RELEASE-NOTES-1.24

   1 Security reminder: If you have PHP's register_globals option set, you must
   2 turn it off. MediaWiki will no longer work with it enabled.
   3
   4 == MediaWiki 1.24 ==
   5
   6 THIS IS NOT A RELEASE YET
   7
   8 MediaWiki 1.24 is an alpha-quality branch and is not recommended for use in
   9 production.
  10
  11 === Configuration changes in 1.24 ===
  12 * MediaWiki will no longer run if register_globals is enabled. It has been
  13   deprecated for 5 years now, and was removed in PHP 5.4. For more information
  14   about why, see <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/register_globals>.
  15 * The server's canonical hostname is available as $wgServerName, which is
  16   exposed in both mw.config and ApiQuerySiteInfo.
  17 * Introduced $wgPagePropsHaveSortkey as a backwards-compatibility switch,
  18   for using the old schema of the page_props table, in case the respective
  19   schema update was not applied.
  20 * $wgSearchEverythingOnlyLoggedIn was removed as the 'searcheverything'
  21   user option was removed. Use $wgNamespacesToBeSearchedDefault instead or
  22   if you used to have $wgDefaultUserOptions['searcheverything'] = 1.
  23 * $wgMasterWaitTimeout has been deprecated.
  24 * $wgDBClusterTimeout has been removed.
  25 * $wgProxyKey has been removed. It is no longer used by MediaWiki core.
  26   Ensure $wgSecretKey is set in LocalSettings.php.
  27 * $wgExtraInterlanguageLinkPrefixes is a new configuration variable that
  28   contains an array of interwiki prefixes that should be treated as language
  29   prefixes (i.e. turned into interlanguage links when $wgInterwikiMagic is set
  30   to true).
  31 * $wgParserTestRemote has been removed.
  32 * $wgCountTotalSearchHits has been removed. If you're concerned about efficiency
  33   of search, you should use something like CirrusSearch instead of built in
  34   search.
  35 * Users in the 'sysop' group have access to Special:MergeHistory by default.
  36 * $wgFileStore was removed after having been deprecated in 1.17. Alternative
  37   configurations are $wgDeletedDirectory and $wgHashedUploadDirectory.
  38 * The deprecated $wgUseCommaCount variable has been removed.
  39 * $wgEnableSorbs and $wgSorbsUrl have been removed.
  40
  41 === New features in 1.24 ===
  42 * Added a new hook, "WhatLinksHereProps", to allow extensions to annotate
  43   WhatLinksHere entries.
  44 * Added a new hook, "ContentGetParserOutput", to customize parser output for
  45   a given content object.
  46 * Deprecated the hook "ShowRawCssJs", use "ContentGetParserOutput" instead.
  47 * HTMLForm's HTMLTextField now supports the 'url' type.
  48 * HTMLForm fields may now be dynamically hidden based on the values of other
  49   fields in the form.
  50 * HTMLForm now supports multiple copies of an input field or set of input
  51   fields, e.g. the form may request "one or more usernames" without having to
  52   have the user enter delimited list of names into a text field.
  53 * Added a new hook, "SidebarBeforeOutput", to allow to edit the structure of
  54   the sidebar just before its display.
  55 * (bug 49156) Added the mediawiki.cookie ResourceLoader module, which wraps
  56   jquery.cookie so that getting/setting a cookie is syntactically and
  57   functionally similar to using the WebRequest::getCookie() and
  58   WebResponse::setcookie() methods.
  59 * (bug 44740) jQuery upgraded from 1.8.3 to 1.11.1. A new configuration option,
  60   $wgIncludejQueryMigrate, also loads the jQuery Migrate hack to let extensions
  61   and gadgets use the long-deprecated functions that were removed in jQuery 1.9.
  62   This option is turned off by default, and will be removed in MediaWiki 1.25.
  63 * (bug 47076) jQuery UI upgraded from 1.8.24 to 1.9.2.
  64 * Changes to content typography (fonts, etc.). See
  65   https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Typography_refresh for further information.
