RELEASE-NOTES

   1 = MediaWiki release notes =
   2
   3 == Version 1.3.0pre-alpha ==
   4
   5 Look & layout:
   6 * New default layout 'MonoBook'
   7 * Print stylesheet now built-in to every page
   8 * More or less correct XHTML 1.0 (served as text/html by default)
   9
  10 Wiki features:
  11 * Image captions can now include links and other basic formatting
  12 * Templates have been expanded with parameters, and separated from
  13   the MediaWiki: localization scheme.
  14 * Categories more or less work
  15
  16 Editing:
  17 * Automatic merging of edit conflicts that don't directly interfere
  18 * Edit summaries can now include basic formatting and links
  19
  20 Metadata and output:
  21 * Linked Creative Commons copyright metadata (optional)
  22 * RSS 2.0 feeds for Recent Changes, New Pages
  23
  24 Optional modules:
  25 * WikiHiero hieroglyphic module can be added (separate download)
  26 * TeX now has an experimental MathML output mode (incomplete)
  27
  28 Installation and upgrading:
  29 * The old install.php and update.php have been removed. In-place
  30   installation introduced in 1.2 is now the standard installation
  31   and upgrade method, see INSTALL for directions.
  32
  33 Database:
  34 * The links table has been changed to use a cur_id for l_from.
  35   The link tables must be converted on upgrade, which may entail
  36   some downtime.
  37
  38 Code and compatibility:
  39 * Should now run clean with error reporting set to E_ALL.
  40 * register_globals hack from 1.2 has been replaced with safer code
  41 * Bundled PHPTAL 0.7.0 from http://phptal.sourceforge.net/
  42
  43 === Caveats ===
  44
  45 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
  46 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
  47 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
  48 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
  49 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
  50
  51
  52 == Version 1.2.4, 2004-04-13 ==
  53
  54 * Fixed edit toolbar in Mozilla
  55 * Diff links in Contributions for 'top' edits
  56 * Fixed Nostalgia skin drop-down for register_globals off
  57 * Backported optional open proxy blocker
  58 * Backported $wgWhitelistRead
  59 * $wgCapitalLinks option to force full case sensitivity in titles
  60 * Cleaned up error handling when can't talk to database
  61 * Disabled unsafe command-line installer (remove the "die()" call to use)
  62
  63 == Version 1.2.3, 2004-04-02 ==
  64
  65 * Fixed an in-place install bug with non-root MySQL user
  66 * Fixed history diff checkboxes bug on titles with ampersands
  67 * Fixed printable link bug on special pages with parameters
  68 * Fixed bug that broke IP blocking w/o memcached
  69 * Turns off E_NOTICE warnings if PHP settings have them on
  70   (you can grope in and turn this off if you like to debug)
  71
  72 == Version 1.2.2, 2004-03-28 ==
  73
  74 * Fixed an upgrade bug introduced in 1.2.1.
  75 * Disabled $wgUseCategoryMagic, which feature is incomplete broken
  76
  77 == Version 1.2.1, 2004-03-27 ==
  78
  79 Installation, compatibility, security fixlets:
  80 * Detect use of PHP as CGI and disable index.php/Title URLs
  81 * Try to auto-create math tmp & output directories if not present
  82 * Disable Asksql in default install ($wgAllowSysopQueries)
  83 * Better handling of get_magic_quotes_gpc (apostrophe problems)
  84 * French localisation no longer hard-codes "Wikipedia" name
  85
  86 == Version 1.2.0 ==
  87
  88 New features in 1.2:
  89 * Image resizing/thumbnail generation
  90 * Stricter upload file extension blacklist and whitelist options
  91 * More flexible blocking system; time period may be set
  92 * Handier sysop account management. An account marked "bureaucrat"
  93   may assign sysop access to other accounts via Special:Makesysop.
  94   (The exact details of this may change in the future)
  95 * Support for a squid cache with explicit purging of cached anon pages
  96 * Optional compression of old revision text (requires zlib support)
  97 * Fuzzy title search (experimental, requires memcached)
  98 * Page rendering cache (experimental)
  99 * Editing toolbar to demonstrate wiki syntax to newbies
 100   (off by default in user preferences)
 101 * Support for authenticated SMTP outgoing e-mail (experimental)
 102 * It's now possible to assign sysop accounts from within the wiki.
 103   An account with this ability must be labeled with the "bureaucrat"
 104   privilege, such as the 'Developer' account created by the install.
