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
  38 === New features in 1.23 ===
  39 * ResourceLoader can utilize the Web Storage API to cache modules client-side.
  40   Compared to the browser cache, caching in Web Storage allows ResourceLoader
  41   to be more granular about evicting stale modules from the cache while
  42   retaining the ability to retrieve multiple modules in a single HTTP request.
  43   This capability can be enabled by setting $wgResourceLoaderStorageEnabled to
  44   true. This feature is currently considered experimental and should only be
  45   enabled with care.
  46 * (bug 6092) Add expensive parser functions {{REVISIONID:}}, {{REVISIONUSER:}}
  47   and {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP:}} (with friends).
  48 * Add "wgRelevantUserName" to mw.config containing the current
  49   Skin::getRelevantUser value.
  50 * (bug 56033) Add content model to the page information.
  51 * Added Article::MissingArticleConditions hook to give extensions a chance to
  52   hide their (unrelated) log entries.
  53 * Added LonelyPagesQuery hook to let extensions modify the query used to
  54   generate Special:LonelyPages.
  55 * Added $wgOpenSearchDefaultLimit defining the default number of entries to show
  56   on action=opensearch API call.
  57 * For namespaces with $wgNamespaceProtection (including the MediaWiki
  58   namespace), the "protect" tab will be shown only if there are restriction
  59   levels available that would restrict editing beyond what
  60   $wgNamespaceProtection already applies. The protection form will offer only
  61   those protection levels.
  62 * Added $wgAPIFormatModules, allowing extensions to add additional output
  63   formatting modules for the API.
  64 * (bug 47812) The MediaWiki:Group-user.{css,js} pages can now be used to add
  65   custom CSS or JavaScript enabled only for registered users.
  66 * (bug 52005) Special pages RecentChanges, RecentChangesLinked and Watchlist
  67   now include a legend describing the symbols used in lists of changes.
  68 * Improved the accessibility of the tabs in Special:Preferences.
  69 * Added ApiBeforeMain hook, roughly equivalent to the BeforeInitialize hook:
  70   it's called after everything is set up but before any major processing
  71   happens.
  72 * The jquery.client module now performs a component-wise version comparison in
  73   its #test method when strings are used in the browser map: version '1.10' is
  74   now correctly considered larger than '1.2'. Using numbers in the version map
  75   is not affected.
  76 * All API modules now support an assert parameter, which can either be
  77   'user' or 'bot'. The API will throw an error if the user is not logged
  78   in (user) or does not have the 'bot' userright (bot). Based off of the
  79   AssertEdit extension by Steve Sanbeg.
  80 * WikitextContent will now render redirects with the expected "redirect"
  81   header, rather than as an ordered list. Code calling Article::viewRedirect
  82   can probably be changed to no longer special-case redirects.
  83 * [[Special:Diff]] was added, allowing users to create internal links to
  84   revision comparison pages using syntax such as [[Special:Diff/12345]],
  85   [[Special:Diff/12345/prev]] or [[Special:Diff/12345/98765]].
  86 * New user accounts' personal and talk pages are now watched by them by default.
  87 * Added SkinTemplateGetLanguageLink hook to allow changing the html of language
  88   links.
  89 * Added MessageCache::get hook as a new way to customize messages across
  90   multiple sites.
  91 * Added jquery.throttle-debounce ResourceLoader module to limit the number of
  92   callbacks for frequently occurring events.
  93 * Special:ProtectedPages shows now a table. The timestamp, the reason and
  94   the protecting user is also shown.
  95
  96 === Bug fixes in 1.23 ===
  97 * (bug 41759) The "updated since last visit" markers (on history pages, recent
  98   changes and watchlist) and the talk page message indicator are now correctly
  99   updated when the user is viewing old revisions of pages, instead of always
 100   acting as if the latest revision was being viewed.
 101 * (bug 56443) Special:ConfirmEmail no longer shows a "Mail a confirmation code"
 102   when the email address is already confirmed. Also, consistently use
 103   "confirmed", rather than "authenticated", when messaging whether or not the
 104   user has confirmed an email address.
