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 * MediaWiki now requires PHP's iconv extension. openSUSE users may need to
  16   install the php5-iconv package. Users of other systems may need to add
  17   extension=iconv.so to php.ini or recompile PHP without --without-iconv.
  18 * The server's canonical hostname is available as $wgServerName, which is
  19   exposed in both mw.config and ApiQuerySiteInfo.
  20 * Introduced $wgPagePropsHaveSortkey as a backwards-compatibility switch,
  21   for using the old schema of the page_props table, in case the respective
  22   schema update was not applied.
  23 * $wgSearchEverythingOnlyLoggedIn was removed as the 'searcheverything'
  24   user option was removed. Use $wgNamespacesToBeSearchedDefault instead or
  25   if you used to have $wgDefaultUserOptions['searcheverything'] = 1.
  26 * $wgMasterWaitTimeout has been deprecated.
  27 * $wgDBClusterTimeout has been removed.
  28 * $wgProxyKey has been removed. It is no longer used by MediaWiki core.
  29   Ensure $wgSecretKey is set in LocalSettings.php.
  30 * $wgExtraInterlanguageLinkPrefixes is a new configuration variable that
  31   contains an array of interwiki prefixes that should be treated as language
  32   prefixes (i.e. turned into interlanguage links when $wgInterwikiMagic is set
  33   to true).
  34 * $wgParserTestRemote has been removed.
  35 * $wgCountTotalSearchHits has been removed. If you're concerned about efficiency
  36   of search, you should use something like CirrusSearch instead of built in
  37   search.
  38 * Users in the 'sysop' group have access to Special:MergeHistory by default.
  39 * $wgFileStore was removed after having been deprecated in 1.17. Alternative
  40   configurations are $wgDeletedDirectory and $wgHashedUploadDirectory.
  41 * The deprecated $wgUseCommaCount variable has been removed.
  42 * $wgEnableSorbs and $wgSorbsUrl have been removed.
  43
  44 === New features in 1.24 ===
  45 * Added a new hook, "WhatLinksHereProps", to allow extensions to annotate
  46   WhatLinksHere entries.
  47 * Added a new hook, "ContentGetParserOutput", to customize parser output for
  48   a given content object.
  49 * Deprecated the hook "ShowRawCssJs", use "ContentGetParserOutput" instead.
  50 * HTMLForm's HTMLTextField now supports the 'url' type.
  51 * HTMLForm fields may now be dynamically hidden based on the values of other
  52   fields in the form.
  53 * HTMLForm now supports multiple copies of an input field or set of input
  54   fields, e.g. the form may request "one or more usernames" without having to
  55   have the user enter delimited list of names into a text field.
  56 * Added a new hook, "SidebarBeforeOutput", to allow to edit the structure of
  57   the sidebar just before its display.
  58 * (bug 49156) Added the mediawiki.cookie ResourceLoader module, which wraps
  59   jquery.cookie so that getting/setting a cookie is syntactically and
  60   functionally similar to using the WebRequest::getCookie() and
  61   WebResponse::setcookie() methods.
  62 * (bug 44740) jQuery upgraded from 1.8.3 to 1.11.1. A new configuration option,
  63   $wgIncludejQueryMigrate, also loads the jQuery Migrate hack to let extensions
  64   and gadgets use the long-deprecated functions that were removed in jQuery 1.9.
  65   This option is turned off by default, and will be removed in MediaWiki 1.25.
  66 * (bug 47076) jQuery UI upgraded from 1.8.24 to 1.9.2.
  67 * Changes to content typography (fonts, etc.). See
  68   https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Typography_refresh for further information.
  69 * WikitextContent will now render redirects with the expected "redirect"
  70   header, rather than as an ordered list. Code calling Article::viewRedirect
  71   can probably be changed to no longer special-case redirects.
  72 * Header font set to a serif font stack. See
  73   https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Typography_refresh for further information.
  74 * (bug 65567) Added a new hook, "BeforeHttpsRedirect", to allow cancellation of
  75   the HTTP to HTTPS redirect due to forceHTTPS cookie, userRequires, etc. This
  76   is only for page views, since this hook doesn't affect UserLogin, OAuth,
  77   CentralAuth, etc. ATTENTION: This hook is likely to be removed soon due to
  78   overall design of the system.
