RELEASE-NOTES

   1 = MediaWiki release notes =
   2
   3 Security reminder: MediaWiki does not require PHP's register_globals
   4 setting since version 1.2.0. If you have it on, turn it *off* if you can.
   5
   6 == MediaWiki 1.18 ==
   7
   8 THIS IS NOT A RELEASE YET
   9
  10 MediaWiki is now using a "continuous integration" development model with
  11 quarterly snapshot releases. The latest development code is always kept
  12 "ready to run", and in fact runs our own sites on Wikipedia.
  13
  14 Release branches will continue to receive security updates for about a year
  15 from first release, but nonessential bugfixes and feature developments
  16 will be made on the development trunk and appear in the next quarterly release.
  17
  18 Those wishing to use the latest code instead of a branch release can obtain
  19 it from source control: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download_from_SVN
  20
  21 === PHP 5.2 now required ==
  22 In 1.18, the lowest supported version of MediaWiki is now 5.2.3. Please upgrade
  23 PHP if you have not done so prior to upgrading MediaWiki.
  24
  25 === Configuration changes in 1.18 ===
  26 * The WantedPages::getSQL hook has been removed and replaced with
  27   WantedPages::getQueryInfo . This may break older extensions.
  28 * $wgUseCombinedLoginLink controls whether to output a combined
  29   login / create account link in the personal bar, or to output separate login
  30   and create account links
  31 * Skin names are no longer created based on a ucfirst version of the key in
  32   $wgValidSkinNames but now the value. This means for
  33   $wgValidSkinNames["monobook"] = "MonoBook"; the skin loader will no longer try
  34   loading SkinMonobook and will instead load SkinMonoBook.
  35 * $wgMaxUploadSize may now be set to an array to specify the upload size limit
  36   per upload type.
  37 * $wgAPICacheHelp added in 1.16 is now removed. To disable API help caching, set
  38   $wgAPICacheHelpTimeout = 0;
  39 * OutputPage::isUserJsAllowed() no longer returns false when scripts are allowed
  40   by the page, but $wgAllowUserJs is set to false.
  41 * Pure "Skin" class based custom skins are no longer supported, all custom skins
  42   should be put together using SkinTemplate and BaseTemplate or QuickTemplate.
  43 * The transliteration for passwords in case they were migrated from an old Latin-1
  44   install (previous to MediaWiki 1.5) is now only done for wikis with
  45   $wgLegacyEncoding set.
  46 * (bug 27508) Add $wgSVGMetadataCutoff to limit the maximum amount of an svg we
  47   look at when finding metadata to prevent excessive resource usage.
  48 * $wgSysopUserBans and $wgSysopRangeBans (deprecated in 1.17) are now removed.
  49   Use $wgBlockCIDRLimit = array( 'IPv4' => 43, 'IPv6' => 128 ) to achieve the same
  50   functionality as $wgSysopRangeBans; you can use the BlockIp hook to replicate
  51   $wgSysopUserBans functionality.
  52 * The options on the block form have been standardised such that checking a box
  53   makes the block 'more serious'; so while "check to prevent account creation" and
  54   "check to enable autoblock" remain the same, "check to allow user-talk edit" is
  55   reversed to "check to *disable* user-talk edit", and "check to block anon-only"
  56   becomes "check to block logged-in users too".  The default settings remain the same.
  57 * Most of the field names on the Special:Block form have been changed, which will
  58   probably break screen-scraping bots.
  59 * (bug 26866) The 'trackback' right is no longer granted to sysops by default.
  60   $wgUseTrackbacks is already false by default
  61 * (bug 17009) the hiddenStructure CSS class, a highly hackish way of at least *appearing*
  62   to hide article elements, has been removed.  Use the ParserFunctions extension to
  63   actually remove unwanted elements from the output.
