1 = MediaWiki release notes =
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.
8 THIS IS NOT A RELEASE YET
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.
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.
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
21 === Configuration changes in 1.14 ===
23 * $wgExemptFromUserRobotsControl is an array of namespaces to be exempt from
24 the effect of the new __INDEX__/__NOINDEX__ magic words. (Default: null, ex-
25 empt all content namespaces.)
26 * $wgForwardSearchUrl has been removed entirely. Documented setting since 1.4
27 has been $wgSearchForwardUrl.
28 * (bug 15080) $wgOverrideSiteFeed has been added. Setting either
29 $wgSiteFeed['rss'] or 'atom' to a URL will override the default Recent Changes
30 feed that appears on all pages.
31 * $wgSQLiteDataDirMode has been introduced as the default directory mode for
32 SQLite data directories on creation. Note this setting is separate from
33 $wgDirectoryMode, which applies to all normal directories created by MediaWiki.
34 * $wgGroupsAddToSelf and $wgGroupsRemoveFromSelf now work more like
35 $wgAddGroups and $wgRemoveGroups, where the user must belong to a specified
36 group in order to add or remove those groups from themselves.
37 Backwards compatibility is maintained.
38 * $wgRestrictDisplayTitle controls if the use of the {{DISPLAYTITLE}} magic
39 word is restricted to titles equivalent to the actual page title. This
40 is true per default, but can be set to false to allow any title.
41 * $wgSpamRegex may now be an array of multiple regular expressions.
42 * $wgAjaxSearch has been removed; use $wgEnableMWSuggest instead.
43 * Editing the MediaWiki namespace is now unconditionally restricted to people
44 with the editinterface right, configuring this in $wgNamespaceProtection
46 * $wgAllowExternalImagesFrom may now be an array of multiple strings.
47 * Introduced $wgEnableImageWhitelist to toggle the on-wiki external image
49 * Added $wgRenderHashAppend to append some string to the parser cache and the
50 sitenotice cache keys.
51 * $wgRCChangedSizeThreshold is now a positive integer by default,
52 * (bug 16006) $wgEnableWriteAPI is now true by default. Authorized can perform
53 write actions using the API.
54 * Added $wgRC2UDPInterwikiPrefix which adds an interwiki prefix
55 ($wgLocalInterwiki) onto the page names in the UDP feed.
57 === Migrated extensions ===
58 The following extensions are migrated into MediaWiki 1.14:
60 * Special:DeletedContributions to show deleted user contributions (was extension
62 * Special:Log/newusers recording new users (was extension Newuserlog)
63 * Special:LinkSearch to search for external links (was extension LinkSearch)
66 * Poem (patch by Nathaniel Herman)
69 === New features in 1.14 ===
71 * New URL syntaxes for Special:ListUsers - 'Special:ListUsers/USER' and
72 'Special:ListUsers/GROUP/USER', in addition to the older syntax
73 'Special:ListUsers/GROUP' where GROUP is a valid group name.
74 * Configurable per-namespace and per-page notices for the edit form,
75 respectively MediaWiki:Editnotice-# where # is the namespace number, and
76 MediaWiki:Editnotice-#-PAGENAME where # is the page's namespace number and
77 PAGENAME is the page name minus the namespace prefix.
78 * (bug 8068) New __INDEX__ and __NOINDEX__ magic words allow user control of
79 search engine indexing on a per-article basis.
80 * Handheld stylesheet options
81 * Added 'DoEditSectionLink' hook as a cleaner unified version of the old
82 'EditSectionLink' and 'EditSectionLinkForOther' hooks. Note that the
83 'EditSectionLinkForOther' hook has been removed, but 'EditSectionLink' is
84 run in all cases instead, so extensions using the old hooks should still work
85 if they ran roughly the same code for both hooks (as is almost certain).
86 * Signature (~~~~) "cleaning", i.e. template removal, can be disabled with
87 $wgCleanSignatures=false
88 * Extensions can use the SkinBuildSidebar hook to modify the content of the
89 sidebar and add custom portlets to it
90 * Added 'MakeGlobalVariablesScript' hook for extensions to be able to add vari-
91 ables into into the output of Skin::makeVariablesScript
92 * (bug 13846) Added $wgAddGroups and $wgRemoveGroups display on
93 Special:ListGroupRights
94 * (bug 14377) Add a date selector to history pages
95 * (bug 15007) New 'pagetitle-view-mainpage' message allows the HTML <title> of
96 the main page to be customized
97 * Added $wgDisableTitleConversion to disabling the conversion for all pages on
99 * Added 'noconvertlink' toggle that can be set per user preferences, also
100 added 'convertlink=no|yes' on GET requests whether have the link titles
101 being converted or not
102 * (bug 14921) Special:Contributions/: add user name to <title>
104 * Unescape more "safe" characters when producing URLs, for added prettiness
105 * Introduced a new hook 'SkinAfterContent' that allows extensions to add text
106 after the page content and article metadata. Updated all skins and skin
107 templates to work with that hook.