  66 * WikitextContent will now render redirects with the expected "redirect"
  67   header, rather than as an ordered list. Code calling Article::viewRedirect
  68   can probably be changed to no longer special-case redirects.
  69 * Header font set to a serif font stack. See
  70   https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Typography_refresh for further information.
  71 * (bug 65567) Added a new hook, "BeforeHttpsRedirect", to allow cancellation of
  72   the HTTP to HTTPS redirect due to forceHTTPS cookie, userRequires, etc. This
  73   is only for page views, since this hook doesn't affect UserLogin, OAuth,
  74   CentralAuth, etc. ATTENTION: This hook is likely to be removed soon due to
  75   overall design of the system.
  76 * (bug 17367) It is now possible to add pages to your watchlist from
  77   Special:UnwatchedPages without reloading the special page.
  78 * New methods setVolatile and isVolatile are added to PPFrame, so that
  79   extensions such as Cite.php can mark that their output is volatile and
  80   shouldn't be cached.
  81 * (bug 52817) Advanced search options are now saved on the search page itself,
  82   rather than in a dedicated pane in the preferences panel.
  83 * (bug 44591) The dropdown actions menu (little triangle next to page tabs) in
  84   the Vector skin has gained a label that should make it more discoverable.
  85 * MWCryptHKDF added for fast, cryptographically secure random number generation
  86   that won't deplete openssl's entropy pool.
  87 * ResourceLoader: File modules can now provide a skip function that uses an
  88   inline feature test to bypass loading of the module.
  89 * (bug 20210) Special pages may now provide autocompletion of their subpage
  90   names in search suggestions. Right now the only useful implementation is in
  91   Special:Log, but more are to come.
  92 * Special:MostLinkedTemplates is no longer limited to transclusions from the
  93   Template namespace.
  94 * Skins can now use 'remoteSkinPath' when defining ResourceLoader modules.
  95   This works the same as 'remoteExtPath' but is relative to the skins/ folder
  96   instead of the extensions/ folder.
  97 * Added the json2.js polyfill for the ES5 JSON.stringify and JSON.parse methods.
  98   Exposed as module "json" with a skip function to optimise loading.
  99 * Extensions and skins may now use 'namemsg' in $wgExtensionCredits in addition
 100   to 'name', to allow for the name to be localizable. 'name' should still be
 101   specified for backwards-compatibility and to define the path Special:Version
 102   uses to find extension license information.
 103 * Browser tests are now included to verify basic wiki functionality in developer
 104   environments. For details on running tests, see tests/browser/README.mediawiki.
 105 * Upgrade jStorage to v0.4.10.
 106 * {{!}} is now a magic word that produces the | character. This removes the need
 107   for Template:! for purposes such as passing pipes inside of parameters.
 108 * (bug 20790) The block log snippet on Special:Contributions and while
 109   editing user and user talk pages now works for IP range blocks.
 110 * (bug 9360) Added ability to change the page language for MediaWiki pages using
 111   Special:PageLanguage. All pages are set to wiki language by default.
 112   The feature needs to be enabled with $wgPageLanguageUseDB=true and
 113   permission needs to be set for 'pagelang'.
 114 * Upgrade Moment.js to v2.7.0.
 115 * (bug 67042) Added support for the HTML5 <rtc> tag for East Asian typography.
 116 * Upgrade Sinon.JS to 1.10.3.
 117 * Added the es5-shim polyfill for older or non-compliant javascript engines.
 118 * Upgrade jQuery Cookie to v1.2.0.
 119
 120 === Bug fixes in 1.24 ===
 121 * (bug 49116) Footer copyright notice is now always displayed in user language
 122   rather than content language (same as copyright notice for editing interface).
 123 * (bug 62258) A bug was fixed in File::getUnscaledThumb when a height
 124   restriction was present in the parameters. Images with both the "frame"
 125   option and a size specification set will now always ignore the provided
 126   size and display an unscaled image, as the documentation has always
 127   claimed it would.