  64 * (bug 14202) $wgUseTeX has been superseded by the Math extension. To re-enable
  65   math conversion after upgrading, obtain the Math extension from SVN or from
  66   http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Math and add to LocalSettings.php:
  67   require_once "$IP/extensions/Math/Math.php";
  68
  69 === New features in 1.18 ===
  70 * Added a special page, disabled by default, that allows users with the
  71   'disableaccount' privilege to permanently deactivate user accounts.
  72 * (bug 8130) Query pages should limit to content namespaces, not just main
  73   namespace
  74 * Search suggestions (other than in the Vector skin) will now use the HTML5
  75   datalist feature where supported, currently only Firefox 4.
  76 * Special:Contribs now redirects to Special:Contributions
  77 * (bug 6672) Images are now autorotated according to their EXIF orientation.
  78   This only affects thumbnails; the source remains unrotated.
  79 * (bug 25708) Update case mappings and normalization to Unicode 6.0.0
  80 * New hook ArticlePrepareTextForEdit added, called when preparing text to be
  81   saved.
  82 * New parser option PreSaveTransform added, allows the pre-save transformation
  83   to be selectively disabled.
  84 * Alternative to $wgHooks implemented, using the new Hooks class.
  85 * Add width parameter to Special:Filepath to allow getting the file path of a
  86   thumbnail.
  87 * (bug 26870) Add size to {{filepath:}}
  88 * Upload warnings now show a thumbnail of the uploaded file
  89 * Introduced the edittools-upload message, which will be inserted under the
  90   upload form instead of edittools if available
  91 * (bug 26285) Extensions will be automatically generated on upload if the user
  92   specified a filename without extension.
  93 * (bug 26851) Special:UserRights now allows to prefill the reason field
  94 * New maintenance script to fix double redirects
  95   (maintenance/fixDoubleRedirects.php)
  96 * (bug 23315) New body classes to allow easier styling of special pages
  97 * (bug 27159) Make email confirmation code expiration time configurable
  98 * CSS/JS for each user group is imported from MediaWiki:Sysop.js,
  99   MediaWiki:Autoconfirmed.css, etc.
 100 * (bug 24230) Uploads of ZIP types, such as MS Office or OpenOffice can now be
 101   safely enabled. A ZIP file reader was added which can scan a ZIP file for
 102   potentially dangerous Java applets. This allows applets to be blocked
 103   specifically, rather than all ZIP files being blocked.
 104 * (bug 2429) Allow selection of associated namespace in recent changes
 105 * (bug 26217) File size is now checked before uploading in HTML5 browsers
 106 * CSS stylesheet MediaWiki:Noscript.css is now loaded for users with JavaScript
 107   disabled (enclosed in the head in a <noscript> tag)
 108 * Added UserGetLanguageObject hook to change the language used in $wgLang
 109 * (bug 14645) When $wgMiserMode is on, expensive special pages are styled
 110   differently (italicized by default) on Special:SpecialPages
 111 * Added $wgAggregateStatsID, which allows UDP stats to be aggregated over
 112   several wikis.
 113 * When $wgAllowMicrodataAttributes is true, all itemtypes are allowed, not just
 114   the three that were defined in the original specification.
 115 * (bug 14706) Added support for the Imagick PHP extension.
 116 * (bug 18691) Added support for SVG rasterization using the Imagick PHP
 117   extension
 118 * (bug 2581, bug 6834) Added links to thumbnail in several resolutions to the
 119   file description page. The sizes are set by $wgImageLimits.
 120 * (bug 28031) Add pageCount support to ArchivedFile
 121 * (bug 27924) PhpHttpRequest doesn't return response body if HTTP != 200
 122 * Added hook BitmapHandlerTransform to allow extension to transform a file
 123   without overriding the entire handler.
 124 * The parser now attempts to output markers for editsection tokens and defer the
 125   rendering of them post-cache to reduce parser cache fragmentation and ensure
 126   skin customizability of edit section links.
