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 * When $wgJobRunRate is higher that zero, jobs are now executed via an
  13   asynchronous HTTP request to a MediaWiki entry point. This may require
  14   increasing the number of server worker threads.
  15 * $wgDebugLogGroups values may be set to an associative array with a
  16   'destination' key specifying the log destination. The array may also contain
  17   a 'sample' key with a positive integer value N indicating that the log group
  18   should be sampled by dispatching one in every N messages on average. The
  19   sampling is random.
  20 * In addition to the current exception log format, MediaWiki now serializes
  21   exception metadata to JSON and logs it to the 'exception-json' log group.
  22   This makes MediaWiki easier to integrate with log aggregation and analysis
  23   tools.
  24 * $wgSquidServersNoPurge now supports the use of Classless Inter-Domain
  25   Routing (CIDR) notation to specify contiguous blocks of IPv4 and/or IPv6
  26   addresses that should be trusted to provide X-Forwarded-For headers.
  27 * Preferences 'watchcreations', 'watchdefault', 'enotifwatchlistpages' ("Add
  28   pages I create and files I upload to my watchlist", "Add pages and files I
  29   edit to my watchlist", "Email me when a page or file on my watchlist is
  30   changed") are now enabled by default. In addition new user accounts' personal
  31   and talk pages are now watched by them by default.
  32 * $wgLBFactoryConf: Class names have had underscores removed. The configuration
  33   should be updated if LBFactory_Simple or LBFactory_Multi is configured.
  34 * $wgPasswordSenderName has been removed and is no longer functional. To set a
  35   custom mailer name, the system message 'emailsender' should be modified
  36   (default: "{{SITENAME}}").
  37 * $wgDBAhandler was removed as the only class using it was also removed
  38 * The 'max threads' setting was removed from $wgDBservers.
  39 * Support for AdminSettings.php has been completely removed. All configuration
  40   belongs in LocalSettings.php.
  41 * $wgSkipSkin, which has been replaceable by $wgSkipSkins since 2005 (r9249), is
  42   now formally deprecated.
  43 * Removed deprecated $wgDisabledActions as it is hardly used anywhere.
  44 * $wgRateLimitLog has been deprecated and replaced by
  45   $wgDebugLogGroup['ratelimit'].
  46 * $wgLocalInterwikis is an array containing multiple local interwiki prefixes
  47   (interwiki prefixes that point back to the current wiki). This effectively
  48   allows more than one value of $wgLocalInterwiki to be specified and
  49   understood by the parser. The value of $wgLocalInterwiki is automatically
  50   prepended to the start of this array.
  51 * $wgQueryPages has been removed. Query Pages should be added to by using the
  52   wgQueryPages hook.
  53 * $wgHttpOnlyBlacklist has been removed.
  54
  55 === New features in 1.23 ===
  56 * ResourceLoader can utilize the Web Storage API to cache modules client-side.
  57   Compared to the browser cache, caching in Web Storage allows ResourceLoader
  58   to be more granular about evicting stale modules from the cache while
  59   retaining the ability to retrieve multiple modules in a single HTTP request.
  60   This capability can be enabled by setting $wgResourceLoaderStorageEnabled to
  61   true. This feature is currently considered experimental and should only be
  62   enabled with care.
  63 * (bug 6092) Add expensive parser functions {{REVISIONID:}}, {{REVISIONUSER:}}
  64   and {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP:}} (with friends).
  65 * Add "wgRelevantUserName" to mw.config containing the current
  66   Skin::getRelevantUser value.
  67 * (bug 56033) Add content model to the page information.
  68 * Added Article::MissingArticleConditions hook to give extensions a chance to
  69   hide their (unrelated) log entries.
  70 * Added LonelyPagesQuery hook to let extensions modify the query used to
  71   generate Special:LonelyPages.
  72 * Added $wgOpenSearchDefaultLimit defining the default number of entries to show
  73   on action=opensearch API call.
  74 * For namespaces with $wgNamespaceProtection (including the MediaWiki
  75   namespace), the "protect" tab will be shown only if there are restriction
  76   levels available that would restrict editing beyond what
  77   $wgNamespaceProtection already applies. The protection form will offer only
  78   those protection levels.
  79 * Added $wgAPIFormatModules, allowing extensions to add additional output
  80   formatting modules for the API.
  81 * (bug 47812) The MediaWiki:Group-user.{css,js} pages can now be used to add
  82   custom CSS or JavaScript enabled only for registered users.