 128 * (bug 39035) Improved Vector skin performance by removing collapsibleNav,
 129   which used to collapse some sidebar elements by default.
 130   This removes -list id suffixes like p-lang-list: instead of using things like
 131   #p-lang-list, you can do #p-lang .body ul.
 132 * (bug 890) Links in Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlist no longer
 133   follow redirects to their target pages.
 134 * Parser now dies early if called recursively, instead of producing subtle bugs.
 135 * (bug 14323) Redirect pages, when viewed with redirect=no, no longer hide the
 136   remaining page content.
 137 * (bug 52587) Maintenance script deleteBatch.php no longer follows redirects
 138   in the file namespace and delete the file on the target page. It will still
 139   however delete the redirect page.
 140 * (bug 22683) {{msgnw:}} and other uses of PPFrame::RECOVER_ORIG will correctly
 141   recover the original code of extension tags.
 142 * (bug 65757) MSSQL: Update script drops unnamed constraints to be prepared
 143   for future updates. Because it's doing so heuristically, it may fail or drop
 144   wrong constraints.
 145
 146 === Web API changes in 1.24 ===
 147 * action=parse API now supports prop=modules, which provides the list of
 148   ResourceLoader modules that should be used to enhance the parsed content.
 149 * action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=interwikimap returns a new "protorel"
 150   field which is true iff protocol-relative urls can be used to access
 151   a particular interwiki map entry.
 152 * ApiQueryLogEvents now provides logpage, which is the page ID from the
 153   logging table, if ids are requested and the user has the permissions.
 154 * action=edit now requires that appendtext, prependtext, or section=new be used
 155   when using the 'redirect' parameter, to prevent clients accidentally
 156   overwriting the target page with the content of the redirect.
 157 * action=logevents will now return an error if both letitle and leprefix are
 158   specified.
 159 * action=logevents has a new parameter, lenamespace, to allow filtering by
 160   namespace.
 161 * action=expandtemplates has a new parameter, prop, and a new output format.
 162   The old format is still used if prop isn't provided, but this is deprecated.
 163 * meta=userinfo can now return the count of unread pages on the watchlist.
 164 * list=watchlist can now filter by unread status.
 165 * The deprecated action=parse&prop=languageshtml has been removed.
 166 * (bug 48071) action=setnotificationtimestamp no longer throws PHP or database
 167   errors when no pages are given.
 168 * (bug 60734) Actions that use ApiPageSet (e.g. purge, watch,
 169   setnotificationtimestamp) will now include continuation information when
 170   using a generator.
 171
 172 === Languages updated in 1.24 ===
 173
 174 MediaWiki supports over 350 languages. Many localisations are updated
 175 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as
 176 changes to languages because of Bugzilla reports.
 177
 178 === Other changes in 1.24 ===
 179 * The deprecated jquery.delayedBind ResourceLoader module was removed.
 180 * The deprecated function mw.util.toggleToc was removed.
 181 * The Special:Search hooks SpecialSearchGo and SpecialSearchResultsAppend
 182   were removed as they were unused.
 183 * (bug 65477) User::pingLimiter() now has an additional profile point varying
 184   by action being used.
 185 * mediawiki.util.$content no longer supports old versions of the Vector,
 186   Monobook, Modern and CologneBlue skins that don't yet implement the "mw-body"
 187   and/or "mw-body-primary" class name in their html.
 188 * Added pp_sortkey column to page_props table, so pages can be efficiently
 189   queried and sorted by property value (bug 58032).
 190   See $wgPagePropsHaveSortkey if you want to postpone the schema change.
 191 * BREAKING CHANGE: The Modern and Cologne Blue skins were moved out of MediaWiki
 192   core to their own respective repositories. See also
 193   https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:Modern and
 194   https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:CologneBlue.
 195 * BREAKING CHANGE: Skins built for MediaWiki 1.15 and earlier that do not use
 196   the "headelement" template key are no longer supported. Setting
 197   $useHeadElement = false; is no longer supported and will not cause old keys
 198   like "headlinks", "skinnameclass", etc. to be defined.