 127 * (bug 24755) AuthPlugin auto-creation of local accounts can now be aborted by
 128   other extensions by handling the 'AbortAutoAccount' hook, similar to the
 129   'AbortNewAccount' triggered by explicit account creations. (They are separate
 130   to avoid loops and confusion; auth plugins like CentralAuth need to handle
 131   AbortNewAccount separately.
 132 * Special:ListFiles is now transcludable.
 133 * (bug 13879) Special:Emailuser asks for suitable target user if called without.
 134
 135
 136 === Bug fixes in 1.18 ===
 137 * (bug 23119) WikiError class and subclasses are now marked as deprecated
 138 * (bug 10871) Javascript and CSS pages in MediaWiki namespace are no longer
 139   treated as wikitext on preview.
 140 * (bug 22753) Output from update.php is more clear when things changed, entries
 141   indicating nothing changed are now all prefixed by "..."
 142 * Page existence is now not revealed (in the colour of the tabs) to users who
 143   cannot read the page in question.
 144 * (bug 19006) {{REVISIONUSER}} no longer acts like {{CURRENTUSER}} in some cases
 145 * (bug 16019) $wgArticlePath = "/$1" no longer breaks API edit/watch actions
 146 * (bug 18372) File types blacklisted by $wgFileBlacklist will no longer be shown
 147   as "Permitted file types" on the upload form
 148 * (bug 26379) importImages.php gives more descriptive error message on failure.
 149 * (bug 26410) + signs are no longer treated as spaces in internal links if
 150   link has a % sign in it.
 151 * (bug 26412) Search results headers no longer show a bogus edit link.
 152 * (bug 26540) Fixed wrong call to applyPatch in MysqlUpdater
 153 * (bug 26574) Added 'upload' to $wgRestrictionTypes, allowing upload protected
 154   pages to be queried via the API and Special:ProtectedPages, and allowing
 155   disabling upload protection by removing it from $wgRestrictionTypes.
 156 * If an edit summary exceeds 250 bytes and is truncated, add an ellipse
 157 * (bug 26638) Database error pages display correctly in RTL languages
 158 * (bug 26187) Confirmrecreate no longer parses the edit summary
 159 * (bug 25506) Exception is thrown if OutputPage::parse is called inside a tag
 160   hook, which would reset parser state
 161 * (bug 26208) Mark directionality of some interlanguage links
 162 * (bug 26034) Make the "View / Read" tab in content_navigation style tabs remain
 163   selected when the action is "purge".
 164 * (bug 14267) Support a MediaWiki:Mainpage-nstab override for the subject
 165   namespace tab on the mainpage of a wiki.
 166 * (bug 10158) Do not mention allowing others to contact you when the feature
 167   is disabled ($wgEnableUserEmail=false)
 168 * (bug 26733) Wrap initial table creation in transaction
 169 * (bug 26729) Category pages should return 404 if they do not exist and have no
 170   members.
 171 * (bug 2585) Image pages should send 404 if no image, no shared image and no
 172   description page.
 173 * Custom editintro's using the editintro url parameter will no longer show
 174   <noinclude> sections on pages they are included on.
 175 * (bug 26449) Keep underlines from headings outside of tables and thumbs by
 176   adding overflow:hidden to h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 (also fixes editsection bunching).
 177 * (bug 26708) Remove background-color:white from tables in Monobook and Vector.
 178 * (bug 28422) Remove color:black from tables in Monobook and Vector. And add it
 179   to table.wikitable instead.
 180 * (bug 26781) {{PAGENAME}} and related parser functions escape their output
 181   better.
 182 * (bug 26716) Provide link to instructions for external editor related
 183   preferences and add a comment to the ini control file explaining what is
 184   going on.
 185 * Trying to upload a file with no extension or with a disallowed MIME type now
 186   gives the right message instead of complaining about a MIME/extension mismatch
 187 * (bug 26809) Uploading files with multiple extensions where one of the
 188   extensions is blacklisted now gives the proper extension in the error message.