 105 * (bug 56912) Show correct link color on cached result of Special:DeadendPages.
 106 * Classes TitleListDependency and TitleDependency have been removed, as they
 107   have been found unused in core and extensions for a long time.
 108 * (bug 57098) SpecialPasswordReset now obeys returnto parameter
 109 * (bug 37812) ResourceLoader will notice when a module's definition changes and
 110   recompile it accordingly.
 111 * (bug 57201) SpecialRecentChangesFilters hook is now executed for feeds.
 112 * (bug 58640) Fixed a compatibility issue with PCRE 8.34 that caused pages
 113   to appear blank or with missing text.
 114 * (bug 56931) Updated the plural rules to CLDR 24. They are in new format
 115   which is detailed in UTS 35 Rev 33. The PHP parser and evaluator as well as
 116   the JavaScript evaluator were updated to support the new format. Plural rules
 117   for some languages have changed, most notably Russian. Affected software
 118   messages have been updated and marked for review at translatewiki.net.
 119 * (bug 14323) Redirect pages, when viewed with redirect=no, no longer hide the
 120   remaining page content.
 121 * (bug 23542) imagelinks now stores both the redirect and target (as
 122   templatelinks does).
 123 * (bug 58167) The web installer no longer throws an exception when PHP is
 124   compiled without support for MySQL yet with support for another DBMS.
 125 * (bug 56199) Raw option of parser functions must now match complete word,
 126   to take effect.
 127 * (bug 60543) Special:PrefixIndex forgot stripprefix=1 for "Next page" link
 128 * (bug 29762) Undoing an already-undone edit will now display an appropriate
 129   message instead of leading the user to make a null edit.
 130
 131 === Web API changes in 1.23 ===
 132 * (bug 54884) action=parse&prop=categories now indicates hidden and missing
 133   categories.
 134 * action=query&meta=filerepoinfo now returns additional information for each
 135   repo.
 136 * action=parse&prop=languageshtml was deprecated in 1.18 and will be removed in
 137   MediaWiki 1.24.
 138 * action=parse now has disabletoc flag to disable table of contents in output.
 139 * (bug 25702) list=allcategories, list=allimages, list=alllinks, list=allpages,
 140   list=deletedrevs and list=filearchive did not handle case-sensitivity
 141   properly for all parameters.
 142 * ApiQueryBase::titlePartToKey allows an extra parameter that indicates the
 143   namespace in order to properly capitalize the title part.
 144 * (bug 57874) action=feedcontributions no longer has one item more than limit.
 145 * All API modules now support an assert parameter. See the new features section
 146   for more details.
 147 * Added prop=contributors to fetch the list of contributors to the page.
 148 * The following API modules will now return entries where fields have been
 149   revision-deleted: list=deletedrevs, list=filearchive, list=recentchanges,
 150   list=watchlist. "hidden" indicators will be included, in the same style as is
 151   already done for prop=revisions.
 152 * The following API modules will now return the content of revision-deleted
 153   fields, in addition to the "hidden" indicators, if the querying user has the
 154   necessary rights: list=logevents, list=usercontribs, prop=imageinfo,
 155   prop=revisions.
 156 * The above modules, where applicable, will now return entries filtered by
 157   revision-deleted fields if the querying user has the necessary rights. For
 158   example, prop=revisions with rvuser or rvexcludeuser will no longer skip
 159   revisions where the user was revision-deleted if the current user has the
 160   deletedhistory right.
 161 * The 'hideuser' right, used when blocking, is no longer necessary or
 162   sufficient for seeing contributions with revision-deleted in
 163   list=usercontribs.
 164 * list=watchlist now uses the querying user's rights rather than the wlowner's
 165   rights when checking whether wlprop=patrol is allowed.
 166 * (bug 32151) ApiWatch now has pageset capabilities (titles/pageids/generators).
 167   Title parameter is now deprecated.
 168 * (bug 23005) Added action=revisiondelete.
