RELEASE-NOTES

   1 = MediaWiki release notes =
   2
   3 == Version 1.3.0beta3, 2004-06-12 ==
   4
   5 **** THIS IS A BETA AND MAY STUNT YOUR GROWTH OR KILL YOUR PETS ****
   6
   7 Look & layout:
   8 * New default layout 'MonoBook'
   9 * Print stylesheet now built-in to every page
  10 * More or less correct XHTML 1.0 (served as text/html by default)
  11
  12 Wiki features:
  13 * Image captions can now include links and other basic formatting
  14 * Image bounding box can be specified instead of width, e.g. as
  15   100x100px, making the image not wider than 100px and not higher
  16   than 100px, keeping aspect ratio.
  17 * Templates have been expanded with parameters, and separated from
  18   the MediaWiki: localization scheme.
  19 * Categories more or less work
  20
  21 Editing:
  22 * Automatic merging of edit conflicts that don't directly interfere
  23 * Edit summaries can now include basic formatting and links
  24
  25 Metadata and output:
  26 * Linked Creative Commons copyright metadata (optional)
  27 * RSS 2.0 feeds for Recent Changes, New Pages
  28
  29 Optional modules:
  30 * WikiHiero hieroglyphic module can be added (separate download)
  31 * Timeline module can be added (separate download).
  32   Requires ploticus.
  33 * TeX now has an experimental MathML output mode (incomplete)
  34
  35 Installation and upgrading:
  36 * The old install.php and update.php have been removed. In-place
  37   installation introduced in 1.2 is now the standard installation
  38   and upgrade method, see INSTALL for directions.
  39
  40 Database:
  41 * The links table has been changed to use a cur_id for l_from.
  42   The link tables must be converted on upgrade, which may entail
  43   some downtime.
  44
  45 Code and compatibility:
  46 * Should now run clean with error reporting set to E_ALL.
  47 * register_globals hack from 1.2 has been replaced with safer code
  48 * Bundled PHPTAL 0.7.0 from http://phptal.sourceforge.net/
  49   (with some patches)
  50 * Most image-related code moved to Image.php
  51 * More fixes for PHP 4.1.2 (thanks to Asheesh Laroia)
  52 * URL encoding fix for anchors
  53 * All languages now available in UTF-8 mode
  54 * Various other fixes
  55
  56 === Caveats ===
  57
  58 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
  59 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
  60 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
  61 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
  62 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
  63
  64
  65 == Version 1.2.6, 2004-05-24 ==
  66 * Spam blocker ($wgSpamRegex - refuses to save edits that match)
  67 * Updated documentation about $wgWhitelistRead
  68 * Ensure that searchindex table is created as MyISAM
  69 * Interwiki cache timeout (memcached)
  70 * Fix uploads on Windows with magic_quotes_gpc
  71 * Some config fixes for Windows (slashes etc)
  72 * Local interwiki URL redirects
  73 * Fixed obscure deletion problem in squid mode on corrupt entries
  74 * Language files updated to remove more hard-coded "Wikipedia" strings
  75
  76 == Version 1.2.5, 2004-05-01 ==
  77 * Fixed install problem with blank root password
  78 * Fixed Special:Emailuser/Username links
  79 * Fixed main-page edit links on fuzzy search results
  80 * Fixed wikipedia-interwiki.sql
  81 * Fixed install with apache2filter (ugly URLs)
  82 * IP in 'go' search brings up contributions
  83 * Switch from broken & to ? on top-level wiki URL hack
  84
  85 == Version 1.2.4, 2004-04-13 ==
  86
  87 * Fixed edit toolbar in Mozilla
  88 * Diff links in Contributions for 'top' edits
  89 * Fixed Nostalgia skin drop-down for register_globals off
  90 * Backported optional open proxy blocker
  91 * Backported $wgWhitelistRead
  92 * $wgCapitalLinks option to force full case sensitivity in titles
  93 * Cleaned up error handling when can't talk to database
  94 * Disabled unsafe command-line installer (remove the "die()" call to use)
  95
  96 == Version 1.2.3, 2004-04-02 ==
  97
  98 * Fixed an in-place install bug with non-root MySQL user
  99 * Fixed history diff checkboxes bug on titles with ampersands
 100 * Fixed printable link bug on special pages with parameters
 101 * Fixed bug that broke IP blocking w/o memcached
 102 * Turns off E_NOTICE warnings if PHP settings have them on
 103   (you can grope in and turn this off if you like to debug)
 104
 105 == Version 1.2.2, 2004-03-28 ==
 106
 107 * Fixed an upgrade bug introduced in 1.2.1.
