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  26   This experimental feature was never enabled by default and is obsolete as of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