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.
52 === Migrated extensions ===
53 The following extensions are migrated into MediaWiki 1.14:
55 * DismissableSiteNotice to allow registered users to dismiss the site notice
56 * Special:DeletedContributions to show deleted user contributions (was extension
58 * Special:Log/newusers recording new users (was extension Newuserlog)
59 * Special:LinkSearch to search for external links (was extension LinkSearch)
62 * Special:Nuke to mass delete all pages created by a user
63 * Poem (patch by Nathaniel Herman)
66 === New features in 1.14 ===
68 * New URL syntaxes for Special:ListUsers - 'Special:ListUsers/USER' and
69 'Special:ListUsers/GROUP/USER', in addition to the older syntax
70 'Special:ListUsers/GROUP' where GROUP is a valid group name.
71 * Configurable per-namespace and per-page notices for the edit form,
72 respectively MediaWiki:Editnotice-# where # is the namespace number, and
73 MediaWiki:Editnotice-#-PAGENAME where # is the page's namespace number and
74 PAGENAME is the page name minus the namespace prefix.
75 * (bug 8068) New __INDEX__ and __NOINDEX__ magic words allow user control of
76 search engine indexing on a per-article basis.
77 * Handheld stylesheet options
78 * Added 'DoEditSectionLink' hook as a cleaner unified version of the old
79 'EditSectionLink' and 'EditSectionLinkForOther' hooks. Note that the
80 'EditSectionLinkForOther' hook has been removed, but 'EditSectionLink' is
81 run in all cases instead, so extensions using the old hooks should still work
82 if they ran roughly the same code for both hooks (as is almost certain).
83 * Signature (~~~~) "cleaning", i.e. template removal, can be disabled with
84 $wgCleanSignatures=false
85 * Extensions can use the SkinBuildSidebar hook to modify the content of the
86 sidebar and add custom portlets to it
87 * Added 'MakeGlobalVariablesScript' hook for extensions to be able to add vari-
88 ables into into the output of Skin::makeVariablesScript
89 * (bug 13846) Added $wgAddGroups and $wgRemoveGroups display on
90 Special:ListGroupRights
91 * (bug 14377) Add a date selector to history pages
92 * (bug 15007) New 'pagetitle-view-mainpage' message allows the HTML <title> of
93 the main page to be customized
94 * Added $wgDisableTitleConversion to disabling the conversion for all pages on
96 * Added 'noconvertlink' toggle that can be set per user preferences, also
97 added 'convertlink=no|yes' on GET requests whether have the link titles
98 being converted or not
99 * (bug 14921) Special:Contributions/: add user name to <title>
101 * Unescape more "safe" characters when producing URLs, for added prettiness
102 * Introduced a new hook 'SkinAfterContent' that allows extensions to add text
103 after the page content and article metadata. Updated all skins and skin
104 templates to work with that hook.
105 * (bug 14929) removeUnusedAccounts.php now supports 'ignore-touched' and
106 'ignore-groups'. Patch by Louperivois
107 * (bug 15127) Work around minor display glitch in Opera.
108 * By default, reject file uploads that look like ZIP files, to avoid the
109 so-called GIFAR vulnerability.
110 * (bug 15141) Give ability to only list protected pages with the cascading
111 option enabled on Special:ProtectedPages
112 * (bug 15157) Special:Watchlist has the same options as Special:Watchlist:
113 Show/Hide logged in users, Show/Hide anonymous, Invert namespace selection
114 * Added hook 'UserrightsChangeableGroups' to allow modification of what
115 groups may be added or removed via the Special:UserRights interface.
116 * HTML entities like now work (are not escaped) in edit summaries.
117 * (bug 13815) In the comment for page moves, use the colon-separator message
118 instead of a hardcoded colon.
119 * Allow <gallery> to accept image names without an Image: prefix
120 * Add tooltips to rollback and undo links
121 * BMP images are now displayed as PNG
122 * (bug 13471) Added NUMBERINGROUP magic word
123 * (bug 11884) Now support Flash EXIF attribute
124 * Show thumbnails in the file history list, patch by User:Agbad
125 * Added support of piped wikilinks using double-width brackets
126 * Added an on-wiki external image whitelist. Items in this whitelist are
127 treated as regular expression fragments to match for when possibly
128 displaying an external image inline.
