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 * $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
  45   is not required.
  46 * $wgAllowExternalImagesFrom may now be an array of multiple strings.
  47 * Introduced $wgEnableImageWhitelist to toggle the on-wiki external image
  48   whitelist on or off.
  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
  53 === Migrated extensions ===
  54 The following extensions are migrated into MediaWiki 1.14:
  55
  56 * Special:DeletedContributions to show deleted user contributions (was extension
  57   DeletedContributions)
  58 * Special:Log/newusers recording new users (was extension Newuserlog)
  59 * Special:LinkSearch to search for external links (was extension LinkSearch)
  60 * RenderHash
  61 * NoMoveUserPages
  62 * Special:Nuke to mass delete all pages created by a user
  63 * Poem (patch by Nathaniel Herman)
  64 * UniversalEditButton
  65
  66 === New features in 1.14 ===
  67
  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
  95   the wiki
  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>
 100   Patch by Emufarmers
 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 &nbsp; 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
 133   small categories
 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
 137   Special:Statistics
 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
 143   image.
 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 * Added "link" parameter to image links, to allow images to link to an
 153   arbitrary title or URL. This should replace inaccessible and incomplete
 154   solutions such as CSS-based overlays and ImageMap.
 155 * (bug 368) Don't use caption for alt attribute; allow manual specification
 156   using new "alt=" parameter for images
 157 * (bug 44) The {{ns:}} core parser function now also accepts localized namespace
 158   names and aliases; also, its output now uses spaces instead of underscores to
 159   match the behavior of the {{NAMESPACE}} magic word
 160 * Added the ability to display user edit counts in Special:ListUsers. Off by
 161   default, enabled with $wgEdititis = true (named after the medical condition
 162   marked by unhealthy obsession with edit counts).
 163 * Added a file cache to the parser to improve page rendering time on pages with
 164   several uses of the same image.
 165 * (bug 1250) Users can still use "show preview" and "show changes" even if the
 166   wiki is set to read-only mode.
 167 * Added 'ParserLinkNSCheck' hook in the parser, allowing extensions to catch and handle
 168   links based on namespace (for instance, to add code to handle [[Tag: Foo]] similarly
 169   to how [[Category: Foo]] is handled.
 170 * Added 'EditPageNoPermission' hook to allow special handling/output when a non-editor
 171   views an edit page.
 172
 173 === Bug fixes in 1.14 ===
 174
 175 * (bug 14907) DatabasePostgres::fieldType now defined.
 176 * (bug 14659) Passing the default limit param to Special:Recentchanges no more
 177   falls back to the user option
 178 * (bug 14954) Fix regression in Modern and Simple skins
 179 * Recursion loop check added to Categoryfinder class
 180 * Fixed few performance troubles of large job queue processing
 181 * Not setting various parameters in Foreign Repos now fails more gracefully
 182 * (bug 2333) Redirects are properly rendered when previewing an edit.
 183 * (bug 14972) Use localized alias of Special:Search on all search forms
 184 * (bug 11035) Special:Search should have descriptive <title>
 185 * Special pages are now not subject to special handling for "self-links"
 186 * (bug 15053) Syntactically incorrect redirects with another link in them
 187   no longer redirect to the second link
 188 * (bug 15049) Fix for CheckUser extension's log search: usernames containing
 189   a "-" were incorrectly turned into bogus IP range searches.
 190   Patch by Max Semenik.
 191 * (bug 15055) Talk page notifications no longer attempt to send mail when
 192   user's e-mail address is invalid or unconfirmed
 193 * (bug 12370) Add throttle on password attempts. Defaults to max 5 attempts in 5
 194   minutes.
 195 * (bug 15016) 'Templates used on this page' list in view source should be
 196   wrapped in a div with class "templatesUsed"
 197 * (bug 14868) Setting $wgFeedDiffCutoff to 0 now disables generation of the diff
 198   entirely, not just the display of it.
 199 * (bug 6387) Introduced new setting $wgCategoryPrefixedDefaultSortkey which
 200   allows having the unprefixed page title as the default category sortkey
 201 * (bug 15079) Add class="ns-talk" / "ns-subject" to <body>. Also added
 202   ns-special to special pages.
 203 * (bug 15052) Skins should add their name as a class in <body>
 204 * (bug 14165, bug 14294) Wikimedia specific configuration in convertGrammar()
 205   for several languages was removed. The settings have been put in extension
 206   WikimediaMessages. Patch for Czech by Danny B.
 207 * (bug 15101) Displaying only bots edits in Special:Recentchanges now works
 208   again
 209 * (bug 13770) Fixed incorrect detection of PHP's DOM module
 210 * (bug 14790) Export of category pages when using Category: prefix now actually
 211   gives results
 212 * Avoid recursive crazy expansions in section edit comments for pages which
 213   contain '/*' in the title
 214 * Fix excessive memory usage when parsing pages with lots of links
 215 * $wgSpamRegex now matches the edit summary and page move descriptions in
 216   addition to body text.