108 * (bug 14929) removeUnusedAccounts.php now supports 'ignore-touched' and
109 'ignore-groups'. Patch by Louperivois
110 * (bug 15127) Work around minor display glitch in Opera.
111 * By default, reject file uploads that look like ZIP files, to avoid the
112 so-called GIFAR vulnerability.
113 * (bug 15141) Give ability to only list protected pages with the cascading
114 option enabled on Special:ProtectedPages
115 * (bug 15157) Special:Watchlist has the same options as Special:Watchlist:
116 Show/Hide logged in users, Show/Hide anonymous, Invert namespace selection
117 * Added hook 'UserrightsChangeableGroups' to allow modification of what
118 groups may be added or removed via the Special:UserRights interface.
119 * HTML entities like now work (are not escaped) in edit summaries.
120 * (bug 13815) In the comment for page moves, use the colon-separator message
121 instead of a hardcoded colon.
122 * Allow <gallery> to accept image names without an Image: prefix
123 * Add tooltips to rollback and undo links
124 * BMP images are now displayed as PNG
125 * (bug 13471) Added NUMBERINGROUP magic word
126 * (bug 11884) Now support Flash EXIF attribute
127 * Show thumbnails in the file history list, patch by User:Agbad
128 * Added support of piped wikilinks using double-width brackets
129 * Added an on-wiki external image whitelist. Items in this whitelist are
130 treated as regular expression fragments to match for when possibly
131 displaying an external image inline.
132 * (bugs 15405, 15436) Sort more currency types correctly in sortable tables
133 * (bug 15422) Sort more different types of numbers in sortable tables
134 * (bug 2889) MediaWiki:Print.css applies to the printable version
135 * Category counts (e.g. from {{PAGESINCATEGORY:}}) should be more accurate for
137 * After logging in, automatically redirect to wherever you logged in from
138 * (bug 5619) Break messages used in Special:Statistics down further
139 * (bug 11029) Add link to Special:Listusers?group=sysop etc at
141 * (bug 15514) Setting $wgRightsText without $wgRightsUrl now produces a
142 plaintext copyright notice. Patch by Juliano F. Ravasi.
143 * (bug 15551) Deletion log excerpt is now shown whenever a user vists a
144 deleted page, even if they are unable to edit it.
145 * Added Wantedfiles special pages, allowing users to find image links with no
147 * (bug 12650) It is now possible to set different expiration times for different
148 restriction types on the protection form.
149 * (bug 8440) Allow preventing blocked users from editing their talk pages
150 * Improved upload file type detection for OpenDocument formats
151 * Added the ability to set the target attribute on external links with
152 $wgExternalLinkTarget
153 * api.php now sends "Retry-After" and "X-Database-Lag" HTTP headers if the maxlag
154 check fails, just like index.php does
155 * Added "link" parameter to image links, to allow images to link to an
156 arbitrary title or URL. This should replace inaccessible and incomplete
157 solutions such as CSS-based overlays and ImageMap.
158 * (bug 368) Don't use caption for alt attribute; allow manual specification
159 using new "alt=" parameter for images
160 * (bug 44) The {{ns:}} core parser function now also accepts localized namespace
161 names and aliases; also, its output now uses spaces instead of underscores to
162 match the behavior of the {{NAMESPACE}} magic word
163 * Added the ability to display user edit counts in Special:ListUsers. Off by
164 default, enabled with $wgEdititis = true (named after the medical condition
165 marked by unhealthy obsession with edit counts).
166 * Added a file cache to the parser to improve page rendering time on pages with
167 several uses of the same image.
168 * (bug 1250) Users can still use "show preview" and "show changes" even if the
169 wiki is set to read-only mode.