 169 * Added siprop=restrictions to API action=query&meta=siteinfo for querying
 170   possible page restriction (protection) levels and types.
 171 * Added prop 'limitreportdata' and 'limitreporthtml' to action=parse.
 172 * (bug 58627) Provide language names on action=parse&prop=langlinks.
 173 * Deprecated llurl= in favour of llprop=url for action=query&prop=langlinks.
 174 * Added llprop=langname and llprop=autonym for action=query&prop=langlinks.
 175
 176 === Languages updated in 1.23 ===
 177
 178 MediaWiki supports over 350 languages. Many localisations are updated
 179 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as
 180 changes to languages because of Bugzilla reports.
 181
 182 * Support was added for Northern Luri (lrc).
 183
 184 === Other changes in 1.23 ===
 185 * The rc_type field in the recentchanges table has been superseded by a new
 186   rc_source field.  The rc_source field is a string representation of the
 187   change type where rc_type was a numeric constant.  This field is not yet
 188   queried but will be in a future point release of 1.22.
 189 ** Utilize update.php to create and populate this new field.  On larger wiki's
 190    which do not wish to update recentchanges table in one large update please
 191    review the sql and comments in maintenance/archives/patch-rc_source.sql.
 192 ** The rc_type field of recentchanges will be deprecated in a future point
 193    release.
 194 * The global variable $wgArticle has been removed after a lengthy deprecation.
 195 * The global functions addButton and insertTags (for mw.toolbar.addButton and
 196   mw.toolbar.insertTags) now emits mw.log.warn when accessed.
 197 * The ExpandTemplates extension has been moved into MediaWiki core.
 198 * (bug 52812) Removed "Disable search suggestions" from Preference.
 199 * (bug 52809) Removed "Disable browser page caching" from Preference.
 200 * Three new modules intended for use by custom skins were added:
 201   'skins.common.elements', 'skins.common.content', and 'skins.common.interface',
 202   representing three levels of standard MediaWiki styling. Previously skin
 203   creators wishing to use them had to refer to the file names of appropriate
 204   files directly, which is now discouraged.
 205 * The modules 'skins.vector' and 'skins.monobook' have been renamed to
 206   'skins.vector.styles' and 'skins.monobook.styles', respectively,
 207   and their definition was changed not to include the common*.css files;
 208   the two skins now load the 'skins.common.interface' module instead.
 209 * A page_links_updated field has been added to the page table.
 210 * SpecialPage::getTitle has been deprecated in favor of
 211   SpecialPage::getPageTitle.
 212 * BREAKING CHANGE: Two potentially backwards-incompatible changes have been made
 213   to the 'SpecialWatchlistQuery' hook's last parameter (array $values) to make
 214   the hook more consistent with the 'SpecialRecentChangesQuery' one:
 215 ** Several array keys have been renamed: hideMinor → hideminor,
 216    hideBots → hidebots, hideAnons → hideanons, hideLiu → hideliu,
 217    hidePatrolled → hidepatrolled, hideOwn → hidemyself.
 218 ** The parameter value is now a FormOptions object, not a plain array (array
 219    access operators should continue to work, as it implements the ArrayAccess
 220    interface).
 221 * Option to mark hooks as deprecated has been added.
 222 * (bug 52811) Preference "Enable section editing via [edit] links" was removed.
 223 * (bug 52813) Preference "Show table of contents (for pages with more than
 224   3 headings)" was removed.
 225 * (bug 52810) Preference "Justify paragraphs" was removed.
 226 * OutputPage::showErrorPage raises a notice if arguments are incoherent.
 227 * Thumbnails that keep failing to render in thumb.php will be rate-limited
 228   againt further render attempts for 1 hour. $wgAttemptFailureEpoch can be
 229   altered to reset all rate-limited thumbnails at once.