 105
 106 Fixes and tweaks:
 107 * Now works with register_globals off!
 108 * Works with short tags disabled.
 109 * Should work out of the box on MySQL 3.2.x again. On 4.x set
 110   $wgEnablePersistentLC = true; to turn on the link cache table
 111   for a slight rendering speed boost.
 112 * rebuildMessages.php can now selectively update new messages, or
 113   overwrite everything.
 114 * Various bug fixes.
 115 * Other stuff we forgot.
 116 * Documentation more out of date than ever before!
 117
 118 === Behavior changes ===
 119
 120 * wiki.phtml and redirect.phtml are now renamed to index.php and redirect.php
 121   The old names are provided too for compatibility, but make sure they don't
 122   conflict if you've been putting other files in your wiki.
 123 * Uploaded filenames are more strictly checked than before. See bits in
 124   DefaultSettings.php to tweak this behavior to your needs.
 125 * Database messages are now enabled by default, so the interface messages can
 126   be tweaked through the wiki with a sysop account. Disable this if you
 127   don't want the performance hit.
 128
 129 === Database changes ===
 130
 131 An index was added to recentchanges table to speed up Newpages
 132 (patch-rc-newindex.sql for manual updaters).
 133
 134 Expiration date field has been added to ipblocks table
 135 (patch-ipb_expiry.sql for manual updaters).
 136
 137
 138 == Version 1.1.0, 2003-12-08 ==
 139
 140 This is the new production release. Any following 1.1.x releases are expected
 141 to contain only bug fixes; developments of new features will go towards a 1.2.0
 142 release.
 143
 144 New features in 1.1:
 145 * New wiki table syntax:
 146   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide:_Using_tables
 147 * User-editable interface messages:
 148   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_namespace
 149 * XML-wrapped page source export with optional history:
 150   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_import_and_export
 151   (There is not yet an import function!)
 152 * "Magic words"
 153
 154 Fixes and tweaks:
 155 * linkscc table caches link data for rendering; faster rebuildlinks.php
 156 * Numerous bugs in Cologne Blue skin fixed
 157 * Login gives warning about missing cookies
 158 * Block log, protection log added; deletion log now includes undeletions
 159 * Deletion & upload logs now escape comment text properly
 160 * Problems with <nowiki> segments in section titles etc mitigated
 161 * Contributions offset and minor edit bugs fixed
 162 * Whatlinkshere now sorted alphabetically
 163 * Various exciting new profiling options.
 164 * Debug log is off by default.
 165 * Various small bugs fixed.
 166
 167 Internal changes:
 168 * wfQuery has had a second parameter inserted, DB_READ or DB_WRITE. This value
 169   is not actually used so far.
 170 * Partial code for categories and Smarty template-based skins is in the tree
 171   but disabled.
 172 * Parts of Article.php have been moved to EditPage.php and ImagePage.php.
 173
 174 New translations:
 175 * fi - Finnish
 176 * ia - Interlingua
 177 * no - Norwegian
 178 * sk - Slovak
 179 * ta - Tamil
 180
 181 === Database changes ===
 182
 183 "linkscc" table added. If upgrading manually (rather than with update.php),
 184 run maintenance/archives/patch-linkscc.sql to create the table.
 185
 186 Older releases were dated snapshots from the old 'stable' branch:
 187
 188 == mediawiki-20031118 ==
 189
 190 * Image deletion fixed.
 191 * Deletion of image old revisions now restricted to sysops
 192   (this is an irreversible action and not well logged)
 193 * Fixed maintenance scripts broken by last release's security fix
 194 * Many errors in rebuildlinks script fixed.
 195
 196 == mediawiki-20031117 ==
 197
 198 * SECURITY FIX: stricter checking of include path
 199 * Fixed user contributions next/prev bug
 200 * Login cookies now have the database name prefixed to allow wikis
 201   to coexist in the same domain. This will invalidate any old saved
 202   password cookies.
 203 * Update cache timestamp when talk pages are created
 204 * Saving the login form in Mozilla no longer blanks password in prefs.
 205 * Check existence of source page before performing a move.
 206 * Detect invalid titles in Special:Allpages
 207 * Q-encode headers on outgoing inter-user e-mail
 208 * Updates to some translations.
 209 * Added table of contents border/bg to Cologne Blue, Nostalgia skins
 210 * Protected pages no longer appear unprotected when visited via redirect
 211 * Swapped old Wikipedia logo for the MediaWiki sunflower logo
 212 * install.php, update.php print warning on old PHP versions,
 213   added compatibility functions that might or might not help
 214
 215 No database changes since 20031107; upgrading should be clean.
 216
 217
 218 == mediawiki-20031107 ==
 219
 220 * Fixed various bugs!