  83 * (bug 52005) Special pages RecentChanges, RecentChangesLinked and Watchlist
  84   now include a legend describing the symbols used in lists of changes.
  85 * Improved the accessibility of the tabs in Special:Preferences.
  86 * Added ApiBeforeMain hook, roughly equivalent to the BeforeInitialize hook:
  87   it's called after everything is set up but before any major processing
  88   happens.
  89 * The jquery.client module now performs a component-wise version comparison in
  90   its #test method when strings are used in the browser map: version '1.10' is
  91   now correctly considered larger than '1.2'. Using numbers in the version map
  92   is not affected.
  93 * All API modules now support an assert parameter, which can either be
  94   'user' or 'bot'. The API will throw an error if the user is not logged
  95   in (user) or does not have the 'bot' userright (bot). Based off of the
  96   AssertEdit extension by Steve Sanbeg.
  97 * WikitextContent will now render redirects with the expected "redirect"
  98   header, rather than as an ordered list. Code calling Article::viewRedirect
  99   can probably be changed to no longer special-case redirects.
 100 * [[Special:Diff]] was added, allowing users to create internal links to
 101   revision comparison pages using syntax such as [[Special:Diff/12345]],
 102   [[Special:Diff/12345/prev]] or [[Special:Diff/12345/98765]].
 103 * New user accounts' personal and talk pages are now watched by them by default.
 104 * Added SkinTemplateGetLanguageLink hook to allow changing the html of language
 105   links.
 106 * Added MessageCache::get hook as a new way to customize messages across
 107   multiple sites.
 108 * Added jquery.throttle-debounce ResourceLoader module to limit the number of
 109   callbacks for frequently occurring events.
 110 * Special:ProtectedPages shows now a table. The timestamp, the reason and
 111   the protecting user is also shown.
 112 * Added experimental support for using Microsoft SQL Server as the database
 113   backend.
 114 ** Added new Microsoft SQL Server-specific configuration variable
 115    $wgDBWindowsAuthentication, which makes the web server authenticate against
 116    the database server using Integrated Windows Authentication instead of
 117    $wgDBuser/$wgDBpassword.
 118 * HTMLForm 'select', 'selectandother', 'selectorother', 'multiselect', and
 119   'radio' fields can now use message keys as labels via the 'options-messages'
 120   parameter, which overrides the 'options' parameter.
 121 * Admins can expire users users passwords manually, or on a schedule using the
 122   $wgPasswordExpirationDays configuration setting.
 123 * Add new hook SendWatchlistEmailNotification, this will be used to determine
 124   whether to send a watchlist email notification.
 125 * (bug 42026) Special:Contributions now includes an option to filter page
 126   creations, similar to the topOnly option.
 127 * Add mediawiki.ui.button styling to all pages so wiki content can use styled
 128   buttons.
 129 * Special:UserLogin/signup now does AJAX checks for invalid and taken usernames,
 130   displaying the error live.
 131 * Added BaseTemplateAfterPortlet hook to allow injecting html after portlets in skins.
 132 * Support has been added for a JSON based localisation file format. The
 133   installer has been updated to use it.
 134
 135 === Bug fixes in 1.23 ===
 136 * (bug 41759) The "updated since last visit" markers (on history pages, recent
 137   changes and watchlist) and the talk page message indicator are now correctly
 138   updated when the user is viewing old revisions of pages, instead of always
 139   acting as if the latest revision was being viewed.
 140 * (bug 56443) Special:ConfirmEmail no longer shows a "Mail a confirmation code"
 141   when the email address is already confirmed. Also, consistently use
 142   "confirmed", rather than "authenticated", when messaging whether or not the
 143   user has confirmed an email address.
 144 * (bug 56912) Show correct link color on cached result of Special:DeadendPages.
 145 * Classes TitleListDependency and TitleDependency have been removed, as they
 146   have been found unused in core and extensions for a long time.
 147 * (bug 57098) SpecialPasswordReset now obeys returnto parameter
 148 * (bug 37812) ResourceLoader will notice when a module's definition changes and
 149   recompile it accordingly.
 150 * (bug 57201) SpecialRecentChangesFilters hook is now executed for feeds.
 151 * (bug 58640) Fixed a compatibility issue with PCRE 8.34 that caused pages
 152   to appear blank or with missing text.