 189 * (bug 26961) Hide anon edits in watchlist preference now actually works.
 190 * (bug 19751) Filesystem is now checked during image undeletion
 191 * Send last modified headers for Special:Recentchanges when RC patrol is
 192   enabled, but user cannot see rc patrol links.
 193 * (bug 26548) ForeignAPIRepo (InstantCommons) now works with PDF files
 194   and other multi-paged file formats.
 195 * Files with a mime type that does not match the extension are now properly
 196   thumbnailed
 197 * (bug 27201) Special:WhatLinksHere output no longer contains duplicate IDs
 198 * (bug 15905) Nostalgia skin could become more usable by including a Talk:
 199   link at the top of the page
 200 * (bug 27560) Search queries no longer fail in walloon language
 201 * (bug 27679) Broken embedded files with special characters are no longer
 202   double HTML escaped
 203 * (bug 27700) The upload protection can now also be set for files that do not
 204   exist.
 205 * (bug 27763) Article::getParserOutput() no longer throws a fatal given when an
 206   incorrect revision ID is passed.
 207 * Trim the form field for uploading by url to remove extra spaces which could
 208   cause confusing error messages.
 209 * (bug 27854) Http::isValidURI is way too lax.
 210 * Do not show enotifminoredits preference, if disabled by $wgEnotifMinorEdits.
 211 * AbortLogin returning "ABORTED" now handled.  Also allows message identifier
 212   for "ABORTED" reason to be returned and displayed to user.
 213 * (bug 28034) uploading file to local wiki when file exists on shared repository
 214   (commons) gives spurious info in the warning message
 215 * Usernames get lost when selecting different sorts on Special:listfiles
 216 * (bug 14005) editing section 0 of an existing but empty page gives no such
 217   section error
 218 * (bug 26939) Installer does not set $wgMetaNamespace
 219 * (bug 28166) UploadBase assumes that 'edit' and 'upload' rights are not per
 220   page restrictions
 221 * Make truncate function automatically consider length of '...' string,
 222   since length can vary by localization.
 223 * (bug 28242) Make redirects generated by urls containing a local interwiki
 224   prefix be a 301 instead of a 302.
 225 * (bug 15641) blocked administrators are now prevented from deleting or protecting
 226   their own talk page; and all blocked users are more comprehensively prevented
 227   from performing other actions
 228 * (bug 15641) Fixed positioning of permissions checks in Special:Import which
 229   allowed users without the 'import' permission to import pages if they directly
 230   submitted the form.
 231 * (bug 27893) Edit-on-doubleclick now applies only on view and purge actions;
 232   no longer triggers unexpectedly on delete, history etc.
 233 * (bug 28417) Fix PHP notice when importing revision without a listed id
 234 * (bug 28430) Make html and TeX output of <math> always be left-to-right.
