RELEASE-NOTES-1.23

   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 1.23 ==
   5
   6 THIS IS NOT A RELEASE YET
   7
   8 MediaWiki 1.23 is an alpha-quality branch and is not recommended for use in
   9 production.
  10
  11 === Configuration changes in 1.23 ===
  12 * $wgDebugLogGroups values may be set to an associative array with a
  13   'destination' key specifying the log destination. The array may also contain
  14   a 'sample' key with a positive integer value N indicating that the log group
  15   should be sampled by dispatching one in every N messages on average. The
  16   sampling is random.
  17 * In addition to the current exception log format, MediaWiki now serializes
  18   exception metadata to JSON and logs it to the 'exception-json' log group.
  19   This makes MediaWiki easier to integrate with log aggregation and analysis
  20   tools.
  21 * $wgSquidServersNoPurge now supports the use of Classless Inter-Domain
  22   Routing (CIDR) notation to specify contiguous blocks of IPv4 and/or IPv6
  23   addresses that should be trusted to provide X-Forwarded-For headers.
  24 * Preferences 'watchcreations', 'watchdefault', 'enotifwatchlistpages' ("Add
  25   pages I create and files I upload to my watchlist", "Add pages and files I
  26   edit to my watchlist", "Email me when a page or file on my watchlist is
  27   changed") are now enabled by default. In addition new user accounts' personal
  28   and talk pages are now watched by them by default.
  29 * $wgLBFactoryConf: Class names have had underscores removed. The configuration
  30   should be updated if LBFactory_Simple or LBFactory_Multi is configured.
  31 * $wgPasswordSenderName has been deprecated. To set a custom mailer name,
  32   the system message 'emailsender' should be modified (default: "{{SITENAME}}").
  33 * $wgDBAhandler was removed as the only class using it was also removed
  34 * The 'max threads' setting was removed from $wgDBservers.
  35 * Support for AdminSettings.php has been completely removed. All configuration
  36   belongs in LocalSettings.php.
  37 * Special:ProtectedPages shows now a table. The timestamp, the reason and
  38   the protecting user is also shown.
  39
  40 === New features in 1.23 ===
  41 * ResourceLoader can utilize the Web Storage API to cache modules client-side.
  42   Compared to the browser cache, caching in Web Storage allows ResourceLoader
  43   to be more granular about evicting stale modules from the cache while
  44   retaining the ability to retrieve multiple modules in a single HTTP request.
  45   This capability can be enabled by setting $wgResourceLoaderStorageEnabled to
  46   true. This feature is currently considered experimental and should only be
  47   enabled with care.
  48 * (bug 6092) Add expensive parser functions {{REVISIONID:}}, {{REVISIONUSER:}}
  49   and {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP:}} (with friends).
  50 * Add "wgRelevantUserName" to mw.config containing the current
  51   Skin::getRelevantUser value.
  52 * (bug 56033) Add content model to the page information.
  53 * Added Article::MissingArticleConditions hook to give extensions a chance to
  54   hide their (unrelated) log entries.
  55 * Added LonelyPagesQuery hook to let extensions modify the query used to
  56   generate Special:LonelyPages.
  57 * Added $wgOpenSearchDefaultLimit defining the default number of entries to show
  58   on action=opensearch API call.
  59 * For namespaces with $wgNamespaceProtection (including the MediaWiki
  60   namespace), the "protect" tab will be shown only if there are restriction
  61   levels available that would restrict editing beyond what
  62   $wgNamespaceProtection already applies. The protection form will offer only
  63   those protection levels.
  64 * Added $wgAPIFormatModules, allowing extensions to add additional output
  65   formatting modules for the API.
  66 * (bug 47812) The MediaWiki:Group-user.{css,js} pages can now be used to add
  67   custom CSS or JavaScript enabled only for registered users.
  68 * (bug 52005) Special pages RecentChanges, RecentChangesLinked and Watchlist
  69   now include a legend describing the symbols used in lists of changes.
  70 * Improved the accessibility of the tabs in Special:Preferences.
  71 * Added ApiBeforeMain hook, roughly equivalent to the BeforeInitialize hook:
  72   it's called after everything is set up but before any major processing
  73   happens.
  74 * The jquery.client module now performs a component-wise version comparison in
  75   its #test method when strings are used in the browser map: version '1.10' is
  76   now correctly considered larger than '1.2'. Using numbers in the version map
  77   is not affected.
