RELEASE-NOTES-1.26

   1 Security reminder: If you have PHP's register_globals option set, you must
   2 turn it off. MediaWiki will not work with it enabled.
   3
   4 == MediaWiki 1.26 ==
   5
   6 THIS IS NOT A RELEASE YET
   7
   8 MediaWiki 1.26 is an alpha-quality branch and is not recommended for use in
   9 production.
  10
  11 === Configuration changes in 1.26 ===
  12 * $wgPasswordResetRoutes['email'] = true by default.
  13 * $wgEnableParserCache was deprecated, set $wgParserCacheType to CACHE_NONE
  14   instead if you want to disable the parser cache.
  15 * New-style continuation is now the default for API action=continue. Clients may
  16   use the 'rawcontinue' parameter to receive raw query-continue data, but the
  17   new style is encouraged as it's harder to implement incorrectly.
  18 * Deprecated API formats dump and wddx have been completely removed.
  19 * (T7645) The "Signature" button on the edit toolbar is now hidden by default
  20   in non-talk namespaces. A new configuration variable,
  21   $wgExtraSignatureNamespaces, controls in which subject (non-talk) namespaces
  22   the "Signature" button on the edit toolbar will be displayed.
  23 * $wgResourceLoaderUseESI was deprecated and removed. This was an experimental
  24   feature that was never enabled by default.
  25 * $wgResourceLoaderExperimentalAsyncLoading was deprecated and removed.
  26   This experimental feature was never enabled by default and is obsolete as of
  27   MediaWiki 1.26, in where ResourceLoader became fully asynchronous.
  28 * $wgMasterWaitTimeout was removed (deprecated in 1.24).
  29 * Fields in ParserOptions are now private. Use the accessors instead.
  30 * Custom LESS functions (defined via $wgResourceLoaderLESSFunctions)
  31   have been removed, after being deprecated in 1.24.
  32 * $wgAlwaysUseTidy has been removed.
  33
  34 === New features in 1.26 ===
  35 * (T51506) Now action=info gives estimates of actual watchers for a page.
  36   See $wgRCMaxAge, $wgWatchersMaxAge and $wgUnwatchedPageSecret
  37   to learn how to configure if needed.
  38 * Change tags can now be hidden in the interface by disabling the associated
  39   "tag-<id>" interface message.
  40 * ':' (colon) is now invalid in usernames for new accounts. Existing accounts
  41   are not affected.
  42 * Added a new hook, 'LogException', to log exceptions in nonstandard ways.
  43 * Revive the 'SpecialSearchResultsAppend' hook which occurs after the list of
  44   search results are rendered. The initial use case is to append a "give us
  45   feedback" link beneath the search results.
  46 * Added a new hook, 'RejectParserCacheValue', which allows extensions to
  47   reject an otherwise-successful parser cache lookup. The intent is to allow
  48   extensions to manage the eviction of archaic HTML output from the cache.
  49 * (T68699) The expiration of the UserID and Token login cookies
  50   ($wgExtendedLoginCookieExpiration) can be configured independently of the
  51   expiration of all other cookies ($wgCookieExpiration).
  52 * (T50519) Support for generating JPEG/PNG thumbnails from WebP images added
  53   if ImageMagick is used as image scaler ($wgUseImageMagick = true). Uploading
  54   of WebP images still disabled by default. Add $wgFileExtensions[] =
  55   'webp'; to LocalSettings.php to enable uploading of WebP images.
  56 * Added new hooks 'EnhancedChangesListModifyLineData' &
  57   'EnhancedChangesListModifyBlockLineData', to modify the data used to build
  58   lines in enhanced recentchanges and watchlist.
  59 * Caches that need purging ability now use the WANObjectCache interface.
  60   This corresponds to a new $wgMainWANCache setting, which defaults to using
  61   the $wgMainCacheType settings.
  62 * Callers needing fast light-weight data stores use $wgMainStash to select
  63   the store type from $wgObjectCaches. The default is the local database.
  64 * Interface message overrides in the MediaWiki namespace will now be cached in
  65   memcached and APC (if available), rather than memcached and local files.
  66 * Added a new hook, 'RandomPageQuery', to allow modification of the query used
  67   by Special:Random to select random pages.
  68 * $wgTransactionalTimeLimit was added, which controls the request time limit
  69   for potentially slow POST requests that need to be as atomic as possible.