 153 * (bug 56931) Updated the plural rules to CLDR 24. They are in new format
 154   which is detailed in UTS 35 Rev 33. The PHP parser and evaluator as well as
 155   the JavaScript evaluator were updated to support the new format. Plural rules
 156   for some languages have changed, most notably Russian. Affected software
 157   messages have been updated and marked for review at translatewiki.net.
 158 * (bug 14323) Redirect pages, when viewed with redirect=no, no longer hide the
 159   remaining page content.
 160 * (bug 23542) imagelinks now stores both the redirect and target (as
 161   templatelinks does).
 162 * (bug 58167) The web installer no longer throws an exception when PHP is
 163   compiled without support for MySQL yet with support for another DBMS.
 164 * (bug 56199) Raw option of parser functions must now match complete word,
 165   to take effect.
 166 * (bug 60543) Special:PrefixIndex forgot stripprefix=1 for "Next page" link
 167 * (bug 29762) Undoing an already-undone edit will now display an appropriate
 168   message instead of leading the user to make a null edit.
 169 * (bug 52659) mediawiki.notification: Notification area remained visible when
 170   empty and thus was stealing pointer events from links on the page.
 171 * (bug 26811) When a DBUnexpectedError occurs, DB server hostnames are now
 172   hidden unless $wgShowExceptionDetails is true, and $wgShowDBErrorBacktrace
 173   no longer applies in such cases.
 174 * (bug 60960) Avoid doing file_exist() checks on data: URIs, as they cause
 175   warnings to be printed on Windows due to large path length.
 176
 177 === Web API changes in 1.23 ===
 178 * (bug 54884) action=parse&prop=categories now indicates hidden and missing
 179   categories.
 180 * action=query&meta=filerepoinfo now returns additional information for each
 181   repo.
 182 * action=parse&prop=languageshtml was deprecated in 1.18 and will be removed in
 183   MediaWiki 1.24.
 184 * action=parse now has disabletoc flag to disable table of contents in output.
 185 * (bug 25702) list=allcategories, list=allimages, list=alllinks, list=allpages,
 186   list=deletedrevs and list=filearchive did not handle case-sensitivity
 187   properly for all parameters.
 188 * ApiQueryBase::titlePartToKey allows an extra parameter that indicates the
 189   namespace in order to properly capitalize the title part.
 190 * (bug 57874) action=feedcontributions no longer has one item more than limit.
 191 * All API modules now support an assert parameter. See the new features section
 192   for more details.
 193 * Added prop=contributors to fetch the list of contributors to the page.
 194 * The following API modules will now return entries where fields have been
 195   revision-deleted: list=deletedrevs, list=filearchive, list=recentchanges,
 196   list=watchlist. "hidden" indicators will be included, in the same style as is
 197   already done for prop=revisions.
 198 * The following API modules will now return the content of revision-deleted
 199   fields, in addition to the "hidden" indicators, if the querying user has the
 200   necessary rights: list=logevents, list=usercontribs, prop=imageinfo,
 201   prop=revisions.
 202 * The above modules, where applicable, will now return entries filtered by
 203   revision-deleted fields if the querying user has the necessary rights. For
 204   example, prop=revisions with rvuser or rvexcludeuser will no longer skip
 205   revisions where the user was revision-deleted if the current user has the
 206   deletedhistory right.
 207 * The 'hideuser' right, used when blocking, is no longer necessary or
 208   sufficient for seeing contributions with revision-deleted in
 209   list=usercontribs.
 210 * list=watchlist now uses the querying user's rights rather than the wlowner's
 211   rights when checking whether wlprop=patrol is allowed.
 212 * (bug 32151) ApiWatch now has pageset capabilities (titles/pageids/generators).
 213   Title parameter is now deprecated.
 214 * (bug 23005) Added action=revisiondelete.
 215 * Added siprop=restrictions to API action=query&meta=siteinfo for querying
 216   possible page restriction (protection) levels and types.
 217 * Added prop 'limitreportdata' and 'limitreporthtml' to action=parse.
 218 * (bug 58627) Provide language names on action=parse&prop=langlinks.
 219 * Deprecated llurl= in favour of llprop=url for action=query&prop=langlinks.
 220 * Added llprop=langname and llprop=autonym for action=query&prop=langlinks.
 221 * prop=redirects is added, to return redirects to the pages in the query.
 222 * list=allredirects is added, to list all redirects pointing to a namespace.
 223 * (bug 42026) Added ucshow={new,!new,top,!top} to list=usercontribs.