 235 * (bug 28306) Fix exposure of suppressed usernames in ForeignDBRepo
 236 * (bug 28372) Fix bogus link to suppressed file versions in ForeignDBRepo
 237 * (bug 27473) Fix regression: bold, italic no longer interfere with linktrail for ca, kaa
 238 * (bug 28444) Fix regression: edit-on-doubleclick retains revision id again
 239 * (bug 28485) Block::purgeExpired Database returned error "1205: Lock wait timeout
 240   exceeded;"
 241 * (bug 27639) Transaction timeout when trying to OldLocalFile::upgradeRow()
 242
 243  === API changes in 1.18 ===
 244 * (bug 26339) Throw warning when truncating an overlarge API result
 245 * (bug 14869) Add API module for accessing QueryPage-based special pages
 246 * (bug 14020) API for Special:Unwatchedpages
 247 * (bug 24287) Wrap API Help output at 100 characters
 248 * Add a realname uiprop option to query=userinfo so a user's realname can be
 249   extracted
 250 * Add a &watchuser option to ApiBlock
 251 * (bug 26541) Generator-ise ApiQueryRecentChanges
 252 * action=parse now correctly returns an error for nonexistent pages
 253 * (bug 25767) Add userrights properties to allusers and users query lists
 254 * (bug 26558) list=allusers auprop=groups does not list groups a user is
 255   automatically a member of
 256 * (bug 26559) list=allusers auprop=rights does not match
 257   list=users usprop=rights
 258 * (bug 26560) On allusers if limit < total number of users, last user gets
 259   duplicate
 260 * (bug 25135) add "normalized" to action=parse
 261 * (bug 26460) Add support for listing category members by category pageid
 262 * (bug 26482) add a imimages param to prop=images
 263 * (bug 26498) allow LinksUpdate with API
 264 * (bug 26485) add a elextlinks param to prop=extlinks
 265 * (bug 26483) add a iwtitles param to prop=iwlinks
 266 * (bug 26484) add a lltitles param to prop=langlinks
 267 * (bug 26480) add a pppageprops param to prop=pageprops
 268 * (bug 26650) Remove $wgAPICacheHelp in favour of $wgAPICacheHelpTimeout
 269 * (bug 24650) Fix API to work with categorylinks changes
 270 * Expose list of skins in meta=siteinfo
 271 * (bug 26548) Add iiurlparam param to query=imageinfo and query=stashimageinfo
 272 * (bug 27205) aiprop=metadata and aiprop=parsedcomment need help text
 273 * Add a amtitle param to meta=allmessages
 274 * (bug 25832) query=allimages now outputs ns/title as well
 275 * (bug 27199) Thumbnail urls can be fetched for old files as well
 276 * (bug 27376) when using ApiBase::PARAM_TYPE => 'integer' without a min or
 277   max value, api doesn't validate the input is actually an integer
 278 * (bug 27479) API error when using both prop=pageprops and
 279   prop=info&inprop=displaytitle
 280 * (bug 27554) Update api information text to reflect change in bug 26125
 281 * (bug 27611) list=blocks: Use ipb_by_text instead of join with user table
 282 * (bug 27616) Add userid of blocked user and blocker to list=blocks
 283 * (bug 27688) Simplify queries to list user block information
 284 * (bug 27708) list=users does not have a property to return user id
 285 * (bug 27715) imageinfo didn't respect revdelete
 286 * (bug 27862) Useremail module didn't properly return success on success.
 287 * (bug 27590) prop=imageinfo now allows querying the media type
 288 * (bug 27587) list=filearchive now outputs full title info
 289 * (bug 27018) Added action=filerevert to revert files to an old version
 290 * (bug 27897) list=allusers and list=users list hidden users
 291 * (bug 27717) API's exturlusage module does not respect $wgMiserMode
 292 * (bug 27588) list=filearchive&faprop=sha1 returns empty attribute
 293 * (bug 28010) Passing a non existant user to list=users gives internal error
 294 * (bug 27549) action=query&list=users&usprop=groups doesn't show implicit
 295   groups if a user doesn't have explicit groups
 296 * (bug 27670) Ordering by timestamp (and usage of start and end) isn't as clear
 297   in auto generated document, as it is on mw.org
 298 * (bug 27182) API: Add filter by prefix for meta=allmessages
 299 * (bug 27183) API: Add filter by customisation state for meta=allmessages
 300 * (bug 27340) API: Allow listing of "small" categories
 301 * (bug 27342) Add audir param to list=allusers
 302 * (bug 27203) add fato param to list=filearchive
 303 * (bug 27341) Add drto param to list=deletedrevs
 304 * (bug 26630) Add api for Special:ActiveUsers
 305 * (bug 27020) API: Allow title prefix search of logevents (only when not in
 306   miser mode)
 307 * (bug 26629) add Special:MIMESearch to api
 308 * (bug 27585) add pagecount to list=filearchive
 309 * (bug 28104) Namespace for local pages in interwiki backlinks (iwbacklinks)
 310   is missing
 311 * (bug 27343) Add parseddescription to list=filearchive
 312 * (bug 27469) label implicit groups in list=allusers&auprop=groups/
 313   list=users&usprop=groups
 314 * Addition of APIQuerySiteInfoGeneralInfo hook to add extra information to
 315   the general site info results
 316 * (bug 16288) API: consider making closure status of wikis more clear
 317   with meta=siteinfo
 318 * (bug 27589) list=allimages&aiprop=archivename is useless
 319 * (bug 27586) Remove duplication of props in ApiQueryStashImageInfo
 320   by using ApiQueryImageInfo
 321 * (bug 28226) prop=extlinks&eloffset should be an integer
 322 * (bug 28070) Fix watchlist RSS for databases that store timestamps in a
 323   real timestamp field.