170 * Added a call to the 'UnwatchArticleComplete' hook to the watchlist editor. This
171 should make it so that ALL user-accessible methods of removing a page from a watchlist
172 lead to this hook being called (it was previously only called from within Article.php
173 * Maximum execution time for shell processes on linux is now configured with
174 $wgMaxShellTime (180 seconds by default)
175 * (bug 1306) 'Email user' link no longer shown on user page when emailing
176 is not available due to lack of confirmed address or disabled preference
177 * Special:Wanted templates special page added to display missing templates
179 * Make search matches bold only, not red as well
180 * Added 'UserRights::showEditUserGroupsForm' hook to allow extensions to alter
181 the groups that the user can be added to or removed from in Special:UserRights
183 === Bug fixes in 1.14 ===
185 * (bug 14907) DatabasePostgres::fieldType now defined.
186 * (bug 14659) Passing the default limit param to Special:Recentchanges no more
187 falls back to the user option
188 * (bug 14954) Fix regression in Modern and Simple skins
189 * Recursion loop check added to Categoryfinder class
190 * Fixed few performance troubles of large job queue processing
191 * Not setting various parameters in Foreign Repos now fails more gracefully
192 * (bug 2333) Redirects are properly rendered when previewing an edit.
193 * (bug 14972) Use localized alias of Special:Search on all search forms
194 * (bug 11035) Special:Search should have descriptive <title>
195 * Special pages are now not subject to special handling for "self-links"
196 * (bug 15053) Syntactically incorrect redirects with another link in them
197 no longer redirect to the second link
198 * (bug 15049) Fix for CheckUser extension's log search: usernames containing
199 a "-" were incorrectly turned into bogus IP range searches.
200 Patch by Max Semenik.
201 * (bug 15055) Talk page notifications no longer attempt to send mail when
202 user's e-mail address is invalid or unconfirmed
203 * (bug 12370) Add throttle on password attempts. Defaults to max 5 attempts in 5
205 * (bug 15016) 'Templates used on this page' list in view source should be
206 wrapped in a div with class "templatesUsed"
207 * (bug 14868) Setting $wgFeedDiffCutoff to 0 now disables generation of the diff
208 entirely, not just the display of it.
209 * (bug 6387) Introduced new setting $wgCategoryPrefixedDefaultSortkey which
210 allows having the unprefixed page title as the default category sortkey
211 * (bug 15079) Add class="ns-talk" / "ns-subject" to <body>. Also added
212 ns-special to special pages.
213 * (bug 15052) Skins should add their name as a class in <body>
214 * (bug 14165, bug 14294) Wikimedia specific configuration in convertGrammar()
215 for several languages was removed. The settings have been put in extension
216 WikimediaMessages. Patch for Czech by Danny B.
217 * (bug 15101) Displaying only bots edits in Special:Recentchanges now works
219 * (bug 13770) Fixed incorrect detection of PHP's DOM module
220 * (bug 14790) Export of category pages when using Category: prefix now actually
222 * Avoid recursive crazy expansions in section edit comments for pages which
223 contain '/*' in the title
224 * Fix excessive memory usage when parsing pages with lots of links
225 * $wgSpamRegex now matches the edit summary and page move descriptions in
226 addition to body text.
227 * Navigation links to images available from a shared repository (like Commons)
228 from their local talk pages no longer appear as redlinks
229 * Action=purge on ForeignApiFiles now works (purges their thumbnails and
231 * (bug 15303) Title conversion for templates wasn't working in some cases.
232 * (bug 15264) Underscores in Special:Search/Foo_bar parameters were taken
233 literally; now converting them to spaces per expectation.
234 * (bug 15342) "Invert" checkbox now works correctly when selecting main
235 namespace in Special:Watchlist
236 * (bug 15172) 'Go' button of Special:Recentchanges now on the same line as the
237 last input element (like Special:Watchlist too)
238 * (bug 15351) Fix fatal error for invalid section fragments in autocomments
239 * Fixed intermittent deadlock errors involving objectcache table queries.
240 Use a separate database connection for the objectcache table to avoid
241 long-lasting locks on that table.
242 * Respect file restrictions in the file history list
243 * (bug 15399) Odd/even classes on sortable tables' rows could be slow for large
244 tables, and have been disabled by default.
245 * (bug 15482) Special:Recentchangeslinked has no longer two submit buttons
246 * (bug 15292) New message notification for unregistred users now works again
247 * (bug 14398) mwsuggest.js: Let width of container be configurable
248 * (bug 15543) Only include user touched timestamp to generated CSS
249 * (bug 15497) Removed encoding attribute from <?xml ?> tag
250 * (bug 12284) Special:Preferences now sets a returnto parameter on the link to
251 Special:Userlogin. Patch by Marooned.
252 * Fixed the HTTP accept language string detection length in
253 LanguageConverter.php, instead of the fixed length language codes.
254 * Special:Recentchangeslinked no longer shows outgoing links for nonexistent pages
255 even if there are broken link records with source article id 0 in the database
256 * (bug 15598) Special:Newpages default limit uses user preference for recentchanges
257 limit instead of hardcoded 50.