 230
 231 ==== Removed classes ====
 232 * FakeMemCachedClient (deprecated in 1.18)
 233 * RdfMetaData (unused)
 234 * TitleDependency (unused)
 235 * TitleListDependency (unused)
 236 * WikiError (deprecated in 1.17)
 237 * WikiXmlError (deprecated in 1.17)
 238 * WikiErrorMsg (deprecated in 1.17)
 239
 240 ==== Renamed classes ====
 241 * CdbReader_DBA to CdbReaderDBA
 242 * CdbReader_PHP to CdbReaderPHP
 243 * CdbWriter_DBA to CdbWriterDBA
 244 * CdbWriter_PHP to CdbWriterPHP
 245 * DiffOp_Add to DiffOpAdd
 246 * DiffOp_Change to DiffOpChange
 247 * DiffOp_Copy to DiffOpCopy
 248 * DiffOp_Delete to DiffOpDelete
 249 * HWLDF_WordAccumulator to HWLDFWordAccumulator
 250 * LBFactory_Fake to LBFactoryFake
 251 * LBFactory_Multi to LBFactoryMulti
 252 * LBFactory_Simple to LBFactorySimple
 253 * LBFactory_Single to LBFactorySingle
 254 * LCStore_Accel to LCStoreAccel
 255 * LCStore_CDB to LCStoreCDB
 256 * LCStore_DB to LCStoreDB
 257 * LCStore_Null to LCStoreNull
 258 * LoadBalancer_Single to LoadBalancerSingle
 259 * LoadMonitor_MySQL to LoadMonitorMySQL
 260 * LoadMonitor_Null to LoadMonitorNull
 261 * LocalisationCache_BulkLoad to LocalisationCacheBulkLoad
 262 * csvStatsOutput to CsvStatsOutput
 263 * extensionLanguages to ExtensionLanguages
 264 * languages to Languages
 265 * statsOutput to StatsOutput
 266 * textStatsOutput to TextStatsOutput
 267 * wikiStatsOutput to WikiStatsOutput
 268
 269 ==== Removed methods ====
 270 * ApiBase::getValidNamespaces() (deprecated in 1.17)
 271 * ApiMain::setCachePrivate() (deprecated in 1.17)
 272 * ApiMain::setVaryCookie (deprecated in 1.17)
 273 * Article::doRedirect() (deprecated in 1.18)
 274 * Article::doUnwatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 275 * Article::doWatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 276 * Article::forUpdate() (deprecated in 1.18)
 277 * Article::markpatrolled() (deprecated in 1.18)
 278 * Article::unwatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 279 * Article::watch() (deprecated in 1.18)
 280 * Block::clear() (deprecated in 1.18)
 281 * Block::decodeExpiry() (deprecated in 1.18)
 282 * Block::encodeExpiry() (deprecated in 1.18)
 283 * Block::forUpdate() (deprecated in 1.18)
 284 * Block::infinity() (deprecated in 1.18)
 285 * Block::load() (deprecated in 1.18)
 286 * Block::newFromDB() (deprecated in 1.18)
 287 * Block::normaliseRange() (deprecated in 1.18)
 288 * Block::parseExpiryInput() (deprecated in 1.18)
 289 * CategoryViewer::addSubcategory() (deprecated in 1.17)
 290 * EditPage::spamPage() (deprecated since 1.17)
 291 * Exif::getFormattedData() (deprecated in 1.18)
 292 * Exif::makeFormattedData() (deprecated in 1.18)
 293 * in_string (deprecated in 1.21)
 294 * Language::convertLinkToAllVariants() (deprecated in 1.17)
 295 * LanguageConverter::convertLinkToAllVariants() (deprecated in 1.17)
 296 * Linker::makeBrokenLink() (deprecated in 1.16)
 297 * Linker::makeBrokenLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.16)
 298 * Linker::makeColouredLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.16)
 299 * Linker::makeSizeLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.17)
 300 * MediaWiki::articleFromTitle() (deprecated in 1.18)
 301 * ParserOptions::getkin() (deprecated 1.18)
 302 * ProfilerSimple::getCpuTime (deprecated in 1.20)
 303 * Revision::revText() (deprecated in 1.17)
 304 * SkinTemplate::jstext() (deprecated in 1.21)
 305 * SpecialPage::__call() (deprecated in 1.17)
 306 * SpecialPage::executePath() (deprecated in 1.18)
 307 * SpecialPage::exists() (deprecated in 1.18)
 308 * SpecialPage::file() (deprecated in 1.18)
 309 * SpecialPage::func() (deprecated in 1.18)
 310 * SpecialPage::getGroup() (deprecated in 1.18)
 311 * SpecialPage::getPage() (deprecated in 1.18)
 312 * SpecialPage::getPageByAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