  78 * All API modules now support an assert parameter, which can either be
  79   'user' or 'bot'. The API will throw an error if the user is not logged
  80   in (user) or does not have the 'bot' userright (bot). Based off of the
  81   AssertEdit extension by Steve Sanbeg.
  82 * WikitextContent will now render redirects with the expected "redirect"
  83   header, rather than as an ordered list. Code calling Article::viewRedirect
  84   can probably be changed to no longer special-case redirects.
  85 * [[Special:Diff]] was added, allowing users to create internal links to
  86   revision comparison pages using syntax such as [[Special:Diff/12345]],
  87   [[Special:Diff/12345/prev]] or [[Special:Diff/12345/98765]].
  88 * New user accounts' personal and talk pages are now watched by them by default.
  89 * Added SkinTemplateGetLanguageLink hook to allow changing the html of language
  90   links.
  91 * Added MessageCache::get hook as a new way to customize messages across
  92   multiple sites.
  93
  94 === Bug fixes in 1.23 ===
  95 * (bug 41759) The "updated since last visit" markers (on history pages, recent
  96   changes and watchlist) and the talk page message indicator are now correctly
  97   updated when the user is viewing old revisions of pages, instead of always
  98   acting as if the latest revision was being viewed.
  99 * (bug 56443) Special:ConfirmEmail no longer shows a "Mail a confirmation code"
 100   when the email address is already confirmed. Also, consistently use
 101   "confirmed", rather than "authenticated", when messaging whether or not the
 102   user has confirmed an email address.
 103 * (bug 56912) Show correct link color on cached result of Special:DeadendPages.
 104 * Classes TitleListDependency and TitleDependency have been removed, as they
 105   have been found unused in core and extensions for a long time.
 106 * (bug 57098) SpecialPasswordReset now obeys returnto parameter
 107 * (bug 37812) ResourceLoader will notice when a module's definition changes and
 108   recompile it accordingly.
 109 * (bug 57201) SpecialRecentChangesFilters hook is now executed for feeds.
 110 * (bug 58640) Fixed a compatibility issue with PCRE 8.34 that caused pages
 111   to appear blank or with missing text.
 112 * (bug 56931) Updated the plural rules to CLDR 24. They are in new format
 113   which is detailed in UTS 35 Rev 33. The PHP parser and evaluator as well as
 114   the JavaScript evaluator were updated to support the new format. Plural rules
 115   for some languages have changed, most notably Russian. Affected software
 116   messages have been updated and marked for review at translatewiki.net.
 117 * (bug 14323) Redirect pages, when viewed with redirect=no, no longer hide the
 118   remaining page content.
 119 * (bug 23542) imagelinks now stores both the redirect and target (as
 120   templatelinks does).
 121 * (bug 58167) The web installer no longer throws an exception when PHP is
 122   compiled without support for MySQL yet with support for another DBMS.
 123 * (bug 56199) Raw option of parser functions must now match complete word,
 124   to take effect.
 125 * (bug 60543) Special:PrefixIndex forgot stripprefix=1 for "Next page" link
 126 * (bug 29762) Undoing an already-undone edit will now display an appropriate
 127   message instead of leading the user to make a null edit.
 128
 129 === Web API changes in 1.23 ===
 130 * (bug 54884) action=parse&prop=categories now indicates hidden and missing
 131   categories.
 132 * action=query&meta=filerepoinfo now returns additional information for each
 133   repo.
 134 * action=parse&prop=languageshtml was deprecated in 1.18 and will be removed in
 135   MediaWiki 1.24.
 136 * action=parse now has disabletoc flag to disable table of contents in output.
 137 * (bug 25702) list=allcategories, list=allimages, list=alllinks, list=allpages,
 138   list=deletedrevs and list=filearchive did not handle case-sensitivity
 139   properly for all parameters.
 140 * ApiQueryBase::titlePartToKey allows an extra parameter that indicates the
 141   namespace in order to properly capitalize the title part.
 142 * (bug 57874) action=feedcontributions no longer has one item more than limit.
 143 * All API modules now support an assert parameter. See the new features section
 144   for more details.
 145 * Added prop=contributors to fetch the list of contributors to the page.
 146 * The following API modules will now return entries where fields have been
 147   revision-deleted: list=deletedrevs, list=filearchive, list=recentchanges,
 148   list=watchlist. "hidden" indicators will be included, in the same style as is
 149   already done for prop=revisions.