258 * (bug 15617) $wgFeedClassesOutputPage::getHeadLinks() respects $wgFeedClasses,
259 instead of hardcoding rss and atom. Patch by Juliano F. Ravasi.
260 * (bug 14638) Special:Blockip now provides a link to the block log if the user
261 has been blocked more than 10 times. Patch by Matt Johnston.
262 * (bug 12678) Skins don't show Upload link if the user isn't allowed to upload.
263 * Fixed incorrect usage of DB_LAST in Special:Export. Deprecated DB_LAST.
264 * (bug 15642) Blocked sysops can no longer block other users
265 * Http::request() now respects $wgHTTPtimeout when not using cURL
266 * (bug 15158) Userinvalidcssjstitle not shown on preview
267 * (bug 15196) Free external links should be numbered in a localised manner
268 * (bug 15388) Title of Special:PrefixIndex
269 * Links with no title but a curid parameter now use the curid to pick a page
270 * (bug 10323) Special:Undelete should have "inverse selection" button
271 * (bug 15831) Modern skin RTL support is bugous
272 * (bug 15869) Nostalgia skin does not show page title in printable mode
273 * (bug 15795) Special:Userrights is now listed on Special:SpecialPages when the
274 user can only change his rights
275 * (bug 15846) Categories "leak" from older revisions in certain circumstances
276 * (bug 15928) Special pages dropdown should be inline in non-MonoBook skins
277 * (bug 14178) Some uses of UserLoadFromSession hook cause segfault
278 * (bug 15925) Postitive bytes added on recentchanges and watchlists are now bolded
279 if above the threshold, previously it only worked for negatives
280 * Specify apple-touch-icon before favicon in HTML head section to make the Konqueror
281 browser correctly use the latter
282 * (bug 15717) Set $separatorTransformTable for language 'eu'
283 * (bug 15605) Enabled $datePreferences for language 'hr'. Added standard date
285 * (bug 13701) {{NUMBEROFVIEWS}} magic word to show number of total views.
286 * (bug 5101) Image from Commons doesn't show up when searched in Wikipedia search box
287 * (bug 14609) User's namespaces to be searched default not updated after adding new namespace
288 * Purge form uses valid XHTML and (bug 8992) uses $wgRequest instead of $_SERVER
289 * (bug 12764) Special:LonelyPages shows transcluded pages
290 * (bug 16073) Enhanced RecentChanges uses onclick handler with better fallback if
291 JavaScript is disabled.
292 * (bug 4253) Recentchanges IRC messages no longer include title in diff URLs
293 * Allow '0' to be an accesskey.
294 * (bug 8063) Use language-dependent sorting in client-side sortable tables
295 * (bug 16160) Suggestions box should be resized from left for RTL wikis
297 === API changes in 1.14 ===
299 * Registration time of users registered before the DB field was created is now
300 shown as empty instead of the current time.
301 * API search now falls back to fulltext search by default when using Lucene
302 or other engine which doesn't support a separate title search function.
303 This means you can use API search on Wikipedia without explicitly adding
304 &srwhat=text to the query.
305 * Added iiprop=bitdepth to imageinfo and aiprop=bitdepth to allimages
306 * (bug 14713) API-specific permissions (such as 'writeapi' and 'apihighlimits'
307 are now listed on action=help
308 * (bug 15044) Added requestid parameter to api.php to facilitate distinguishing
310 * (bug 15048) Added limit field for multivalue parameters to action=paraminfo
312 * When the limit on multivalue parameters is exceeded, a warning is issued
313 * list=search doesn't list missing pages any more
314 * (bug 15178) Added clshow to prop=categories to allow filtering for hidden/
315 non-hidden categories
316 * (bug 15228) Combining revids= and redirects now throws a warning instead of an
317 error, and still resolves redirects generated by the generator.
318 * list={backlinks,embeddedin,imageusage} now return arrays with keys 0, 1, 2,
319 etc. (AKA lists) instead of arrays with pageIDs as keys (AKA hash tables)
320 for consistency with other list modules.
