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 === Configuration changes in 1.18 ===
  22 * The WantedPages::getSQL hook has been removed and replaced with
  23   WantedPages::getQueryInfo . This may break older extensions.
  24 * $wgUseCombinedLoginLink controls whether to output a combined login / create account
  25   link in the personal bar, or to output separate login and create account links
  26 * Skin names are no longer created based on a ucfirst version of the key in $wgValidSkinNames but now
  27   the value. This means for $wgValidSkinNames["monobook"] = "MonoBook"; the skin
  28   loader will no longer try loading SkinMonobook and will instead load SkinMonoBook.
  29 * The parser now attempts to output markers for editsection tokens and defer the rendering
  30   of them so skin and language specific markup does not need to be saved inside the parser cache
  31   note that this changes the cache key making all old entries in the parser cache invalid you
  32   can set $wgUseEditSectionTokens to false to disable this and keep your old parser cache entries.
  33   Note that this feature should reduce parser cache fragmentation when enabled.
  34 * $wgMaxUploadSize may now be set to an array to specify the upload size limit
  35   per upload type.
  36 * $wgAPICacheHelp added in 1.16 is now removed. To disable API help caching, set
  37   $wgAPICacheHelpTimeout = 0;
  38
  39 === New features in 1.18 ===
  40 * Added a special page, disabled by default, that allows users with the
  41   'disableaccount' privilege to permanently deactivate user accounts.
  42 * (bug 8130) Query pages should limit to content namespaces, not just main namespace
  43 * Search suggestions (other than in the Vector skin) will now use the HTML5
  44   datalist feature where supported, currently only Firefox 4.
  45 * Special:Contribs now redirects to Special:Contributions
  46 * (bug 6672) Images are now autorotated according to their EXIF orientation.
  47   This only affects thumbnails; the source remains unrotated.
  48 * (bug 25708) Update case mappings and normalization to Unicode 6.0.0
  49 * New hook ArticlePrepareTextForEdit added, called when preparing text to be saved.
  50 * New parser option PreSaveTransform added, allows the pre-save transformation
  51   to be selectively disabled.
  52 * Alternative to $wgHooks implemented, using the new Hooks class.
  53
  54 === Bug fixes in 1.18 ===
  55 * (bug 23119) WikiError class and subclasses are now marked as deprecated
  56 * (bug 10871) Javascript and CSS pages in MediaWiki namespace are no longer
  57   treated as wikitext on preview.
  58 * (bug 22753) Output from update.php is more clear when things changed, entries
  59   indicating nothing changed are now all prefixed by "..."
  60 * Page existence is now not revealed (in the colour of the tabs) to users who
  61   cannot read the page in question.
  62 * (bug 19006) {{REVISIONUSER}} no longer acts like {{CURRENTUSER}} in some cases
  63 * (bug 16019) $wgArticlePath = "/$1" no longer breaks API edit/watch actions
  64 * (bug 18372) File types blacklisted by $wgFileBlacklist will no longer be shown as
  65   "Permitted file types" on the upload form
  66 * (bug 26379) importImages.php gives more descriptive error message on failure.
  67 * (bug 26410) + signs are no longer treated as spaces in internal links if
  68   link has a % sign in it.
  69 * (bug 26412) Search results headers no longer show a bogus edit link.
  70 * (bug 26540) Fixed wrong call to applyPatch in MysqlUpdater
  71 * (bug 26574) Added 'upload' to $wgRestrictionTypes, allowing upload protected
  72   pages to be queried via the API and Special:ProtectedPages, and allowing
  73   disabling upload protection by removing it from $wgRestrictionTypes.
  74 * If an edit summary exceeds 250 bytes and is truncated, add an ellipse
  75 * (bug 26638) Database error pages display correctly in RTL languages
  76 * (bug 26187) Confirmrecreate no longer parses the edit summary
  77 * (bug 25506) Exception is thrown if OutputPage::parse is called inside a tag hook,
  78   which would reset parser state
  79 * (bug 26208) Mark directionality of some interlanguage links
  80 * (bug 26034) Make the "View / Read" tab in content_navigation style tabs remain
  81   selected when the action is "purge".
  82 * (bug 14267) Support a MediaWiki:Mainpage-nstab override for the subject namespace
  83   tab on the mainpage of a wiki.