129 * (bugs 15405, 15436) Sort more currency types correctly in sortable tables
130 * (bug 15422) Sort more different types of numbers in sortable tables
131 * (bug 2889) MediaWiki:Print.css applies to the printable version
132 * Category counts (e.g. from {{PAGESINCATEGORY:}}) should be more accurate for
134 * After logging in, automatically redirect to wherever you logged in from
135 * (bug 5619) Break messages used in Special:Statistics down further
136 * (bug 11029) Add link to Special:Listusers?group=sysop etc at
138 * (bug 15514) Setting $wgRightsText without $wgRightsUrl now produces a
139 plaintext copyright notice. Patch by Juliano F. Ravasi.
140 * (bug 15551) Deletion log excerpt is now shown whenever a user vists a
141 deleted page, even if they are unable to edit it.
142 * Added Wantedfiles special pages, allowing users to find image links with no
144 * (bug 12650) It is now possible to set different expiration times for different
145 restriction types on the protection form.
146 * (bug 8440) Allow preventing blocked users from editing their talk pages
147 * Improved upload file type detection for OpenDocument formats
148 * Added the ability to set the target attribute on external links with
149 $wgExternalLinkTarget
150 * api.php now sends "Retry-After" and "X-Database-Lag" HTTP headers if the maxlag
151 check fails, just like index.php does
152 * Configurable per-namespace and per-page header, respectively
153 MediaWiki:Pageheader-# where # is the namespace number, and
154 MediaWiki:Pagenumber-#-PAGENAME where # is the page's namespace number and
155 PAGENAME is the page name minus the namespace prefix. Can be disabled with
156 the new magic word __NOHEADER__
157 * Added "link" parameter to image links, to allow images to link to an
158 arbitrary title or URL. This should replace inaccessible and incomplete
159 solutions such as CSS-based overlays and ImageMap.
160 * (bug 368) Don't use caption for alt attribute; allow manual specification
161 using new "alt=" parameter for images
162 * (bug 44) The {{ns:}} core parser function now also accepts localized namespace
163 names and aliases; also, its output now uses spaces instead of underscores to
164 match the behavior of the {{NAMESPACE}} magic word
165 * Added the ability to display user edit counts in Special:ListUsers. Off by
166 default, enabled with $wgEdititis = true (named after the medical condition
167 marked by unhealthy obsession with edit counts).
169 === Bug fixes in 1.14 ===
171 * (bug 14907) DatabasePostgres::fieldType now defined.
172 * (bug 14659) Passing the default limit param to Special:Recentchanges no more
173 falls back to the user option
174 * (bug 14954) Fix regression in Modern and Simple skins
175 * Recursion loop check added to Categoryfinder class
176 * Fixed few performance troubles of large job queue processing
177 * Not setting various parameters in Foreign Repos now fails more gracefully
178 * (bug 2333) Redirects are properly rendered when previewing an edit.
179 * (bug 14972) Use localized alias of Special:Search on all search forms
180 * (bug 11035) Special:Search should have descriptive <title>
181 * Special pages are now not subject to special handling for "self-links"
182 * (bug 15053) Syntactically incorrect redirects with another link in them
183 no longer redirect to the second link
184 * (bug 15049) Fix for CheckUser extension's log search: usernames containing
185 a "-" were incorrectly turned into bogus IP range searches.
186 Patch by Max Semenik.
187 * (bug 15055) Talk page notifications no longer attempt to send mail when
188 user's e-mail address is invalid or unconfirmed
189 * (bug 12370) Add throttle on password attempts. Defaults to max 5 attempts in 5
191 * (bug 15016) 'Templates used on this page' list in view source should be
192 wrapped in a div with class "templatesUsed"
193 * (bug 14868) Setting $wgFeedDiffCutoff to 0 now disables generation of the diff
194 entirely, not just the display of it.
195 * (bug 6387) Introduced new setting $wgCategoryPrefixedDefaultSortkey which
196 allows having the unprefixed page title as the default category sortkey
197 * (bug 15079) Add class="ns-talk" / "ns-subject" to <body>. Also added
198 ns-special to special pages.