  79 * (bug 17367) It is now possible to add pages to your watchlist from
  80   Special:UnwatchedPages without reloading the special page.
  81 * New methods setVolatile and isVolatile are added to PPFrame, so that
  82   extensions such as Cite.php can mark that their output is volatile and
  83   shouldn't be cached.
  84 * (bug 52817) Advanced search options are now saved on the search page itself,
  85   rather than in a dedicated pane in the preferences panel.
  86 * (bug 44591) The dropdown actions menu (little triangle next to page tabs) in
  87   the Vector skin has gained a label that should make it more discoverable.
  88 * MWCryptHKDF added for fast, cryptographically secure random number generation
  89   that won't deplete openssl's entropy pool.
  90 * ResourceLoader: File modules can now provide a skip function that uses an
  91   inline feature test to bypass loading of the module.
  92 * (bug 20210) Special pages may now provide autocompletion of their subpage
  93   names in search suggestions. Right now the only useful implementation is in
  94   Special:Log, but more are to come.
  95 * Special:MostLinkedTemplates is no longer limited to transclusions from the
  96   Template namespace.
  97 * Skins can now use 'remoteSkinPath' when defining ResourceLoader modules.
  98   This works the same as 'remoteExtPath' but is relative to the skins/ folder
  99   instead of the extensions/ folder.
 100 * Added the json2.js polyfill for the ES5 JSON.stringify and JSON.parse methods.
 101   Exposed as module "json" with a skip function to optimise loading.
 102 * Extensions and skins may now use 'namemsg' in $wgExtensionCredits in addition
 103   to 'name', to allow for the name to be localizable. 'name' should still be
 104   specified for backwards-compatibility and to define the path Special:Version
 105   uses to find extension license information.
 106 * Browser tests are now included to verify basic wiki functionality in developer
 107   environments. For details on running tests, see tests/browser/README.mediawiki.
 108 * Upgrade jStorage to v0.4.10.
 109 * {{!}} is now a magic word that produces the | character. This removes the need
 110   for Template:! for purposes such as passing pipes inside of parameters.
 111 * (bug 20790) The block log snippet on Special:Contributions and while
 112   editing user and user talk pages now works for IP range blocks.
 113 * (bug 9360) Added ability to change the page language for MediaWiki pages using
 114   Special:PageLanguage. All pages are set to wiki language by default.
 115   The feature needs to be enabled with $wgPageLanguageUseDB=true and
 116   permission needs to be set for 'pagelang'.
 117 * Upgrade Moment.js to v2.7.0.
 118 * (bug 67042) Added support for the HTML5 <rtc> tag for East Asian typography.
 119 * Upgrade Sinon.JS to 1.10.3.
 120 * Added the es5-shim polyfill for older or non-compliant javascript engines.
 121 * Upgrade jQuery Cookie to v1.2.0.
 122 * (bug 20476) Add a "viewsuppressed" user right to be able to view
 123   suppressed content but not suppress it ("suppressrevision" right).
 124 * Added a new hook, "OutputPageScriptsForBottomQueue", to add modules to the
 125   bottom queue that should be requested in a dedicated <script> request.
 126 * (bug 66440) The MediaWiki web installer will now allow you to choose the skins
 127   to enable (from the ones included in download tarball) and decide which one
 128   should be the default.
 129 * (bug 68085) Links of the form [[localInterwikiPrefix:languageCode:pageTitle]],
 130   where localInterwikiPrefix is a member of the $wgLocalInterwikis array, will
 131   no longer be displayed in the sidebar when $wgInterwikiMagic is true.
 132
 133 === Bug fixes in 1.24 ===
 134 * (bug 49116) Footer copyright notice is now always displayed in user language
 135   rather than content language (same as copyright notice for editing interface).
 136 * (bug 62258) A bug was fixed in File::getUnscaledThumb when a height
 137   restriction was present in the parameters. Images with both the "frame"
 138   option and a size specification set will now always ignore the provided
 139   size and display an unscaled image, as the documentation has always
 140   claimed it would.
 141 * (bug 39035) Improved Vector skin performance by removing collapsibleNav,
 142   which used to collapse some sidebar elements by default.