  70 * ResourceLoader now loads all scripts asynchronously. The top-queue and
  71   startup modules are no longer synchronously loaded.
  72 * 'mediawiki.ui.button' styles are no longer unconditionally loaded on every
  73   page. During the deprecation period, the styles will only be loaded on pages
  74   which contain 'mw-ui-button' in their HTML. Starting in 1.28, the styles will
  75   only be loaded if explicitly required.
  76
  77 ==== External libraries ====
  78 * Update es5-shim from v4.0.0 to v4.1.5.
  79 * Update json2 from revision 2014-02-04 to 2015-05-03.
  80 * Update Sinon.JS from 1.10.3 to 1.15.4.
  81 * Upgrade jQuery Client from v1.0.0 to v2.0.0.
  82 * Added mediawiki/at-ease 1.0.0.
  83 * Update QUnit from v1.17.1 to v1.18.0.
  84
  85 === Bug fixes in 1.26 ===
  86 * (T53283) load.php sometimes sends 304 response without full headers
  87 * (T65198) Talk page tabs now have a "rel=discussion" attribute
  88 * (T98841) {{msgnw:}} now preserves comments even when subst: is not used.
  89 * (T104142) $wgEmergencyContact and $wgPasswordSender now use their default
  90   value if set to an empty string.
  91
  92 === Action API changes in 1.26 ===
  93 * New-style continuation is now the default for action=continue. Clients may
  94   use the 'rawcontinue' parameter to receive raw query-continue data, but the
  95   new style is encouraged as it's harder to implement incorrectly.
  96 * Deprecated API formats dump and wddx have been completely removed.
  97 * API action=query&list=tags: The displayname can now be boolean false if the
  98   tag is meant to be hidden from user interfaces.
  99 * action=import no longer allows both the namespace= and rootpage= parameters
 100   to be set. If they are both set, the value of rootpage= will be ignored.
 101 * prop=revision output in enum mode is now sorted by timestamp rather than
 102   revision ID. This usually won't make any difference.
 103 * (T102645) Namespace list from meta=siteinfo&siprop=namespaces is now an array
 104   with formatversion=2.
 105 * Various other output from meta=siteinfo will now always be arrays instead of
 106   sometimes being numerically-indexed objects with formatversion=2.
 107 * When errors about users being blocked are returned, they now include
 108   information about the relevant block.
 109 * (T99926) list=random has higher limits, in line with other API modules.
 110 * list=random's rnredirect parameter is deprecated in favor of a new
 111   rnfilterredir parameter that also allows for listing both redirects and
 112   non-redirects.
 113 * list=random now supports continuation.
 114 * API responses to GET requests may now include ETag and Last-Modified headers,
 115   and will honor corresponding If-None-Match and If-Modified-Since on such
 116   requests.
 117
 118 === Action API internal changes in 1.26 ===
 119 * New metadata item ApiResult::META_KVP_MERGE to allow for merging the KVP key
 120   into the value when the value is an assoc.
 121 * API action modules may now provide values for the RFC 7232 ETag and
 122   Last-Modified headers. The API will check these against If-None-Match and
 123   If-Modified-Since request headers on GET requests and avoid executing the
 124   module when appropriate.
 125
 126 === Languages updated in 1.26 ===
 127
 128 MediaWiki supports over 350 languages. Many localisations are updated
 129 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as
 130 changes to languages because of Phabricator reports.
 131
 132 * Languages added:
 133 ** ase (American sign language), thanks to translator Icemandeaf
 134 ** dty (डोटेली/Doteli), thanks to translators जनक राज भट्ट, बिप्लब आनन्द,
 135    मेश सिंह बोहरा, and राम प्रसाद जोशी
 136 ** luz (لئری دوٙمینی / Southern Luri)
 137
 138 === Other changes in 1.26 ===
 139 * ChangeTags::tagDescription() will return false if the interface message
 140   for the tag is disabled.
 141 * Added PageHistoryPager::doBatchLookups hook.
 142 * Added $wikiId parameter to FormatAutocomments hook.
 143 * Added ParserCacheSaveComplete to ParserCache
 144 * supportsDirectEditing and supportsDirectApiEditing methods added to
 145   ContentHandler, to provide a way for ApiEditPage and EditPage to check
 146   if direct editing of content is allowed. These methods return false,
 147   by default for the ContentHandler base class and true for TextContentHandler
 148   and it's derivative classes (everything in core). For Content types that
 149   do not support direct editing, an alternative mechanism should be provided
 150   for editing, such as action overrides or specific api modules.