 108 * Disabled $wgUseCategoryMagic, which feature is incomplete broken
 109
 110 == Version 1.2.1, 2004-03-27 ==
 111
 112 Installation, compatibility, security fixlets:
 113 * Detect use of PHP as CGI and disable index.php/Title URLs
 114 * Try to auto-create math tmp & output directories if not present
 115 * Disable Asksql in default install ($wgAllowSysopQueries)
 116 * Better handling of get_magic_quotes_gpc (apostrophe problems)
 117 * French localisation no longer hard-codes "Wikipedia" name
 118
 119 == Version 1.2.0 ==
 120
 121 New features in 1.2:
 122 * Image resizing/thumbnail generation
 123 * Stricter upload file extension blacklist and whitelist options
 124 * More flexible blocking system; time period may be set
 125 * Handier sysop account management. An account marked "bureaucrat"
 126   may assign sysop access to other accounts via Special:Makesysop.
 127   (The exact details of this may change in the future)
 128 * Support for a squid cache with explicit purging of cached anon pages
 129 * Optional compression of old revision text (requires zlib support)
 130 * Fuzzy title search (experimental, requires memcached)
 131 * Page rendering cache (experimental)
 132 * Editing toolbar to demonstrate wiki syntax to newbies
 133   (off by default in user preferences)
 134 * Support for authenticated SMTP outgoing e-mail (experimental)
 135 * It's now possible to assign sysop accounts from within the wiki.
 136   An account with this ability must be labeled with the "bureaucrat"
 137   privilege, such as the 'Developer' account created by the install.
 138
 139 Fixes and tweaks:
 140 * Now works with register_globals off!
 141 * Works with short tags disabled.
 142 * Should work out of the box on MySQL 3.2.x again. On 4.x set
 143   $wgEnablePersistentLC = true; to turn on the link cache table
 144   for a slight rendering speed boost.
 145 * rebuildMessages.php can now selectively update new messages, or
 146   overwrite everything.
 147 * Various bug fixes.
 148 * Other stuff we forgot.
 149 * Documentation more out of date than ever before!
 150
 151 === Behavior changes ===
 152
 153 * wiki.phtml and redirect.phtml are now renamed to index.php and redirect.php
 154   The old names are provided too for compatibility, but make sure they don't
 155   conflict if you've been putting other files in your wiki.
 156 * Uploaded filenames are more strictly checked than before. See bits in
 157   DefaultSettings.php to tweak this behavior to your needs.
 158 * Database messages are now enabled by default, so the interface messages can
 159   be tweaked through the wiki with a sysop account. Disable this if you
 160   don't want the performance hit.
 161
 162 === Database changes ===
 163
 164 An index was added to recentchanges table to speed up Newpages
 165 (patch-rc-newindex.sql for manual updaters).
 166
 167 Expiration date field has been added to ipblocks table
 168 (patch-ipb_expiry.sql for manual updaters).
 169
 170
 171 == Version 1.1.0, 2003-12-08 ==
 172
 173 This is the new production release. Any following 1.1.x releases are expected
 174 to contain only bug fixes; developments of new features will go towards a 1.2.0
 175 release.
 176
 177 New features in 1.1:
 178 * New wiki table syntax:
 179   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide:_Using_tables
 180 * User-editable interface messages:
 181   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_namespace
 182 * XML-wrapped page source export with optional history:
 183   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_import_and_export
 184   (There is not yet an import function!)
 185 * "Magic words"
 186
 187 Fixes and tweaks:
 188 * linkscc table caches link data for rendering; faster rebuildlinks.php
 189 * Numerous bugs in Cologne Blue skin fixed
 190 * Login gives warning about missing cookies
 191 * Block log, protection log added; deletion log now includes undeletions
 192 * Deletion & upload logs now escape comment text properly
 193 * Problems with <nowiki> segments in section titles etc mitigated
 194 * Contributions offset and minor edit bugs fixed
 195 * Whatlinkshere now sorted alphabetically
 196 * Various exciting new profiling options.
 197 * Debug log is off by default.
 198 * Various small bugs fixed.
 199
 200 Internal changes:
 201 * wfQuery has had a second parameter inserted, DB_READ or DB_WRITE. This value
 202   is not actually used so far.
 203 * Partial code for categories and Smarty template-based skins is in the tree
 204   but disabled.
 205 * Parts of Article.php have been moved to EditPage.php and ImagePage.php.
 206
 207 New translations:
 208 * fi - Finnish
 209 * ia - Interlingua
 210 * no - Norwegian
 211 * sk - Slovak
 212 * ta - Tamil
 213
 214 === Database changes ===
 215
 216 "linkscc" table added. If upgrading manually (rather than with update.php),
 217 run maintenance/archives/patch-linkscc.sql to create the table.
 218
 219 Older releases were dated snapshots from the old 'stable' branch:
 220
 221 == mediawiki-20031118 ==
 222
 223 * Image deletion fixed.
 224 * Deletion of image old revisions now restricted to sysops
 225   (this is an irreversible action and not well logged)
 226 * Fixed maintenance scripts broken by last release's security fix
 227 * Many errors in rebuildlinks script fixed.
 228
 229 == mediawiki-20031117 ==
 230
 231 * SECURITY FIX: stricter checking of include path
 232 * Fixed user contributions next/prev bug
 233 * Login cookies now have the database name prefixed to allow wikis
 234   to coexist in the same domain. This will invalidate any old saved
 235   password cookies.