 199 * The deprecated 'SpecialVersionExtensionTypes' hook was removed.
 200 * (bug 63891) Add 'X-Robots-Tag: noindex' header in action=render pages.
 201 * SpecialPage no longer supports the syntax for invoking wfSpecial*() functions.
 202   Special pages should subclass SpecialPage and implement the execute() method.
 203 * (bug 63755) The deprecated constants RC_MOVE and RC_MOVE_OVER_REDIRECT were
 204   removed.
 205 * Special:MostLinkedTemplates has been renamed to Special:MostTranscludedPages.
 206 * The skin autodiscovery mechanism has been deprecated and will be removed in
 207   MediaWiki 1.25. See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skin_autodiscovery
 208   for migration guide for creators and users of custom skins that relied on it.
 209 * ResourceLoaderFileModule#getAllStyleFiles now returns all style files and all
 210   skin style files used by the module.
 211 * Removed getLang() from IContextSource and subclasses. (deprecated since 1.19)
 212 * Removed setLang() from subclasses of IContextSource. (deprecated since 1.19)
 213 * Removed WebRequest::escapeAppendQuery(). (deprecated since 1.20)
 214 * Removed info(), purge(), revert() and rollback() from the Article class; they
 215   have since become subclasses of the Action class. (deprecated since 1.19)
 216 * SearchEngineReplacePrefixesComplete hook was removed.
 217 * The "jquery.json" module has been deprecated. Use the "json" module instead.
 218 * Removed HTMLForm::addJS(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 219 * Removed LogEventsList::showHeader(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 220 * Removed ImageGalleryBase::useSkin(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 221 * Removed DatabaseMysqlBase::getLagFromProcesslist(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 222 * Removed LoadBalancer::closeConnecton(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 223 * Removed ApiBase::createContext(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 224 * BREAKING CHANGE: The undocumented Special{$this->getName()}BeforeFormDisplay
 225   set of hooks has been removed and replaced by a single new hook
 226   SpecialPageBeforeFormDisplay.
 227 * (bug 65781) Removed block warning on included {{Special:Contributions}}
 228 * Removed Skin::makeGlobalVariablesScript. (deprecated since 1.19)
 229 * Removed MWNamespace::isMain(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 230 * Removed Preferences::loadOldSearchNs(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 231 * Removed OutputPage::getStatusMessage(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 232 * Removed OutputPage::isUserJsAllowed(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 233 * Removed Title::updateTitleProtection(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 234 * Removed ParserOptions::setSkin(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 235 * Removed Title::escapeCanonicalURL(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 236 * Removed Title::escapeLocalURL(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 237 * Removed Title::escapeFullURL(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 238 * Removed User::isValidEmailAddr(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 239 * Removed Title::getEscapedText(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 240 * Removed Language::getFallbackLanguageCode(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 241 * Removed WikiPage::isBigDeletion(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 242 * Removed MWInit class which contained functions related to a now discontinued
 243   PHP compiler called hphpc. (deprecated since 1.22)
 244 * ApiResult::enableSizeCheck() and disableSizeCheck() are now obsolete.
 245 * Removed ResourceLoaderGetStartupModules hook. (deprecated since 1.23)
 246 * Removed getFormFields(), onSubmit() and onSuccess() from FormlessAction, as
 247   these were meant specifically for FormAction instead.
 248 * Removed Action::execute().
 249 * Removed AjaxAddScript which has been obsolete since ResourceLoader and
 250   is unused by any modern extension.
 251 * Removed maintenance/nextJobDB.php; no longer in use.