 151 * mediaWiki.confirmCloseWindow now returns an object of functions, instead of
 152   one function. The callback can't be called directly any more. The callback
 153   function is replaced with confirmCloseWindow.release().
 154 * BREAKING CHANGE: Added an optional ResouceLoaderContext parameter to
 155   ResourceLoaderModule::getDependencies(). Extension classes that override that
 156   method should be updated. If they aren't updated, PHP Strict standards
 157   warnings will appear when E_STRICT error reporting is enabled. Note: in the
 158   near future, this parameter will probably become non-optional.
 159 * Removed maintenance script deleteImageMemcached.php.
 160 * MWFunction::newObj() was removed (deprecated in 1.25).
 161   ObjectFactory::getObjectFromSpec() should be used instead.
 162 * The parser will no longer randomize the string it uses to mark the place of
 163   items that were stripped during parsing. It will use a fixed string instead.
 164   This causes the parser to re-use the regular expressions it uses to search
 165   and replace markers rather than generate novel expressions on each parse.
 166   Re-using regular expressions will improve performance on HHVM and the
 167   forthcoming PHP 7. The interfaces changes accompanying this change are:
 168   - Parser::getRandomString() and Parser::uniqPrefix() have been deprecated.
 169   - The $uniq_prefix argument for Parser::extractTagsAndParams() and the
 170     $prefix argument for StripState::_construct() are deprecated and their
 171     value is ignored.
 172 * wfSuppressWarnings() and wfRestoreWarnings() were split into a separate library,
 173   mediawiki/at-ease, and are now deprecated. Callers should use
 174   MediaWiki\suppressWarnings() and MediaWiki\restoreWarnings() directly.
 175 * The Block class constructor now takes an associative array of parameters
 176   instead of many optional positional arguments. Calling the constructor the old
 177   way will issue a deprecation warning.
 178 * The jquery.mwExtension module was deprecated.
 179 * $wgSpecialPageGroups was removed (deprecated in 1.21).
 180 * SpecialPageFactory::setGroup was removed (deprecated in 1.21).
 181 * SpecialPageFactory::getGroup was removed (deprecated in 1.21).
 182 * DatabaseBase::ignoreErrors() is now protected.
 183 * BREAKING CHANGE: mediawiki.legacy.ajax has been removed, following
 184   a lengthy deprecation period.
 185 * The ScopedPHPTimeout class was removed.
 186 * Removed maintenance script fixSlaveDesync.php.
 187 * Watchlist tokens, SpecialResetTokens, and User::getTokenFromOption()
 188   are deprecated. Applications using those can work via the OAuth
 189   extension instead. New tokens types should not be added.
 190
 191 == Compatibility ==
 192
 193 MediaWiki 1.26 requires PHP 5.3.3 or later. There is experimental support for
 194 HHVM 3.3.0.
 195
 196 MySQL is the recommended DBMS. PostgreSQL or SQLite can also be used, but
 197 support for them is somewhat less mature. There is experimental support for
 198 Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
 199
 200 The supported versions are:
 201
 202 * MySQL 5.0.3 or later
 203 * PostgreSQL 8.3 or later
 204 * SQLite 3.3.7 or later
 205 * Oracle 9.0.1 or later
 206 * Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (9.00.1399)
 207
 208 == Upgrading ==
 209
 210 1.26 has several database changes since 1.25, and will not work without schema
 211 updates. Note that due to changes to some very large tables like the revision
 212 table, the schema update may take quite long (minutes on a medium sized site,
 213 many hours on a large site).
 214
 215 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons
 216 repository, make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise
 217 due to database schema changes.
 218
 219 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 220 new database fields are filled with data.
 221
 222 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, you should upgrade to
 223 1.5 first. The upgrade script maintenance/upgrade1_5.php has been removed
 224 with MediaWiki 1.21.
 225
 226 Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 227
 228 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 229
 230 For notes on 1.25.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 231
 232 == Online documentation ==
 233
 234 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is available on
 235 MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License (except
 236 for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in the public domain):
 237
 238         https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 239
 240 == Mailing list ==
 241
 242 A mailing list is available for MediaWiki user support and discussion:
 243
 244         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 245
 246 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 247
 248         https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 249
 250 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 251 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 252
 253 == IRC help ==
 254
 255 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net.