 143   This removes -list id suffixes like p-lang-list: instead of using things like
 144   #p-lang-list, you can do #p-lang .body ul.
 145 * (bug 890) Links in Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlist no longer
 146   follow redirects to their target pages.
 147 * Parser now dies early if called recursively, instead of producing subtle bugs.
 148 * (bug 14323) Redirect pages, when viewed with redirect=no, no longer hide the
 149   remaining page content.
 150 * (bug 52587) Maintenance script deleteBatch.php no longer follows redirects
 151   in the file namespace and delete the file on the target page. It will still
 152   however delete the redirect page.
 153 * (bug 22683) {{msgnw:}} and other uses of PPFrame::RECOVER_ORIG will correctly
 154   recover the original code of extension tags.
 155 * (bug 65757) MSSQL: Update script drops unnamed constraints to be prepared
 156   for future updates. Because it's doing so heuristically, it may fail or drop
 157   wrong constraints.
 158 * (bug 67870) wfShellExec() cuts off stdout at multiples of 8192 bytes.
 159
 160 === Web API changes in 1.24 ===
 161 * action=parse API now supports prop=modules, which provides the list of
 162   ResourceLoader modules that should be used to enhance the parsed content.
 163 * action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=interwikimap returns a new "protorel"
 164   field which is true iff protocol-relative urls can be used to access
 165   a particular interwiki map entry.
 166 * ApiQueryLogEvents now provides logpage, which is the page ID from the
 167   logging table, if ids are requested and the user has the permissions.
 168 * action=edit now requires that appendtext, prependtext, or section=new be used
 169   when using the 'redirect' parameter, to prevent clients accidentally
 170   overwriting the target page with the content of the redirect.
 171 * action=logevents will now return an error if both letitle and leprefix are
 172   specified.
 173 * action=logevents has a new parameter, lenamespace, to allow filtering by
 174   namespace.
 175 * action=expandtemplates has a new parameter, prop, and a new output format.
 176   The old format is still used if prop isn't provided, but this is deprecated.
 177 * meta=userinfo can now return the count of unread pages on the watchlist.
 178 * list=watchlist can now filter by unread status.
 179 * The deprecated action=parse&prop=languageshtml has been removed.
 180 * (bug 48071) action=setnotificationtimestamp no longer throws PHP or database
 181   errors when no pages are given.
 182 * (bug 60734) Actions that use ApiPageSet (e.g. purge, watch,
 183   setnotificationtimestamp) will now include continuation information when
 184   using a generator.
 185
 186 === Languages updated in 1.24 ===
 187
 188 MediaWiki supports over 350 languages. Many localisations are updated
 189 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as
 190 changes to languages because of Bugzilla reports.
 191
 192 === Other changes in 1.24 ===
 193 * The deprecated jquery.delayedBind ResourceLoader module was removed.
 194 * The deprecated function mw.util.toggleToc was removed.
 195 * The Special:Search hooks SpecialSearchGo and SpecialSearchResultsAppend
 196   were removed as they were unused.
 197 * (bug 65477) User::pingLimiter() now has an additional profile point varying
 198   by action being used.
 199 * mediawiki.util.$content no longer supports old versions of the Vector,
 200   Monobook, Modern and CologneBlue skins that don't yet implement the "mw-body"
 201   and/or "mw-body-primary" class name in their html.
 202 * Added pp_sortkey column to page_props table, so pages can be efficiently
 203   queried and sorted by property value (bug 58032).
 204   See $wgPagePropsHaveSortkey if you want to postpone the schema change.
 205 * BREAKING CHANGE: The Modern and Cologne Blue skins were moved out of MediaWiki
 206   core to their own respective repositories. See also
 207   https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:Modern and
 208   https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:CologneBlue.
 209 * BREAKING CHANGE: Skins built for MediaWiki 1.15 and earlier that do not use
 210   the "headelement" template key are no longer supported. Setting
 211   $useHeadElement = false; is no longer supported and will not cause old keys
 212   like "headlinks", "skinnameclass", etc. to be defined.
 213 * The deprecated 'SpecialVersionExtensionTypes' hook was removed.
 214 * (bug 63891) Add 'X-Robots-Tag: noindex' header in action=render pages.