 150 * The following API modules will now return the content of revision-deleted
 151   fields, in addition to the "hidden" indicators, if the querying user has the
 152   necessary rights: list=logevents, list=usercontribs, prop=imageinfo,
 153   prop=revisions.
 154 * The above modules, where applicable, will now return entries filtered by
 155   revision-deleted fields if the querying user has the necessary rights. For
 156   example, prop=revisions with rvuser or rvexcludeuser will no longer skip
 157   revisions where the user was revision-deleted if the current user has the
 158   deletedhistory right.
 159 * The 'hideuser' right, used when blocking, is no longer necessary or
 160   sufficient for seeing contributions with revision-deleted in
 161   list=usercontribs.
 162 * list=watchlist now uses the querying user's rights rather than the wlowner's
 163   rights when checking whether wlprop=patrol is allowed.
 164 * (bug 32151) ApiWatch now has pageset capabilities (titles/pageids/generators).
 165   Title parameter is now deprecated.
 166 * (bug 23005) Added action=revisiondelete.
 167 * Added siprop=restrictions to API action=query&meta=siteinfo for querying
 168   possible page restriction (protection) levels and types.
 169 * Added prop 'limitreportdata' and 'limitreporthtml' to action=parse.
 170 * (bug 58627) Provide language names on action=parse&prop=langlinks.
 171 * Deprecated llurl= in favour of llprop=url for action=query&prop=langlinks.
 172 * Added llprop=langname and llprop=autonym for action=query&prop=langlinks.
 173
 174 === Languages updated in 1.23 ===
 175
 176 MediaWiki supports over 350 languages. Many localisations are updated
 177 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as
 178 changes to languages because of Bugzilla reports.
 179
 180 * Support was added for Northern Luri (lrc).
 181
 182 === Other changes in 1.23 ===
 183 * The rc_type field in the recentchanges table has been superseded by a new
 184   rc_source field.  The rc_source field is a string representation of the
 185   change type where rc_type was a numeric constant.  This field is not yet
 186   queried but will be in a future point release of 1.22.
 187 ** Utilize update.php to create and populate this new field.  On larger wiki's
 188    which do not wish to update recentchanges table in one large update please
 189    review the sql and comments in maintenance/archives/patch-rc_source.sql.
 190 ** The rc_type field of recentchanges will be deprecated in a future point
 191    release.
 192 * The global variable $wgArticle has been removed after a lengthy deprecation.
 193 * The global functions addButton and insertTags (for mw.toolbar.addButton and
 194   mw.toolbar.insertTags) now emits mw.log.warn when accessed.
 195 * The ExpandTemplates extension has been moved into MediaWiki core.
 196 * (bug 52812) Removed "Disable search suggestions" from Preference.
 197 * (bug 52809) Removed "Disable browser page caching" from Preference.
 198 * Three new modules intended for use by custom skins were added:
 199   'skins.common.elements', 'skins.common.content', and 'skins.common.interface',
 200   representing three levels of standard MediaWiki styling. Previously skin
 201   creators wishing to use them had to refer to the file names of appropriate
 202   files directly, which is now discouraged.
 203 * The modules 'skins.vector' and 'skins.monobook' have been renamed to
 204   'skins.vector.styles' and 'skins.monobook.styles', respectively,
 205   and their definition was changed not to include the common*.css files;
 206   the two skins now load the 'skins.common.interface' module instead.
 207 * A page_links_updated field has been added to the page table.
 208 * SpecialPage::getTitle has been deprecated in favor of
 209   SpecialPage::getPageTitle.
 210 * BREAKING CHANGE: Two potentially backwards-incompatible changes have been made
 211   to the 'SpecialWatchlistQuery' hook's last parameter (array $values) to make
 212   the hook more consistent with the 'SpecialRecentChangesQuery' one:
 213 ** Several array keys have been renamed: hideMinor → hideminor,
 214    hideBots → hidebots, hideAnons → hideanons, hideLiu → hideliu,
 215    hidePatrolled → hidepatrolled, hideOwn → hidemyself.
 216 ** The parameter value is now a FormOptions object, not a plain array (array
 217    access operators should continue to work, as it implements the ArrayAccess
 218    interface).
 219 * Option to mark hooks as deprecated has been added.
 220 * (bug 52811) Preference "Enable section editing via [edit] links" was removed.