 217 * Navigation links to images available from a shared repository (like Commons)
 218   from their local talk pages no longer appear as redlinks
 219 * Action=purge on ForeignApiFiles now works (purges their thumbnails and
 220   description pages).
 221 * (bug 15303) Title conversion for templates wasn't working in some cases.
 222 * (bug 15264) Underscores in Special:Search/Foo_bar parameters were taken
 223   literally; now converting them to spaces per expectation.
 224 * (bug 15342) "Invert" checkbox now works correctly when selecting main
 225   namespace in Special:Watchlist
 226 * (bug 15172) 'Go' button of Special:Recentchanges now on the same line as the
 227   last input element (like Special:Watchlist too)
 228 * (bug 15351) Fix fatal error for invalid section fragments in autocomments
 229 * Fixed intermittent deadlock errors involving objectcache table queries.
 230   Use a separate database connection for the objectcache table to avoid
 231   long-lasting locks on that table.
 232 * Respect file restrictions in the file history list
 233 * (bug 15399) Odd/even classes on sortable tables' rows could be slow for large
 234   tables, and have been disabled by default.
 235 * (bug 15482) Special:Recentchangeslinked has no longer two submit buttons
 236 * (bug 15292) New message notification for unregistred users now works again
 237 * (bug 14398) mwsuggest.js: Let width of container be configurable
 238 * (bug 15543) Only include user touched timestamp to generated CSS
 239 * (bug 15497) Removed encoding attribute from <?xml ?> tag
 240 * (bug 12284) Special:Preferences now sets a returnto parameter on the link to
 241   Special:Userlogin. Patch by Marooned.
 242 * Fixed the HTTP accept language string detection length in
 243   LanguageConverter.php, instead of the fixed length language codes.
 244 * Special:Recentchangeslinked no longer shows outgoing links for nonexistent pages
 245   even if there are broken link records with source article id 0 in the database
 246 * (bug 15598) Special:Newpages default limit uses user preference for recentchanges
 247   limit instead of hardcoded 50.
 248 * (bug 15617) $wgFeedClassesOutputPage::getHeadLinks() respects $wgFeedClasses,
 249   instead of hardcoding rss and atom. Patch by Juliano F. Ravasi.
 250 * (bug 14638) Special:Blockip now provides a link to the block log if the user
 251   has been blocked more than 10 times. Patch by Matt Johnston.
 252 * (bug 12678) Skins don't show Upload link if the user isn't allowed to upload.
 253 * Fixed incorrect usage of DB_LAST in Special:Export. Deprecated DB_LAST.
 254 * (bug 15642) Blocked sysops can no longer block other users
 255 * Http::request() now respects $wgHTTPtimeout when not using cURL
 256 * (bug 15158) Userinvalidcssjstitle not shown on preview
 257 * (bug 15196) Free external links should be numbered in a localised manner
 258 * (bug 15388) Title of Special:PrefixIndex
 259 * Links with no title but a curid parameter now use the curid to pick a page
 260 * (bug 10323) Special:Undelete should have "inverse selection" button
 261 * (bug 15831) Modern skin RTL support is bugous
 262 * (bug 15869) Nostalgia skin does not show page title in printable mode
 263 * (bug 15795) Special:Userrights is now listed on Special:SpecialPages when the
 264   user can only change his rights
 265 * (bug 15846) Categories "leak" from older revisions in certain circumstances
 266 * (bug 15928) Special pages dropdown should be inline in non-MonoBook skins
 267 * (bug 14178) Some uses of UserLoadFromSession hook cause segfault
 268 * (bug 15925) Postitive bytes added on recentchanges and watchlists are now bolded
 269   if above the threshold, previously it only worked for negatives
 270
 271
 272 === API changes in 1.14 ===
 273
 274 * Registration time of users registered before the DB field was created is now
 275   shown as empty instead of the current time.
 276 * API search now falls back to fulltext search by default when using Lucene
 277   or other engine which doesn't support a separate title search function.
 278   This means you can use API search on Wikipedia without explicitly adding
 279   &srwhat=text to the query.
 280 * Added iiprop=bitdepth to imageinfo and aiprop=bitdepth to allimages
 281 * (bug 14713) API-specific permissions (such as 'writeapi' and 'apihighlimits'
 282   are now listed on action=help
 283 * (bug 15044) Added requestid parameter to api.php to facilitate distinguishing
 284   between requests
 285 * (bug 15048) Added limit field for multivalue parameters to action=paraminfo
 286   output.