 215 * SpecialPage no longer supports the syntax for invoking wfSpecial*() functions.
 216   Special pages should subclass SpecialPage and implement the execute() method.
 217 * (bug 63755) The deprecated constants RC_MOVE and RC_MOVE_OVER_REDIRECT were
 218   removed.
 219 * Special:MostLinkedTemplates has been renamed to Special:MostTranscludedPages.
 220 * The skin autodiscovery mechanism has been deprecated and will be removed in
 221   MediaWiki 1.25. See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skin_autodiscovery
 222   for migration guide for creators and users of custom skins that relied on it.
 223 * ResourceLoaderFileModule#getAllStyleFiles now returns all style files and all
 224   skin style files used by the module.
 225 * Removed getLang() from IContextSource and subclasses. (deprecated since 1.19)
 226 * Removed setLang() from subclasses of IContextSource. (deprecated since 1.19)
 227 * Removed WebRequest::escapeAppendQuery(). (deprecated since 1.20)
 228 * Removed info(), purge(), revert() and rollback() from the Article class; they
 229   have since become subclasses of the Action class. (deprecated since 1.19)
 230 * SearchEngineReplacePrefixesComplete hook was removed.
 231 * The "jquery.json" module has been deprecated. Use the "json" module instead.
 232 * Removed HTMLForm::addJS(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 233 * Removed LogEventsList::showHeader(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 234 * Removed ImageGalleryBase::useSkin(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 235 * Removed DatabaseMysqlBase::getLagFromProcesslist(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 236 * Removed LoadBalancer::closeConnecton(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 237 * Removed ApiBase::createContext(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 238 * BREAKING CHANGE: The undocumented Special{$this->getName()}BeforeFormDisplay
 239   set of hooks has been removed and replaced by a single new hook
 240   SpecialPageBeforeFormDisplay.
 241 * (bug 65781) Removed block warning on included {{Special:Contributions}}
 242 * Removed Skin::makeGlobalVariablesScript. (deprecated since 1.19)
 243 * Removed MWNamespace::isMain(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 244 * Removed Preferences::loadOldSearchNs(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 245 * Removed OutputPage::getStatusMessage(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 246 * Removed OutputPage::isUserJsAllowed(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 247 * Removed Title::updateTitleProtection(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 248 * Removed ParserOptions::setSkin(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 249 * Removed Title::escapeCanonicalURL(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 250 * Removed Title::escapeLocalURL(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 251 * Removed Title::escapeFullURL(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 252 * Removed User::isValidEmailAddr(). (deprecated since 1.18)
 253 * Removed Title::getEscapedText(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 254 * Removed Language::getFallbackLanguageCode(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 255 * Removed WikiPage::isBigDeletion(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 256 * Removed MWInit class which contained functions related to a now discontinued
 257   PHP compiler called hphpc. (deprecated since 1.22)
 258 * ApiResult::enableSizeCheck() and disableSizeCheck() are now obsolete.
 259 * Removed ResourceLoaderGetStartupModules hook. (deprecated since 1.23)
 260 * Removed getFormFields(), onSubmit() and onSuccess() from FormlessAction, as
 261   these were meant specifically for FormAction instead.
 262 * Removed Action::execute().
 263 * Removed AjaxAddScript which has been obsolete since ResourceLoader and
 264   is unused by any modern extension.
 265 * Removed maintenance/nextJobDB.php; no longer in use.
 266 * Removed global function wfViewPrevNext(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 267 * Removed global function xmlsafe() from Export.php. (moved to OAIRepo extension)
 268 * Removed Title::userCanRead(). (deprecated since 1.19)
 269 * Removed maintenance script importTextFile.php. Use edit.php script instead.
 270 * A _from_namespace field has been added to the templatelinks, pagelinks,
 271   and filelinks tables. Run update.php to apply this change to the schema.