 313 * SpecialPage::getLocalNameFor() (deprecated in 1.18)
 314 * SpecialPage::getRegularPages() (deprecated in 1.18)
 315 * SpecialPage::getRestrictedPages() (deprecated in 1.18)
 316 * SpecialPage::getTitleForAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
 317 * SpecialPage::getUsablePages() (deprecated in 1.18)
 318 * SpecialPage::includable() (deprecated in 1.18)
 319 * SpecialPage::init()
 320 * SpecialPage::initAliasList() (deprecated in 1.18)
 321 * SpecialPage::initList() (deprecated in 1.18)
 322 * SpecialPage::name() (deprecated in 1.18)
 323 * SpecialPage::removePage() (deprecated in 1.18)
 324 * SpecialPage::resolveAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
 325 * SpecialPage::resolveAliasWithSubpage() (deprecated in 1.18)
 326 * SpecialPage::restriction() (deprecated in 1.18)
 327 * SpecialPage::setGroup() (deprecated in 1.18)
 328 * SpecialRecentChanges::feedSetup()
 329 * SpecialRevisionDelete::extractBitField() (deprecated in 1.22)
 330 * User::getPageRenderingHash() (deprecated in 1.17)
 331 * WebRequest::getFileSize() (deprecated in 1.17)
 332 * WebRequest::isPathInfoBad() (deprecated in 1.17)
 333 * wfGenerateToken (deprecated in 1.20)
 334 * wfStreamFile (deprecated in 1.19)
 335 * wfUILang (deprecated in 1.18)
 336 * WikiPage::createUpdates() (deprecated in 1.18)
 337 * WikiPage::quickEdit() (deprecated in 1.18)
 338 * WikiPage::useParserCache() (deprecated in 1.18)
 339 * WikiPage::viewUpdates() (deprecated in 1.18)
 340
 341 ==== Removed globals ====
 342 * $wgBetterDirectionality (deprecated in 1.18)
 343
 344 == Compatibility ==
 345
 346 MediaWiki 1.23 requires PHP 5.3.2 or later.
 347
 348 MySQL is the recommended DBMS. PostgreSQL or SQLite can also be used, but
 349 support for them is somewhat less mature. There is experimental support for
 350 Oracle.
 351
 352 The supported versions are:
 353
 354 * MySQL 5.0.2 or later
 355 * PostgreSQL 8.3 or later
 356 * SQLite 3.3.7 or later
 357 * Oracle 9.0.1 or later
 358
 359 == Upgrading ==
 360
 361 1.23 has several database changes since 1.22, and will not work without schema
 362 updates. Note that due to changes to some very large tables like the revision
 363 table, the schema update may take quite long (minutes on a medium sized site,
 364 many hours on a large site).
 365
 366 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons
 367 repository, make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise
 368 due to database schema changes.
 369
 370 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 371 new database fields are filled with data.
 372
 373 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, you should upgrade to
 374 1.5 first. The upgrade script maintenance/upgrade1_5.php has been removed
 375 with MediaWiki 1.21.
 376
 377 Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 378
 379 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 380
 381 For notes on 1.21.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 382
 383 == Online documentation ==
 384
 385 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is available on
 386 MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License (except
 387 for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in the public domain):
 388
 389         https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 390
 391 == Mailing list ==
 392
 393 A mailing list is available for MediaWiki user support and discussion:
 394
 395         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 396
 397 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 398
 399         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 400
 401 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 402 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 403
 404 == IRC help ==
 405
 406 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net.