 224   Also added newonly to action=feedcontributions.
 225 * (bug 42026) Deprecated uctoponly in favor of ucshow=top.
 226
 227 === Languages updated in 1.23 ===
 228
 229 MediaWiki supports over 350 languages. Many localisations are updated
 230 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as
 231 changes to languages because of Bugzilla reports.
 232
 233 * Support was added for Northern Luri (lrc).
 234
 235 === Other changes in 1.23 ===
 236 * The rc_type field in the recentchanges table has been superseded by a new
 237   rc_source field.  The rc_source field is a string representation of the
 238   change type where rc_type was a numeric constant.  This field is not yet
 239   queried but will be in a future point release of 1.22.
 240 ** Utilize update.php to create and populate this new field.  On larger wiki's
 241    which do not wish to update recentchanges table in one large update please
 242    review the sql and comments in maintenance/archives/patch-rc_source.sql.
 243 ** The rc_type field of recentchanges will be deprecated in a future point
 244    release.
 245 * The global variable $wgArticle has been removed after a lengthy deprecation.
 246 * The global functions addButton and insertTags (for mw.toolbar.addButton and
 247   mw.toolbar.insertTags) now emits mw.log.warn when accessed.
 248 * The ExpandTemplates extension has been moved into MediaWiki core.
 249 * (bug 52812) Removed "Disable search suggestions" from Preference.
 250 * (bug 52809) Removed "Disable browser page caching" from Preference.
 251 * Three new modules intended for use by custom skins were added:
 252   'skins.common.elements', 'skins.common.content', and 'skins.common.interface',
 253   representing three levels of standard MediaWiki styling. Previously skin
 254   creators wishing to use them had to refer to the file names of appropriate
 255   files directly, which is now discouraged.
 256 * The modules 'skins.vector' and 'skins.monobook' have been renamed to
 257   'skins.vector.styles' and 'skins.monobook.styles', respectively,
 258   and their definition was changed not to include the common*.css files;
 259   the two skins now load the 'skins.common.interface' module instead.
 260 * A page_links_updated field has been added to the page table.
 261 * SpecialPage::getTitle has been deprecated in favor of
 262   SpecialPage::getPageTitle.
 263 * BREAKING CHANGE: Two potentially backwards-incompatible changes have been made
 264   to the 'SpecialWatchlistQuery' hook's last parameter (array $values) to make
 265   the hook more consistent with the 'SpecialRecentChangesQuery' one:
 266 ** Several array keys have been renamed: hideMinor → hideminor,
 267    hideBots → hidebots, hideAnons → hideanons, hideLiu → hideliu,
 268    hidePatrolled → hidepatrolled, hideOwn → hidemyself.
 269 ** The parameter value is now a FormOptions object, not a plain array (array
 270    access operators should continue to work, as it implements the ArrayAccess
 271    interface).
 272 * Option to mark hooks as deprecated has been added.
 273 * (bug 52811) Preference "Enable section editing via [edit] links" was removed.
 274 * (bug 52813) Preference "Show table of contents (for pages with more than
 275   3 headings)" was removed.
 276 * (bug 52810) Preference "Justify paragraphs" was removed.
 277 * OutputPage::showErrorPage raises a notice if arguments are incoherent.
 278 * Thumbnails that keep failing to render in thumb.php will be rate-limited
 279   againt further render attempts for 1 hour. $wgAttemptFailureEpoch can be
 280   altered to reset all rate-limited thumbnails at once.
 281 * (bug 56572) Builds of the OOjs and OOjs UI libraries are now available.
 282 * mw.loader.go and mw.loader.version have been removed.
 283 * (bug 52815) Preference "Enable simplified search bar (Vector skin only)"
 284   was removed.
 285 * A user_password_expires column has been added to the user table. The User
 286   object expects this column to exist. Use update.php to create this new field.
 287 * The jquery.delayedBind ResourceLoader module was deprecated in favor of the
 288   jquery.throttle-debounce module. It will be removed in MediaWiki 1.24.
 289 * mw.user.bucket has been deprecated.
 290 * On Special:PrefixIndex, a table#mw-prefixindex-list-table was changed to
 291   table.mw-prefixindex-list-table to avoid duplicate ids when the special page
 292   is transcluded.
 293 * (bug 62198) window.$j has been deprecated.
 294 * Preference "Disable link title conversion" was removed.
 295 * SpecialRecentChanges no longer includes any functionality for generating feeds
 296   - it has been factored out to ApiFeedRecentChanges. Old URLs redirect to new
 297   ones.