199 * (bug 15052) Skins should add their name as a class in <body>
200 * (bug 14165, bug 14294) Wikimedia specific configuration in convertGrammar()
201 for several languages was removed. The settings have been put in extension
202 WikimediaMessages. Patch for Czech by Danny B.
203 * (bug 15101) Displaying only bots edits in Special:Recentchanges now works
205 * (bug 13770) Fixed incorrect detection of PHP's DOM module
206 * (bug 14790) Export of category pages when using Category: prefix now actually
208 * Avoid recursive crazy expansions in section edit comments for pages which
209 contain '/*' in the title
210 * Fix excessive memory usage when parsing pages with lots of links
211 * $wgSpamRegex now matches the edit summary and page move descriptions in
212 addition to body text.
213 * Navigation links to images available from a shared repository (like Commons)
214 from their local talk pages no longer appear as redlinks
215 * Action=purge on ForeignApiFiles now works (purges their thumbnails and
217 * (bug 15303) Title conversion for templates wasn't working in some cases.
218 * (bug 15264) Underscores in Special:Search/Foo_bar parameters were taken
219 literally; now converting them to spaces per expectation.
220 * (bug 15342) "Invert" checkbox now works correctly when selecting main
221 namespace in Special:Watchlist
222 * (bug 15172) 'Go' button of Special:Recentchanges now on the same line as the
223 last input element (like Special:Watchlist too)
224 * (bug 15351) Fix fatal error for invalid section fragments in autocomments
225 * Fixed intermittent deadlock errors involving objectcache table queries.
226 Use a separate database connection for the objectcache table to avoid
227 long-lasting locks on that table.
228 * Respect file restrictions in the file history list
229 * (bug 15399) Odd/even classes on sortable tables' rows could be slow for large
230 tables, and have been disabled by default.
231 * (bug 15482) Special:Recentchangeslinked has no longer two submit buttons
232 * (bug 15292) New message notification for unregistred users now works again
233 * (bug 14398) mwsuggest.js: Let width of container be configurable
234 * (bug 15543) Only include user touched timestamp to generated CSS
235 * (bug 15497) Removed encoding attribute from <?xml ?> tag
236 * (bug 12284) Special:Preferences now sets a returnto parameter on the link to
237 Special:Userlogin. Patch by Marooned.
238 * Fixed the HTTP accept language string detection length in
239 LanguageConverter.php, instead of the fixed length language codes.
240 * Special:Recentchangeslinked no longer shows outgoing links for nonexistent pages
241 even if there are broken link records with source article id 0 in the database
242 * (bug 15598) Special:Newpages default limit uses user preference for recentchanges
243 limit instead of hardcoded 50.
244 * (bug 15617) $wgFeedClassesOutputPage::getHeadLinks() respects $wgFeedClasses,
245 instead of hardcoding rss and atom. Patch by Juliano F. Ravasi.
246 * (bug 14638) Special:Blockip now provides a link to the block log if the user
247 has been blocked more than 10 times. Patch by Matt Johnston.
248 * (bug 12678) Skins don't show Upload link if the user isn't allowed to upload.
249 * Fixed incorrect usage of DB_LAST in Special:Export. Deprecated DB_LAST.
250 * (bug 15642) Blocked sysops can no longer block other users
251 * Http::request() now respects $wgHTTPtimeout when not using cURL
252 * (bug 15158) Userinvalidcssjstitle not shown on preview
253 * (bug 15196) Free external links should be numbered in a localised manner
254 * (bug 15388) Title of Special:PrefixIndex
255 * Links with no title but a curid parameter now use the curid to pick a page
256 * (bug 10323) Special:Undelete should have "inverse selection" button
257 * (bug 15831) Modern skin RTL support is bugous
258 * (bug 15869) Nostalgia skin does not show page title in printable mode
259 * (bug 15795) Special:Userrights is now listed on Special:SpecialPages when the
260 user can only change his rights
261 * (bug 15846) Categories "leak" from older revisions in certain circumstances
263 === API changes in 1.14 ===
265 * Registration time of users registered before the DB field was created is now
266 shown as empty instead of the current time.
267 * API search now falls back to fulltext search by default when using Lucene
268 or other engine which doesn't support a separate title search function.
269 This means you can use API search on Wikipedia without explicitly adding
270 &srwhat=text to the query.