 236 * Update cache timestamp when talk pages are created
 237 * Saving the login form in Mozilla no longer blanks password in prefs.
 238 * Check existence of source page before performing a move.
 239 * Detect invalid titles in Special:Allpages
 240 * Q-encode headers on outgoing inter-user e-mail
 241 * Updates to some translations.
 242 * Added table of contents border/bg to Cologne Blue, Nostalgia skins
 243 * Protected pages no longer appear unprotected when visited via redirect
 244 * Swapped old Wikipedia logo for the MediaWiki sunflower logo
 245 * install.php, update.php print warning on old PHP versions,
 246   added compatibility functions that might or might not help
 247
 248 No database changes since 20031107; upgrading should be clean.
 249
 250
 251 == mediawiki-20031107 ==
 252
 253 * Fixed various bugs!
 254 * Some speed improvements from tweaks to the table indexes
 255 * Limited support for memcached (see below)
 256 * New translations (see below)
 257 * Interwiki link data now kept in database for flexibility
 258 * Friendlier read-only source view if asked to edit a page when
 259   the db is locked or the page is protected.
 260 * Normal IP blocks auto-expire after 24 hours
 261 * Optional support for blocking usernames
 262 * Uploads disabled by default (see below)
 263
 264
 265 === Security note ===
 266
 267 Uploads are now disabled by default. If you've set up a secure configuration
 268 you can reenable uploads by putting:
 269
 270   $wgDisableUploads = false;
 271
 272 into LocalSettings.php.
 273
 274 Earlier versions of MediaWiki included a bug that potentially allows logged-
 275 in users to delete arbitrary files in directories writable by the web server
 276 user by manually feeding false form data; this is now fixed.
 277
 278 As a reminder, disable PHP script execution in the upload directory!
 279 You may also wish to serve HTML pages as plaintext to prevent cookie-
 280 stealing JavaScript attacks. Example Apache config fragment:
 281
 282   <Directory "/Library/MediaWiki/web/upload">
 283      # Ignore .htaccess files
 284      AllowOverride None
 285
 286      # Serve HTML as plaintext
 287      AddType text/plain .html .htm .shtml
 288
 289      # Don't run arbitrary PHP code.
 290      php_admin_flag engine off
 291
 292      # If you've other scripting languages, disable them too.
 293   </Directory>
 294
 295
 296 === Database updates ===
 297
 298 If you're using update.php, the necessary database changes should
 299 be made automatically.
 300
 301 To manually upgrade your database from the 2003-08-29 release, run the
 302 following SQL scripts from the maintenance subdirectory:
 303
 304   archives/patch-ipblocks.sql
 305   archives/patch-interwiki.sql
 306   archives/patch-indexes.sql
 307   interwiki.sql
 308
 309 To copy in the Wikipedia language-prefix interwikis as well, add:
 310
 311   wikipedia-interwiki.sql
 312
 313
 314 === Translations ===
 315
 316 New interface localization files are included for:
 317   fy Frisian
 318   ro Romanian
 319   sl Slovene
 320   sq Albanian
 321   sr Serbian
 322
 323
 324 === Memcached ===
 325
 326 Memcached is a distributed cache system. See http://www.danga.com/memcached/
 327 MediaWiki can optionally use memcached to store some data between calls
 328 to reduce load on the database. Currently this is limited to user and
 329 talk page notification data, interwiki prefix/URL matches, and the
 330 UTF-8 conversion tables.
 331
 332 MediaWiki includes version 1.0.10 of the (GPL'd) PHP memcached client by
 333 Ryan Gilfether; if memcached is disabled it acts as a dummy object with
 334 minimal overhead.
 335
 336 To use memcached you'll need PHP installed with sockets support (this is not
 337 in the default configure options). See docs/memcached for some more details.
 338
 339 Additionally, you can store login session data in memcached instead of the
 340 local filesystem, which can help to enable load-balancing by letting login
 341 sessions transparently work on multiple front-end web servers. (The primary
 342 other issue is with uploads, which requires some care in handling.)
 343
 344 To enable this, set $wgSessionsInMemcached = true; and set $wgCookieDomain
 345 appropriately if exposing multiple hostnames. This system is new and may be
 346 volatile; login sessions will fail dramatically if memcached is unavailable
 347 when this option is turned on.
 348
 349
 350 === Online documentation ===
 351
 352 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 353 built up on Meta-Wikipedia, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 354 License:
 355
 356   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide
 357
 358
 359 === Mailing list ===
 360
 361 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 362 wikitech-l list:
 363
 364   http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 365
 366
 367 === UseModWiki import script ===
 368
 369 A stripped-down UseModWiki import script is available in the maintenance
 370 subdirectory. It is incomplete and requires a lot of manual clean-up, but
 371 does function for the brave and pure of heart.
 372
 373
 374 === Test suite removed ===
 375
 376 The unmaintained Java-based test suite has been removed from the tarball
 377 release. If you really want it you can check it out from CVS.
 378
 379
 380 == mediawiki-20030829 ==
 381
 382 First release under MediaWiki name.