322 * (bug 15275) apprefix and related parameters ignore spaces at the end
323 * action=edit no longer throws unknown error 228 when trying to create an empty
324 section with section=new
325 * Database replication lag doesn't cause all action=edit requests to return the
326 nochange flag any more
327 * (bug 15392) ApiFormatBase::formatHTML now uses $wgUrlProtocols.
328 * (bug 15444) action=edit returns "Unknown error: ``AS_END''" where it should
329 return just "Unknown error"
330 * (bug 15448) YAML output returns empty values instead of 0
331 * (bug 15445) Added action=patrol
332 * (bug 15466) Added action=purge
333 * (bug 15486) action=block ignores autoblock parameter
334 * (bug 15492) added rcprop=loginfo to list=recentchanges
335 * (bug 15527) action=rollback can now revert anonymous editors
336 * (bug 15535) prop=info&inprop=protection doesn't list pre-1.10 protections
337 if the page is also protected otherwise (1.10+ style or cascading)
338 * list=random now has rnredirect parameter, to get random redirects.
339 * Added APIAfterExecute, APIQueryAfterExecute and APIQueryGeneratorAfterExecute
340 hooks which allow for extending core modules in a cleaner way
341 * action=protect checks for invalid protection types and levels
342 * (bug 15673) Added indentation to format=wddxfm output and improved built-in
343 WDDX formatter to resemble PHP's more
344 * (bug 15706) Empty values for apprtype and apprlevel are now silently ignored
345 rather than causing an exception
346 * Added uiprop=preferencestoken to meta=userinfo
347 * (bug 15609) Add inprop=url and inprop=readable to prop=info
348 * Add ApiDisabled and ApiQueryDisabled classes so individual modules can
349 be disabled in LocalSettings.php
350 * (bug 15653) Add prop=duplicatefiles
351 * (bug 15768) Add list=watchlistraw
352 * (bug 15647) action=edit with basetimestamp fails if the page has been deleted
353 and undeleted since the last edit
354 * (bug 15785) Allow for different expiry times for different protections in
356 * Added allowsduplicates attribute to action=paraminfo output
357 * (bug 15767) apfilterlanglinks returns duplicate results
358 * (bug 15845) Added pageid/fromid parameter to action=delete/move, making
359 manipulation of legacy pages with invalid titles possible
360 * (bug 15881) Empty or invalid parameters cause database errors
361 * The maxage and smaxage parameters are now properly validated
362 * (bug 15945) list=recentchanges doesn't check $wgUseRCPatrol, $wgUseNPPatrol
363 and patrolmarks right
364 * (bug 15985) acfrom and aifrom parameters didn't work when sorting in
366 * (bug 15995) Add cmstartsortkey and cmendsortkey parameters to
368 * (bug 16017) list=categorymembers sets invalid continue parameters for
369 sortkeys containing pipes
370 * (bug 16018) Added uccontinue parameter to list=usercontribs so paging
371 works properly when multiple users are queried or a userprefix is used
372 * (bug 16047) Added activeusers attribute to meta=siteinfo&siprop=statistics
374 * Added redirect resolution to action=parse
375 * (bug 16074) rvprop=content combined with a generator with a high limit causes
377 * (bug 16105) Image metadata attributes containing spaces result in invalid XML
378 * (bug 16126) Added siprop=magicwords to meta=siteinfo
379 * (bug 16159) Added wlshow=patrolled|!patrolled to list=watchlist
381 === Languages updated in 1.14 ===
383 MediaWiki supports over 300 languages. Many localisations are updated
384 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed.
386 * Bakhtiari (bqi) (new)
387 * Fiji Hindi (Devanagari script) (hif-deva) (new)
389 * Lezghian (lez) (new)
391 * Eastern Mari (mhr) (new)
394 * Plautdietsch (pdt) (new)
395 * Tarantino (roa-tara) (new)
396 * Serbo-Croatian (sh) (new)
401 MediaWiki 1.14 requires PHP 5 (5.2 recommended). PHP 4 is no longer supported.
403 PHP 5.0.x fails on 64-bit systems due to serious bugs with array processing:
404 http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=34879
405 Upgrade affected systems to PHP 5.1 or higher.
407 MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade.
408 At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.
413 1.14 has several database changes since 1.13, and will not work without schema
416 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons repository,
417 make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to
418 database schema changes.
420 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
421 new database fields are filled with data.
423 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database
424 changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could
425 break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
427 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
432 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
433 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
434 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
435 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
436 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
438 For notes on 1.13.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
441 === Online documentation ===
443 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
444 built up on MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
445 License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in
448 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
453 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
456 http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
458 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
460 http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
462 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
463 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
468 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net