 298 * RecentChange::mExtra['lang'] is no longer set and should no longer be used.
 299   Extensions should read from other configuration variables, including
 300   $wgLocalInterwikis, to identify the current wiki.
 301 * Sections in the parser test framework have been renamed and the old
 302   section names are deprecated.  Please use "!!wikitext" and "!!html"
 303   (or "!!html/php") instead of "!!input" and "!!result".  This allows
 304   us to extend parser tests to accommodate additional input/output
 305   pairs, such as "!!html/parsoid" (for the output of the Parsoid
 306   parser, where it differs from the PHP parser).
 307
 308 ==== Removed classes ====
 309 * FakeMemCachedClient (deprecated in 1.18)
 310 * RdfMetaData (unused)
 311 * TitleDependency (unused)
 312 * TitleListDependency (unused)
 313 * WikiError (deprecated in 1.17)
 314 * WikiXmlError (deprecated in 1.17)
 315 * WikiErrorMsg (deprecated in 1.17)
 316
 317 ==== Renamed classes ====
 318 * CdbReader_DBA to CdbReaderDBA
 319 * CdbReader_PHP to CdbReaderPHP
 320 * CdbWriter_DBA to CdbWriterDBA
 321 * CdbWriter_PHP to CdbWriterPHP
 322 * DiffOp_Add to DiffOpAdd
 323 * DiffOp_Change to DiffOpChange
 324 * DiffOp_Copy to DiffOpCopy
 325 * DiffOp_Delete to DiffOpDelete
 326 * HWLDF_WordAccumulator to HWLDFWordAccumulator
 327 * LBFactory_Fake to LBFactoryFake
 328 * LBFactory_Multi to LBFactoryMulti
 329 * LBFactory_Simple to LBFactorySimple
 330 * LBFactory_Single to LBFactorySingle
 331 * LCStore_Accel to LCStoreAccel
 332 * LCStore_CDB to LCStoreCDB
 333 * LCStore_DB to LCStoreDB
 334 * LCStore_Null to LCStoreNull
 335 * LoadBalancer_Single to LoadBalancerSingle
 336 * LoadMonitor_MySQL to LoadMonitorMySQL
 337 * LoadMonitor_Null to LoadMonitorNull
 338 * LocalisationCache_BulkLoad to LocalisationCacheBulkLoad
 339 * csvStatsOutput to CsvStatsOutput
 340 * extensionLanguages to ExtensionLanguages
 341 * languages to Languages
 342 * statsOutput to StatsOutput
 343 * textStatsOutput to TextStatsOutput
 344 * wikiStatsOutput to WikiStatsOutput
 345
 346 ==== Removed methods ====
 347 * ApiBase::getValidNamespaces() (deprecated in 1.17)
 348 * ApiMain::setCachePrivate() (deprecated in 1.17)
 349 * ApiMain::setVaryCookie (deprecated in 1.17)
 350 * Article::doRedirect() (deprecated in 1.18)
 351 * Article::doUnwatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 352 * Article::doWatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 353 * Article::forUpdate() (deprecated in 1.18)
 354 * Article::markpatrolled() (deprecated in 1.18)
 355 * Article::unwatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 356 * Article::watch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 357 * Block::clear() (deprecated in 1.18)
 358 * Block::decodeExpiry() (deprecated in 1.18)
 359 * Block::encodeExpiry() (deprecated in 1.18)
 360 * Block::forUpdate() (deprecated in 1.18)
 361 * Block::infinity() (deprecated in 1.18)
 362 * Block::load() (deprecated in 1.18)
 363 * Block::newFromDB() (deprecated in 1.18)
 364 * Block::normaliseRange() (deprecated in 1.18)
 365 * Block::parseExpiryInput() (deprecated in 1.18)
 366 * CategoryViewer::addSubcategory() (deprecated in 1.17)
 367 * EditPage::spamPage() (deprecated since 1.17)
 368 * Exif::getFormattedData() (deprecated in 1.18)
 369 * Exif::makeFormattedData() (deprecated in 1.18)
 370 * in_string (deprecated in 1.21)
 371 * Language::convertLinkToAllVariants() (deprecated in 1.17)
 372 * LanguageConverter::convertLinkToAllVariants() (deprecated in 1.17)
 373 * Linker::makeBrokenLink() (deprecated in 1.16)
 374 * Linker::makeBrokenLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.16)
 375 * Linker::makeColouredLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.16)
 376 * Linker::makeSizeLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.17)
 377 * MediaWiki::articleFromTitle() (deprecated in 1.18)
 378 * ParserOptions::getkin() (deprecated 1.18)
 379 * ProfilerSimple::getCpuTime (deprecated in 1.20)
 380 * Revision::revText() (deprecated in 1.17)
 381 * SkinTemplate::jstext() (deprecated in 1.21)
 382 * SpecialPage::__call() (deprecated in 1.17)
 383 * SpecialPage::executePath() (deprecated in 1.18)
 384 * SpecialPage::exists() (deprecated in 1.18)
