to languages because of Bugzilla reports.
 208
 209 * South Azerbaijani (azb) added.
 210 * (bug 30040) Autonym for nds-nl is now 'Nedersaksies' (was 'Nedersaksisch').
 211 * (bug 34977) Now formatted numbers in Spanish use space as separator
 212   for thousands, as mandated by the Real Academia Española.
 213 * (bug 35031) Kurdish formatted numbers now use period and comma
 214   as separators for thousands and decimals respectively.
 215
 216 === Other changes in 1.21 ===
 217
 218 == Compatibility ==
 219
 220 MediaWiki 1.21 requires PHP 5.3.2 or later.
 221
 222 MySQL is the recommended DBMS. PostgreSQL or SQLite can also be used, but
 223 support for them is somewhat less mature. There is experimental support for IBM
 224 DB2 and Oracle.
 225
 226 The supported versions are:
 227
 228 * MySQL 5.0.2 or later
 229 * PostgreSQL 8.3 or later
 230 * SQLite 3.3.7 or later
 231 * Oracle 9.0.1 or later
 232
 233 == Upgrading ==
 234
 235 1.21 has several database changes since 1.20, and will not work without schema
 236 updates. Note that due to changes to some very large tables like the revision
 237 table, the schema update may take quite long (minutes on a medium sized site,
 238 many hours on a large site).
 239
 240 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons
 241 repository, make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise
 242 due to database schema changes.
 243
 244 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 245 new database fields are filled with data.
 246
 247 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, you should upgrade to
 248 1.5 first. The upgrade script maintenance/upgrade1_5.php has been removed
 249 with MediaWiki 1.21.
 250
 251 Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 252
 253 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 254
 255 For notes on 1.19.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 256
 257 == Online documentation ==
 258
 259 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is available on
 260 MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License (except
 261 for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in the public domain):
 262
 263         https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 264
 265 == Mailing list ==
 266
 267 A mailing list is available for MediaWiki user support and discussion:
 268
 269         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 270
 271 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 272
 273         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 274
 275 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 276 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 277
 278 == IRC help ==
 279
 280 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net.