 324 * API upload errors may now return the parameter that needs to be changed and
 325   a sessionkey to fix the error.
 326 * (bug 28249) allow dupes in meta=allmessages&amargs
 327 * (bug 28263) cannot import xml with the api, when have not "import" user
 328   right, but "importupload"
 329 * (bug 28365) Added description for uiprop=preferencestoken in meta=userinfo
 330 * (bug 28394) Set forgotten parameters types in ApiUnblock
 331 * (bug 28395) Set forgotten parameters types in ApiParse
 332 * (bug 28368) add hint for multipart/form-data to api information of
 333   action=import&xml=
 334 * (bug 28391) action=feedwatchlist&allrev should be a bool
 335 * (bug 28364) add registration date to meta=userinfo
 336 * (bug 28254) action=paraminfo: Extract type from PARAM_DFLT if
 337   PARAM_TYPE is not set
 338 * (bug 27712) add parent_id to list=deletedrevs
 339 * (bug 28455) Add 'toponly' to recentchanges API module
 340 * (bug 26873) API: Add 'toponly' filter in usercontribs module
 341
 342 === Languages updated in 1.18 ===
 343
 344 MediaWiki supports over 330 languages. Many localisations are updated
 345 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as
 346 changes to languages because of Bugzilla reports.
 347
 348 * Liv (liv) (new)
 349
 350 * (bug 17160) Gender specific display text for User namespace
 351 * Link trail added for sl and sh
 352 * (bug 27633) Add characters to linkTrail for Potuguese (pt and pt-br)
 353 * (bug 27426) Set $namespaceGenderAliases for Arabic (ar)
 354 * (bug 27385) Set Polish $namespaceGenderAliases
 355 * (bug 27681) Set $namespaceGenderAliases for Portuguese (pt and pt-br)
 356 * (bug 27785) Fallback language for Kabardian (kbd) is English now.
 357 * (bug 27825) Raw watchlist edit message now uses formatted numbers.
 358 * (bug 28040) Turkish: properly lower case 'I' to 'ı' (dotless i) and
 359   uppercase 'i' to 'İ' (dotted i)
 360
 361 == Compatibility ==
 362
 363 MediaWiki 1.18 requires PHP 5.2.3. PHP 4 is no longer supported.
 364
 365 MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade.
 366 At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.
 367
 368
 369 == Upgrading ==
 370
 371 1.18 has several database changes since 1.17, and will not work without schema
 372 updates.
 373
 374 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons reposito-
 375 ry, make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to
 376 database schema changes.
 377
 378 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 379 new database fields are filled with data.
 380
 381 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database
 382 changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could
 383 break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 384
 385 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 386
 387
 388 === Caveats ===
 389
 390 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
 391 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
 392 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
 393 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
 394 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
 395
 396 For notes on 1.17.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 397
 398
 399 === Online documentation ===
 400
 401 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 402 built up on MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 403 License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in
 404 the public domain) :
 405
 406         http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 407
 408
 409 === Mailing list ===
 410
 411 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 412 wikitech-l list:
 413
 414         http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 415
 416 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 417
 418         http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 419
 420 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 421 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 422
 423
 424 === IRC help ===
 425
 426 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net