 385 * SpecialPage::file() (deprecated in 1.18)
 386 * SpecialPage::func() (deprecated in 1.18)
 387 * SpecialPage::getGroup() (deprecated in 1.18)
 388 * SpecialPage::getPage() (deprecated in 1.18)
 389 * SpecialPage::getPageByAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
 390 * SpecialPage::getLocalNameFor() (deprecated in 1.18)
 391 * SpecialPage::getRegularPages() (deprecated in 1.18)
 392 * SpecialPage::getRestrictedPages() (deprecated in 1.18)
 393 * SpecialPage::getTitleForAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
 394 * SpecialPage::getUsablePages() (deprecated in 1.18)
 395 * SpecialPage::includable() (deprecated in 1.18)
 396 * SpecialPage::init()
 397 * SpecialPage::initAliasList() (deprecated in 1.18)
 398 * SpecialPage::initList() (deprecated in 1.18)
 399 * SpecialPage::name() (deprecated in 1.18)
 400 * SpecialPage::removePage() (deprecated in 1.18)
 401 * SpecialPage::resolveAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
 402 * SpecialPage::resolveAliasWithSubpage() (deprecated in 1.18)
 403 * SpecialPage::restriction() (deprecated in 1.18)
 404 * SpecialPage::setGroup() (deprecated in 1.18)
 405 * SpecialRecentChanges::feedSetup()
 406 * SpecialRevisionDelete::extractBitField() (deprecated in 1.22)
 407 * User::getPageRenderingHash() (deprecated in 1.17)
 408 * WebRequest::getFileSize() (deprecated in 1.17)
 409 * WebRequest::isPathInfoBad() (deprecated in 1.17)
 410 * wfGenerateToken (deprecated in 1.20)
 411 * wfStreamFile (deprecated in 1.19)
 412 * wfUILang (deprecated in 1.18)
 413 * WikiPage::createUpdates() (deprecated in 1.18)
 414 * WikiPage::quickEdit() (deprecated in 1.18)
 415 * WikiPage::useParserCache() (deprecated in 1.18)
 416 * WikiPage::viewUpdates() (deprecated in 1.18)
 417
 418 ==== Removed globals ====
 419 * $wgBetterDirectionality (deprecated in 1.18)
 420
 421 == Compatibility ==
 422
 423 MediaWiki 1.23 requires PHP 5.3.2 or later.
 424
 425 MySQL is the recommended DBMS. PostgreSQL or SQLite can also be used, but
 426 support for them is somewhat less mature. There is experimental support for
 427 Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
 428
 429 The supported versions are:
 430
 431 * MySQL 5.0.2 or later
 432 * PostgreSQL 8.3 or later
 433 * SQLite 3.3.7 or later
 434 * Oracle 9.0.1 or later
 435 * Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (9.00.1399)
 436
 437 == Upgrading ==
 438
 439 1.23 has several database changes since 1.22, and will not work without schema
 440 updates. Note that due to changes to some very large tables like the revision
 441 table, the schema update may take quite long (minutes on a medium sized site,
 442 many hours on a large site).
 443
 444 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons
 445 repository, make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise
 446 due to database schema changes.
 447
 448 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 449 new database fields are filled with data.
 450
 451 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, you should upgrade to
 452 1.5 first. The upgrade script maintenance/upgrade1_5.php has been removed
 453 with MediaWiki 1.21.
 454
 455 Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 456
 457 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 458
 459 For notes on 1.21.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 460
 461 == Online documentation ==
 462
 463 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is available on
 464 MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License (except
 465 for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in the public domain):
 466
 467         https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 468
 469 == Mailing list ==
 470
 471 A mailing list is available for MediaWiki user support and discussion:
 472
 473         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 474
 475 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 476
 477         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 478
 479 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 480 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 481
 482 == IRC help ==
 483
 484 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net.