 221 * (bug 52813) Preference "Show table of contents (for pages with more than
 222   3 headings)" was removed.
 223 * (bug 52810) Preference "Justify paragraphs" was removed.
 224 * OutputPage::showErrorPage raises a notice if arguments are incoherent.
 225 * Thumbnails that keep failing to render in thumb.php will be rate-limited
 226   againt further render attempts for 1 hour. $wgAttemptFailureEpoch can be
 227   altered to reset all rate-limited thumbnails at once.
 228
 229 ==== Removed classes ====
 230 * FakeMemCachedClient (deprecated in 1.18)
 231 * RdfMetaData (unused)
 232 * TitleDependency (unused)
 233 * TitleListDependency (unused)
 234 * WikiError (deprecated in 1.17)
 235 * WikiXmlError (deprecated in 1.17)
 236 * WikiErrorMsg (deprecated in 1.17)
 237
 238 ==== Renamed classes ====
 239 * CdbReader_DBA to CdbReaderDBA
 240 * CdbReader_PHP to CdbReaderPHP
 241 * CdbWriter_DBA to CdbWriterDBA
 242 * CdbWriter_PHP to CdbWriterPHP
 243 * DiffOp_Add to DiffOpAdd
 244 * DiffOp_Change to DiffOpChange
 245 * DiffOp_Copy to DiffOpCopy
 246 * DiffOp_Delete to DiffOpDelete
 247 * HWLDF_WordAccumulator to HWLDFWordAccumulator
 248 * LBFactory_Fake to LBFactoryFake
 249 * LBFactory_Multi to LBFactoryMulti
 250 * LBFactory_Simple to LBFactorySimple
 251 * LBFactory_Single to LBFactorySingle
 252 * LCStore_Accel to LCStoreAccel
 253 * LCStore_CDB to LCStoreCDB
 254 * LCStore_DB to LCStoreDB
 255 * LCStore_Null to LCStoreNull
 256 * LoadBalancer_Single to LoadBalancerSingle
 257 * LoadMonitor_MySQL to LoadMonitorMySQL
 258 * LoadMonitor_Null to LoadMonitorNull
 259 * LocalisationCache_BulkLoad to LocalisationCacheBulkLoad
 260 * csvStatsOutput to CsvStatsOutput
 261 * extensionLanguages to ExtensionLanguages
 262 * languages to Languages
 263 * statsOutput to StatsOutput
 264 * textStatsOutput to TextStatsOutput
 265 * wikiStatsOutput to WikiStatsOutput
 266
 267 ==== Removed methods ====
 268 * ApiBase::getValidNamespaces() (deprecated in 1.17)
 269 * ApiMain::setCachePrivate() (deprecated in 1.17)
 270 * ApiMain::setVaryCookie (deprecated in 1.17)
 271 * Article::doRedirect() (deprecated in 1.18)
 272 * Article::doUnwatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 273 * Article::doWatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 274 * Article::forUpdate() (deprecated in 1.18)
 275 * Article::markpatrolled() (deprecated in 1.18)
 276 * Article::unwatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 277 * Article::watch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 278 * Block::clear() (deprecated in 1.18)
 279 * Block::decodeExpiry() (deprecated in 1.18)
 280 * Block::encodeExpiry() (deprecated in 1.18)
 281 * Block::forUpdate() (deprecated in 1.18)
 282 * Block::infinity() (deprecated in 1.18)
 283 * Block::load() (deprecated in 1.18)
 284 * Block::newFromDB() (deprecated in 1.18)
 285 * Block::normaliseRange() (deprecated in 1.18)
 286 * Block::parseExpiryInput() (deprecated in 1.18)
 287 * CategoryViewer::addSubcategory() (deprecated in 1.17)
 288 * EditPage::spamPage() (deprecated since 1.17)
 289 * Exif::getFormattedData() (deprecated in 1.18)
 290 * Exif::makeFormattedData() (deprecated in 1.18)
 291 * in_string (deprecated in 1.21)
 292 * Language::convertLinkToAllVariants() (deprecated in 1.17)
 293 * LanguageConverter::convertLinkToAllVariants() (deprecated in 1.17)
 294 * Linker::makeBrokenLink() (deprecated in 1.16)
 295 * Linker::makeBrokenLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.16)
 296 * Linker::makeColouredLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.16)
 297 * Linker::makeSizeLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.17)
 298 * MediaWiki::articleFromTitle() (deprecated in 1.18)
 299 * ParserOptions::getkin() (deprecated 1.18)
 300 * ProfilerSimple::getCpuTime (deprecated in 1.20)
 301 * Revision::revText() (deprecated in 1.17)
 302 * SkinTemplate::jstext() (deprecated in 1.21)
 303 * SpecialPage::__call() (deprecated in 1.17)
 304 * SpecialPage::executePath() (deprecated in 1.18)
 305 * SpecialPage::exists() (deprecated in 1.18)
 306 * SpecialPage::file() (deprecated in 1.18)