 252 * Removed global function wfViewPrevNext(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 253
 254 ==== Renamed classes ====
 255 * CLDRPluralRuleConverter_Expression to CLDRPluralRuleConverterExpression
 256 * CLDRPluralRuleConverter_Fragment to CLDRPluralRuleConverterFragment
 257 * CLDRPluralRuleConverter_Operator to CLDRPluralRuleConverterOperator
 258 * CLDRPluralRuleEvaluator_Range to CLDRPluralRuleEvaluatorRange
 259 * CSSJanus_Tokenizer to CSSJanusTokenizer
 260 * MediaWiki_I18N to MediaWikiI18N
 261 * Parser_DiffTest to ParserDiffTest
 262 * RevDel_ArchiveItem to RevDelArchiveItem
 263 * RevDel_ArchiveList to RevDelArchiveList
 264 * RevDel_ArchivedFileItem to RevDelArchivedFileItem
 265 * RevDel_ArchivedFileList to RevDelArchivedFileList
 266 * RevDel_ArchivedRevisionItem to RevDelArchivedRevisionItem
 267 * RevDel_FileItem to RevDelFileItem
 268 * RevDel_FileList to RevDelFileList
 269 * RevDel_Item to RevDelItem
 270 * RevDel_List to RevDelList
 271 * RevDel_LogItem to RevDelLogItem
 272 * RevDel_LogList to RevDelLogList
 273 * RevDel_RevisionItem to RevDelRevisionItem
 274 * RevDel_RevisionList to RevDelRevisionList
 275 * WebInstaller_Complete to WebInstallerComplete
 276 * WebInstaller_Copying to WebInstallerCopying
 277 * WebInstaller_DBConnect to WebInstallerDBConnect
 278 * WebInstaller_DBSettings to WebInstallerDBSettings
 279 * WebInstaller_Document to WebInstallerDocument
 280 * WebInstaller_ExistingWiki to WebInstallerExistingWiki
 281 * WebInstaller_Install to WebInstallerInstall
 282 * WebInstaller_Language to WebInstallerLanguage
 283 * WebInstaller_Name to WebInstallerName
 284 * WebInstaller_Options to WebInstallerOptions
 285 * WebInstaller_Readme to WebInstallerReadme
 286 * WebInstaller_ReleaseNotes to WebInstallerReleaseNotes
 287 * WebInstaller_Restart to WebInstallerRestart
 288 * WebInstaller_Upgrade to WebInstallerUpgrade
 289 * WebInstaller_UpgradeDoc to WebInstallerUpgradeDoc
 290 * WebInstaller_Welcome to WebInstallerWelcome
 291
 292 ==== Removed classes ====
 293 * IPBlockForm - Use SpecialBlock directly
 294 * WatchlistEditor - Use SpecialEditWatchlist directly
 295 * FormatExif - Use FormatMetadata directly
 296 * RevertFileAction - Use RevertAction directly
 297
 298 == Compatibility ==
 299
 300 MediaWiki 1.24 requires PHP 5.3.2 or later.
 301
 302 MySQL is the recommended DBMS. PostgreSQL or SQLite can also be used, but
 303 support for them is somewhat less mature. There is experimental support for
 304 Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
 305
 306 The supported versions are:
 307
 308 * MySQL 5.0.2 or later
 309 * PostgreSQL 8.3 or later
 310 * SQLite 3.3.7 or later
 311 * Oracle 9.0.1 or later
 312 * Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (9.00.1399)
 313
 314 == Upgrading ==
 315
 316 1.24 has several database changes since 1.23, and will not work without schema
 317 updates. Note that due to changes to some very large tables like the revision
 318 table, the schema update may take quite long (minutes on a medium sized site,
 319 many hours on a large site).
 320
 321 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons
 322 repository, make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise
 323 due to database schema changes.
 324
 325 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 326 new database fields are filled with data.
 327
 328 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, you should upgrade to
 329 1.5 first. The upgrade script maintenance/upgrade1_5.php has been removed
 330 with MediaWiki 1.21.
 331
 332 Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 333
 334 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 335
 336 For notes on 1.23.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 337
 338 == Online documentation ==
 339
 340 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is available on
 341 MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License (except
 342 for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in the public domain):
 343
 344         https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 345
 346 == Mailing list ==
 347
 348 A mailing list is available for MediaWiki user support and discussion:
 349
 350         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 351
 352 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 353
 354         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 355
 356 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 357 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 358
 359 == IRC help ==
 360
 361 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net.