271 * Added iiprop=bitdepth to imageinfo and aiprop=bitdepth to allimages
272 * (bug 14713) API-specific permissions (such as 'writeapi' and 'apihighlimits'
273 are now listed on action=help
274 * (bug 15044) Added requestid parameter to api.php to facilitate distinguishing
276 * (bug 15048) Added limit field for multivalue parameters to action=paraminfo
278 * When the limit on multivalue parameters is exceeded, a warning is issued
279 * list=search doesn't list missing pages any more
280 * (bug 15178) Added clshow to prop=categories to allow filtering for hidden/
281 non-hidden categories
282 * (bug 15228) Combining revids= and redirects now throws a warning instead of an
283 error, and still resolves redirects generated by the generator.
284 * list={backlinks,embeddedin,imageusage} now return arrays with keys 0, 1, 2,
285 etc. (AKA lists) instead of arrays with pageIDs as keys (AKA hash tables)
286 for consistency with other list modules.
288 * (bug 15275) apprefix and related parameters ignore spaces at the end
289 * action=edit no longer throws unknown error 228 when trying to create an empty
290 section with section=new
291 * Database replication lag doesn't cause all action=edit requests to return the
292 nochange flag any more
293 * (bug 15392) ApiFormatBase::formatHTML now uses $wgUrlProtocols.
294 * (bug 15444) action=edit returns "Unknown error: ``AS_END''" where it should
295 return just "Unknown error"
296 * (bug 15448) YAML output returns empty values instead of 0
297 * (bug 15445) Added action=patrol
298 * (bug 15466) Added action=purge
299 * (bug 15486) action=block ignores autoblock parameter
300 * (bug 15492) added rcprop=loginfo to list=recentchanges
301 * (bug 15527) action=rollback can now revert anonymous editors
302 * (bug 15535) prop=info&inprop=protection doesn't list pre-1.10 protections
303 if the page is also protected otherwise (1.10+ style or cascading)
304 * list=random now has rnredirect parameter, to get random redirects.
305 * Added APIAfterExecute, APIQueryAfterExecute and APIQueryGeneratorAfterExecute
306 hooks which allow for extending core modules in a cleaner way
307 * action=protect checks for invalid protection types and levels
308 * (bug 15673) Added indentation to format=wddxfm output and improved built-in
309 WDDX formatter to resemble PHP's more
310 * (bug 15706) Empty values for apprtype and apprlevel are now silently ignored
311 rather than causing an exception
312 * Added uiprop=preferencestoken to meta=userinfo
313 * (bug 15609) Add inprop=url and inprop=readable to prop=info
314 * Add ApiDisabled and ApiQueryDisabled classes so individual modules can
315 be disabled in LocalSettings.php
316 * (bug 15653) Add prop=duplicatefiles
317 * (bug 15768) Add list=watchlistraw
318 * (bug 15647) action=edit with basetimestamp fails if the page has been deleted
319 and undeleted since the last edit
320 * (bug 15785) Allow for different expiry times for different protections in
322 * Added allowsduplicates attribute to action=paraminfo output
323 * (bug 15767) apfilterlanglinks returns duplicate results
324 * (bug 15845) Added pageid/fromid parameter to action=delete/move, making
325 manipulation of legacy pages with invalid titles possible
326 * (bug 15881) Empty or invalid parameters cause database errors
328 === Languages updated in 1.14 ===
330 MediaWiki supports over 300 languages. Many localisations are updated
331 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed.
333 * Bakhtiari (bqi) (new)
334 * Fiji Hindi (Devanagari script) (hif-deva) (new)
336 * Lezghian (lez) (new)
340 * Plautdietsch (pdt) (new)
341 * Tarantino (roa-tara) (new)
342 * Serbo-Croatian (sh) (new)
347 MediaWiki 1.14 requires PHP 5 (5.2 recommended). PHP 4 is no longer supported.
349 PHP 5.0.x fails on 64-bit systems due to serious bugs with array processing:
350 http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=34879
351 Upgrade affected systems to PHP 5.1 or higher.
353 MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade.
354 At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.
359 1.14 has several database changes since 1.13, and will not work without schema
362 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons repository,
363 make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to
364 database schema changes.
366 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
367 new database fields are filled with data.
369 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database
370 changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could
371 break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
373 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
378 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
379 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
380 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
381 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
382 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
384 For notes on 1.13.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
387 === Online documentation ===
389 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
390 built up on MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
391 License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in
394 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
399 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
402 http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
404 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
406 http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
408 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
409 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
414 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net