 221 * Some speed improvements from tweaks to the table indexes
 222 * Limited support for memcached (see below)
 223 * New translations (see below)
 224 * Interwiki link data now kept in database for flexibility
 225 * Friendlier read-only source view if asked to edit a page when
 226   the db is locked or the page is protected.
 227 * Normal IP blocks auto-expire after 24 hours
 228 * Optional support for blocking usernames
 229 * Uploads disabled by default (see below)
 230
 231
 232 === Security note ===
 233
 234 Uploads are now disabled by default. If you've set up a secure configuration
 235 you can reenable uploads by putting:
 236
 237   $wgDisableUploads = false;
 238
 239 into LocalSettings.php.
 240
 241 Earlier versions of MediaWiki included a bug that potentially allows logged-
 242 in users to delete arbitrary files in directories writable by the web server
 243 user by manually feeding false form data; this is now fixed.
 244
 245 As a reminder, disable PHP script execution in the upload directory!
 246 You may also wish to serve HTML pages as plaintext to prevent cookie-
 247 stealing JavaScript attacks. Example Apache config fragment:
 248
 249   <Directory "/Library/MediaWiki/web/upload">
 250      # Ignore .htaccess files
 251      AllowOverride None
 252
 253      # Serve HTML as plaintext
 254      AddType text/plain .html .htm .shtml
 255
 256      # Don't run arbitrary PHP code.
 257      php_admin_flag engine off
 258
 259      # If you've other scripting languages, disable them too.
 260   </Directory>
 261
 262
 263 === Database updates ===
 264
 265 If you're using update.php, the necessary database changes should
 266 be made automatically.
 267
 268 To manually upgrade your database from the 2003-08-29 release, run the
 269 following SQL scripts from the maintenance subdirectory:
 270
 271   archives/patch-ipblocks.sql
 272   archives/patch-interwiki.sql
 273   archives/patch-indexes.sql
 274   interwiki.sql
 275
 276 To copy in the Wikipedia language-prefix interwikis as well, add:
 277
 278   wikipedia-interwiki.sql
 279
 280
 281 === Translations ===
 282
 283 New interface localization files are included for:
 284   fy Frisian
 285   ro Romanian
 286   sl Slovene
 287   sq Albanian
 288   sr Serbian
 289
 290
 291 === Memcached ===
 292
 293 Memcached is a distributed cache system. See http://www.danga.com/memcached/
 294 MediaWiki can optionally use memcached to store some data between calls
 295 to reduce load on the database. Currently this is limited to user and
 296 talk page notification data, interwiki prefix/URL matches, and the
 297 UTF-8 conversion tables.
 298
 299 MediaWiki includes version 1.0.10 of the (GPL'd) PHP memcached client by
 300 Ryan Gilfether; if memcached is disabled it acts as a dummy object with
 301 minimal overhead.
 302
 303 To use memcached you'll need PHP installed with sockets support (this is not
 304 in the default configure options). See docs/memcached for some more details.
 305
 306 Additionally, you can store login session data in memcached instead of the
 307 local filesystem, which can help to enable load-balancing by letting login
 308 sessions transparently work on multiple front-end web servers. (The primary
 309 other issue is with uploads, which requires some care in handling.)
 310
 311 To enable this, set $wgSessionsInMemcached = true; and set $wgCookieDomain
 312 appropriately if exposing multiple hostnames. This system is new and may be
 313 volatile; login sessions will fail dramatically if memcached is unavailable
 314 when this option is turned on.
 315
 316
 317 === Online documentation ===
 318
 319 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 320 built up on Meta-Wikipedia, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 321 License:
 322
 323   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide
 324
 325
 326 === Mailing list ===
 327
 328 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 329 wikitech-l list:
 330
 331   http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 332
 333
 334 === UseModWiki import script ===
 335
 336 A stripped-down UseModWiki import script is available in the maintenance
 337 subdirectory. It is incomplete and requires a lot of manual clean-up, but
 338 does function for the brave and pure of heart.
 339
 340
 341 === Test suite removed ===
 342
 343 The unmaintained Java-based test suite has been removed from the tarball
 344 release. If you really want it you can check it out from CVS.
 345
 346
 347 == mediawiki-20030829 ==
 348
 349 First release under MediaWiki name.