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 1.14 ==
   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 1.14 ===
  22
  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
  32 === New features in 1.14 ===
  33
  34 * (bug 8068) New __INDEX__ and __NOINDEX__ magic words allow user control of
  35   search engine indexing on a per-article basis.
  36 * Handheld stylesheet options
  37 * Added 'DoEditSectionLink' hook as a cleaner unified version of the old
  38   'EditSectionLink' and 'EditSectionLinkForOther' hooks.  Note that the
  39   'EditSectionLinkForOther' hook has been removed, but 'EditSectionLink' is
  40   run in all cases instead, so extensions using the old hooks should still work
  41   if they ran roughly the same code for both hooks (as is almost certain).
  42 * Signature (~~~~) "cleaning", i.e. template removal, can be disabled with
  43   $wgCleanSignatures=false
  44 * Extensions can use the SkinBuildSidebar hook to modify the content of the
  45   sidebar and add custom portlets to it
  46 * Added 'MakeGlobalVariablesScript' hook for extensions to be able to add vari-
  47   ables into into the output of Skin::makeVariablesScript
  48 * (bug 13846) Added $wgAddGroups and $wgRemoveGroups display on
  49   Special:ListGroupRights
  50 * (bug 14377) Add a date selector to history pages
  51 * (bug 15007) New 'pagetitle-view-mainpage' message allows the HTML <title> of
  52   the main page to be customized
  53 * Added $wgDisableTitleConversion to disabling the conversion for all pages on
  54   the wiki
  55 * Added 'noconvertlink' toogle that can be set per user preferences, also
  56   added 'convertlink=no|yes' on GET requests whether have the link titles
  57   being converted or not
  58 * (bug 14921) Special:Contributions/: add user name to <title>
  59   Patch by Emufarmers
  60
  61 === Bug fixes in 1.14 ===
  62
  63 * (bug 14907) DatabasePostgres::fieldType now defined.
  64 * (bug 14659) Passing the default limit param to Special:Recentchanges no more
  65   falls back to the user option
  66 * (bug 14954) Fix regression in Modern and Simple skins
  67 * Recursion loop check added to Categoryfinder class
  68 * Fixed few performance troubles of large job queue processing
  69 * Not setting various parameters in Foreign Repos now fails more gracefully
  70 * (bug 2333) Redirects are properly rendered when previewing an edit.
  71 * (bug 14972) Use localized alias of Special:Search on all search forms
  72 * (bug 11035) Special:Search should have descriptive <title>
  73 * Special pages are now not subject to special handling for "self-links"
  74 * (bug 15053) Syntactically incorrect redirects with another link in them
  75   no longer redirect to the second link
  76 * (bug 15049) Fix for CheckUser extension's log search: usernames containing
  77   a "-" were incorrectly turned into bogus IP range searches.
  78   Patch by Max Semenik.
  79 * (bug 15055) Talk page notifications no longer attempt to send mail when
  80   user's e-mail address is invalid or unconfirmed
  81 * (bug 2443) Add image name as alt-text when no caption is provided.
  82
  83 === API changes in 1.14 ===
  84
  85 * Registration time of users registered before the DB field was created is now
  86   shown as empty instead of the current time.
  87 * API search now falls back to fulltext search by default when using Lucene
  88   or other engine which doesn't support a separate title search function.
  89   This means you can use API search on Wikipedia without explicitly adding
  90   &srwhat=text to the query.
  91 * Added iiprop=bitdepth to imageinfo and aiprop=bitdepth to allimages
  92 * (bug 14713) API-specific permissions (such as 'writeapi' and 'apihighlimits'
  93   are now listed on action=help
  94 * (bug 15044) Added requestid parameter to api.php to facilitate distinguishing
  95   between requests
  96 * (bug 15048) Added limit field for multivalue parameters to action=paraminfo
  97   output.
  98 * When the limit on multivalue parameters is exceeded, a warning is issued
  99
 100 === Languages updated in 1.14 ===
 101
 102 MediaWiki supports over 300 languages. Many localisations are updated
 103 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed.
 104
 105 (no changes yet)
 106
 107 == Compatibility ==
 108
 109 MediaWiki 1.14 requires PHP 5 (5.1 recommended). PHP 4 is no longer supported.
 110
 111 PHP 5.0.x fails on 64-bit systems due to serious bugs with array processing:
 112 http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=34879
 113 Upgrade affected systems to PHP 5.1 or higher.
 114
 115 MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade.
 116 At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.
 117
 118
 119 == Upgrading ==
 120
 121 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons repository,
 122 make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to
 123 database schema changes.
 124
 125 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 126 new database fields are filled with data.
 127
 128 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database
 129 changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could
 130 break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 131
 132 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 133
 134
 135 === Caveats ===
 136
 137 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
 138 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
 139 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
 140 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
 141 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
 142
 143 For notes on 1.13.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 144
 145
 146 === Online documentation ===
 147
 148 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 149 built up on MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 150 License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in
 151 the public domain) :
 152
 153   http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 154
 155
 156 === Mailing list ===
 157
 158 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 159 wikitech-l list:
 160
 161   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 162
 163 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 164
 165   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 166
 167 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 168 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 169
 170
 171 === IRC help ===
 172
 173 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net