 307 * SpecialPage::func() (deprecated in 1.18)
 308 * SpecialPage::getGroup() (deprecated in 1.18)
 309 * SpecialPage::getPage() (deprecated in 1.18)
 310 * SpecialPage::getPageByAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
 311 * SpecialPage::getLocalNameFor() (deprecated in 1.18)
 312 * SpecialPage::getRegularPages() (deprecated in 1.18)
 313 * SpecialPage::getRestrictedPages() (deprecated in 1.18)
 314 * SpecialPage::getTitleForAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
 315 * SpecialPage::getUsablePages() (deprecated in 1.18)
 316 * SpecialPage::includable() (deprecated in 1.18)
 317 * SpecialPage::init()
 318 * SpecialPage::initAliasList() (deprecated in 1.18)
 319 * SpecialPage::initList() (deprecated in 1.18)
 320 * SpecialPage::name() (deprecated in 1.18)
 321 * SpecialPage::removePage() (deprecated in 1.18)
 322 * SpecialPage::resolveAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
 323 * SpecialPage::resolveAliasWithSubpage() (deprecated in 1.18)
 324 * SpecialPage::restriction() (deprecated in 1.18)
 325 * SpecialPage::setGroup() (deprecated in 1.18)
 326 * SpecialRecentChanges::feedSetup()
 327 * SpecialRevisionDelete::extractBitField() (deprecated in 1.22)
 328 * User::getPageRenderingHash() (deprecated in 1.17)
 329 * WebRequest::getFileSize() (deprecated in 1.17)
 330 * WebRequest::isPathInfoBad() (deprecated in 1.17)
 331 * wfGenerateToken (deprecated in 1.20)
 332 * wfStreamFile (deprecated in 1.19)
 333 * wfUILang (deprecated in 1.18)
 334 * WikiPage::createUpdates() (deprecated in 1.18)
 335 * WikiPage::quickEdit() (deprecated in 1.18)
 336 * WikiPage::useParserCache() (deprecated in 1.18)
 337 * WikiPage::viewUpdates() (deprecated in 1.18)
 338
 339 ==== Removed globals ====
 340 * $wgBetterDirectionality (deprecated in 1.18)
 341
 342 == Compatibility ==
 343
 344 MediaWiki 1.23 requires PHP 5.3.2 or later.
 345
 346 MySQL is the recommended DBMS. PostgreSQL or SQLite can also be used, but
 347 support for them is somewhat less mature. There is experimental support for
 348 Oracle.
 349
 350 The supported versions are:
 351
 352 * MySQL 5.0.2 or later
 353 * PostgreSQL 8.3 or later
 354 * SQLite 3.3.7 or later
 355 * Oracle 9.0.1 or later
 356
 357 == Upgrading ==
 358
 359 1.23 has several database changes since 1.22, and will not work without schema
 360 updates. Note that due to changes to some very large tables like the revision
 361 table, the schema update may take quite long (minutes on a medium sized site,
 362 many hours on a large site).
 363
 364 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons
 365 repository, make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise
 366 due to database schema changes.
 367
 368 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 369 new database fields are filled with data.
 370
 371 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, you should upgrade to
 372 1.5 first. The upgrade script maintenance/upgrade1_5.php has been removed
 373 with MediaWiki 1.21.
 374
 375 Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 376
 377 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 378
 379 For notes on 1.21.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 380
 381 == Online documentation ==
 382
 383 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is available on
 384 MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License (except
 385 for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in the public domain):
 386
 387         https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 388
 389 == Mailing list ==
 390
 391 A mailing list is available for MediaWiki user support and discussion:
 392
 393         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 394
 395 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 396
 397         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 398
 399 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 400 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 401
 402 == IRC help ==
 403
 404 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net.