  84 * (bug 10158) Do not mention allowing others to contact you when the feature
  85   is disabled ($wgEnableUserEmail=false)
  86 * (bug 26733) Wrap initial table creation in transaction
  87 * (bug 26729) Category pages should return 404 if they do not exist and have no
  88   members.
  89 * (bug 2585) Image pages should send 404 if no image, no shared image and no
  90   description page.
  91 * (bug 12974) The behaviour of wikitable and template parsing was altered.  Previously,
  92   all templates were treated as being at the start of a block context for the purposes
  93   of evaluating wikitext elements like #, :, *, and tables (bug 529).  Now this
  94   behaviour is only applied to wikitable-start {|, but the first line of a wikitable
  95   cell is now treated as a linestart.
  96 * Custom editintro's using the editintro url parameter will no longer show <noinclude>
  97   sections on pages they are included on.
  98 * (bug 26449) Keep underlines from headings outside of tables and thumbs by
  99   adding overflow:hidden to h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 (also fixes editsection bunching).
 100 * (bug 26708) Remove background-color:white from tables in Monobook and Vector.
 101 * (bug 26781) {{PAGENAME}} and related parser functions escape their output better.
 102 * (bug 26716) Provide link to instructions for external editor related preferences.
 103
 104 === API changes in 1.18 ===
 105 * (bug 26339) Throw warning when truncating an overlarge API result
 106 * (bug 14869) Add API module for accessing QueryPage-based special pages
 107 * (bug 14020) API for Special:Unwatchedpages
 108 * (bug 24287) Wrap API Help output at 100 characters
 109 * Add a realname uiprop option to query=userinfo so a user's realname can be extracted
 110 * Add a &watchuser option to ApiBlock
 111 * (bug 26541) Generator-ise ApiQueryRecentChanges
 112 * action=parse now correctly returns an error for nonexistent pages
 113 * (bug 25767) Add userrights properties to allusers and users query lists
 114 * (bug 26558) list=allusers auprop=groups does not list groups a user is automatically a member of
 115 * (bug 26559) list=allusers auprop=rights does not match list=users usprop=rights
 116 * (bug 26560) On allusers if limit < total number of users, last user gets duplicate
 117 * (bug 25135) add "normalized" to action=parse
 118 * (bug 26460) Add support for listing category members by category pageid
 119 * (bug 26482) add a imimages param to prop=images
 120 * (bug 26498) allow LinksUpdate with API
 121 * (bug 26485) add a elextlinks param to prop=extlinks
 122 * (bug 26483) add a iwtitles param to prop=iwlinks
 123 * (bug 26484) add a lltitles param to prop=langlinks
 124 * (bug 26480) add a pppageprops param to prop=pageprops
 125 * (bug 26650) Remove $wgAPICacheHelp in favour of $wgAPICacheHelpTimeout
 126 * (bug 24650) Fix API to work with categorylinks changes
 127
 128 === Languages updated in 1.18 ===
 129
 130 MediaWiki supports over 330 languages. Many localisations are updated
 131 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as
 132 changes to languages because of Bugzilla reports.
 133
 134 == Compatibility ==
 135
 136 MediaWiki 1.18 requires PHP 5.1 (5.2 recommended). PHP 4 is no longer
 137 supported.
 138
 139 MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade.
 140 At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.
 141
 142
 143 == Upgrading ==
 144
 145 1.18 has several database changes since 1.17, and will not work without schema
 146 updates.
 147
 148 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons reposito-
 149 ry, make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to
 150 database schema changes.
 151
 152 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 153 new database fields are filled with data.
 154
 155 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database
 156 changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could
 157 break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 158
 159 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 160
 161
 162 === Caveats ===
 163
 164 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
 165 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
 166 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
 167 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
 168 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
 169
 170 For notes on 1.17.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 171
 172
 173 === Online documentation ===
 174
 175 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 176 built up on MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 177 License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in
 178 the public domain) :
 179
 180         http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 181
 182
 183 === Mailing list ===
 184
 185 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 186 wikitech-l list:
 187
 188         http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 189
 190 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 191
 192         http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 193
 194 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 195 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 196
 197
 198 === IRC help ===
 199
 200 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net