 272
 273 ==== Renamed classes ====
 274 * CLDRPluralRuleConverter_Expression to CLDRPluralRuleConverterExpression
 275 * CLDRPluralRuleConverter_Fragment to CLDRPluralRuleConverterFragment
 276 * CLDRPluralRuleConverter_Operator to CLDRPluralRuleConverterOperator
 277 * CLDRPluralRuleEvaluator_Range to CLDRPluralRuleEvaluatorRange
 278 * CSSJanus_Tokenizer to CSSJanusTokenizer
 279 * MediaWiki_I18N to MediaWikiI18N
 280 * Parser_DiffTest to ParserDiffTest
 281 * RevDel_ArchiveItem to RevDelArchiveItem
 282 * RevDel_ArchiveList to RevDelArchiveList
 283 * RevDel_ArchivedFileItem to RevDelArchivedFileItem
 284 * RevDel_ArchivedFileList to RevDelArchivedFileList
 285 * RevDel_ArchivedRevisionItem to RevDelArchivedRevisionItem
 286 * RevDel_FileItem to RevDelFileItem
 287 * RevDel_FileList to RevDelFileList
 288 * RevDel_Item to RevDelItem
 289 * RevDel_List to RevDelList
 290 * RevDel_LogItem to RevDelLogItem
 291 * RevDel_LogList to RevDelLogList
 292 * RevDel_RevisionItem to RevDelRevisionItem
 293 * RevDel_RevisionList to RevDelRevisionList
 294 * WebInstaller_Complete to WebInstallerComplete
 295 * WebInstaller_Copying to WebInstallerCopying
 296 * WebInstaller_DBConnect to WebInstallerDBConnect
 297 * WebInstaller_DBSettings to WebInstallerDBSettings
 298 * WebInstaller_Document to WebInstallerDocument
 299 * WebInstaller_ExistingWiki to WebInstallerExistingWiki
 300 * WebInstaller_Install to WebInstallerInstall
 301 * WebInstaller_Language to WebInstallerLanguage
 302 * WebInstaller_Name to WebInstallerName
 303 * WebInstaller_Options to WebInstallerOptions
 304 * WebInstaller_Readme to WebInstallerReadme
 305 * WebInstaller_ReleaseNotes to WebInstallerReleaseNotes
 306 * WebInstaller_Restart to WebInstallerRestart
 307 * WebInstaller_Upgrade to WebInstallerUpgrade
 308 * WebInstaller_UpgradeDoc to WebInstallerUpgradeDoc
 309 * WebInstaller_Welcome to WebInstallerWelcome
 310
 311 ==== Removed classes ====
 312 * IPBlockForm - Use SpecialBlock directly
 313 * WatchlistEditor - Use SpecialEditWatchlist directly
 314 * FormatExif - Use FormatMetadata directly
 315 * RevertFileAction - Use RevertAction directly
 316 * HistoryPage - Use HistoryAction directly
 317 * RawPage - Use RawAction directly
 318 * StubContLang - Use Language::factory() instead
 319
 320 == Compatibility ==
 321
 322 MediaWiki 1.24 requires PHP 5.3.2 or later.
 323
 324 MySQL is the recommended DBMS. PostgreSQL or SQLite can also be used, but
 325 support for them is somewhat less mature. There is experimental support for
 326 Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
 327
 328 The supported versions are:
 329
 330 * MySQL 5.0.2 or later
 331 * PostgreSQL 8.3 or later
 332 * SQLite 3.3.7 or later
 333 * Oracle 9.0.1 or later
 334 * Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (9.00.1399)
 335
 336 == Upgrading ==
 337
 338 1.24 has several database changes since 1.23, and will not work without schema
 339 updates. Note that due to changes to some very large tables like the revision
 340 table, the schema update may take quite long (minutes on a medium sized site,
 341 many hours on a large site).
 342
 343 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons
 344 repository, make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise
 345 due to database schema changes.
 346
 347 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 348 new database fields are filled with data.
 349
 350 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, you should upgrade to
 351 1.5 first. The upgrade script maintenance/upgrade1_5.php has been removed
 352 with MediaWiki 1.21.
 353
 354 Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 355
 356 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 357
 358 For notes on 1.23.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 359
 360 == Online documentation ==
 361
 362 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is available on
 363 MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License (except
 364 for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in the public domain):
 365
 366         https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 367
 368 == Mailing list ==
 369
 370 A mailing list is available for MediaWiki user support and discussion:
 371
 372         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 373
 374 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 375
 376         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 377
 378 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 379 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 380
 381 == IRC help ==
 382
 383 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net.