 287 * When the limit on multivalue parameters is exceeded, a warning is issued
 288 * list=search doesn't list missing pages any more
 289 * (bug 15178) Added clshow to prop=categories to allow filtering for hidden/
 290   non-hidden categories
 291 * (bug 15228) Combining revids= and redirects now throws a warning instead of an
 292   error, and still resolves redirects generated by the generator.
 293 * list={backlinks,embeddedin,imageusage} now return arrays with keys 0, 1, 2,
 294   etc. (AKA lists) instead of arrays with pageIDs as keys (AKA hash tables)
 295   for consistency with other list modules.
 296 * Added action=watch
 297 * (bug 15275) apprefix and related parameters ignore spaces at the end
 298 * action=edit no longer throws unknown error 228  when trying to create an empty
 299   section with section=new
 300 * Database replication lag doesn't cause all action=edit requests to return the
 301   nochange flag any more
 302 * (bug 15392) ApiFormatBase::formatHTML now uses $wgUrlProtocols.
 303 * (bug 15444) action=edit returns "Unknown error: ``AS_END''" where it should
 304   return just "Unknown error"
 305 * (bug 15448) YAML output returns empty values instead of 0
 306 * (bug 15445) Added action=patrol
 307 * (bug 15466) Added action=purge
 308 * (bug 15486) action=block ignores autoblock parameter
 309 * (bug 15492) added rcprop=loginfo to list=recentchanges
 310 * (bug 15527) action=rollback can now revert anonymous editors
 311 * (bug 15535) prop=info&inprop=protection doesn't list pre-1.10 protections
 312   if the page is also protected otherwise (1.10+ style or cascading)
 313 * list=random now has rnredirect parameter, to get random redirects.
 314 * Added APIAfterExecute, APIQueryAfterExecute and APIQueryGeneratorAfterExecute
 315   hooks which allow for extending core modules in a cleaner way
 316 * action=protect checks for invalid protection types and levels
 317 * (bug 15673) Added indentation to format=wddxfm output and improved built-in
 318   WDDX formatter to resemble PHP's more
 319 * (bug 15706) Empty values for apprtype and apprlevel are now silently ignored
 320   rather than causing an exception
 321 * Added uiprop=preferencestoken to meta=userinfo
 322 * (bug 15609) Add inprop=url and inprop=readable to prop=info
 323 * Add ApiDisabled and ApiQueryDisabled classes so individual modules can
 324   be disabled in LocalSettings.php
 325 * (bug 15653) Add prop=duplicatefiles
 326 * (bug 15768) Add list=watchlistraw
 327 * (bug 15647) action=edit with basetimestamp fails if the page has been deleted
 328   and undeleted since the last edit
 329 * (bug 15785) Allow for different expiry times for different protections in
 330   action=protect
 331 * Added allowsduplicates attribute to action=paraminfo output
 332 * (bug 15767) apfilterlanglinks returns duplicate results
 333 * (bug 15845) Added pageid/fromid parameter to action=delete/move, making
 334   manipulation of legacy pages with invalid titles possible
 335 * (bug 15881) Empty or invalid parameters cause database errors
 336 * The maxage and smaxage parameters are now properly validated
 337 * (bug 15945) list=recentchanges doesn't check $wgUseRCPatrol, $wgUseNPPatrol
 338   and patrolmarks right
 339
 340 === Languages updated in 1.14 ===
 341
 342 MediaWiki supports over 300 languages. Many localisations are updated
 343 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed.
 344
 345 * Bakhtiari (bqi) (new)
 346 * Fiji Hindi (Devanagari script) (hif-deva) (new)
 347 * Krio (kri) (new)
 348 * Lezghian (lez) (new)
 349 * Laz (lzz) (new)
 350 * Niuean (niu) (new)
 351 * Oromo (om) (new)
 352 * Plautdietsch (pdt) (new)
 353 * Tarantino (roa-tara) (new)
 354 * Serbo-Croatian (sh) (new)
 355 * Tulu (tcy) (new)
 356
 357 == Compatibility ==
 358
 359 MediaWiki 1.14 requires PHP 5 (5.2 recommended). PHP 4 is no longer supported.
 360
 361 PHP 5.0.x fails on 64-bit systems due to serious bugs with array processing:
 362 http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=34879
 363 Upgrade affected systems to PHP 5.1 or higher.
 364
 365 MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade.
 366 At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.
 367
 368
 369 == Upgrading ==
 370
 371 1.14 has several database changes since 1.13, and will not work without schema
 372 updates.
 373
 374 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons repository,
 375 make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to
 376 database schema changes.
 377
 378 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
 379 new database fields are filled with data.
 380
 381 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database
 382 changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could
 383 break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
 384
 385 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
 386
 387
 388 === Caveats ===
 389
 390 Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not
 391 produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to
 392 set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem
 393 cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for
 394 MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)
 395
 396 For notes on 1.13.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
 397
 398
 399 === Online documentation ===
 400
 401 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
 402 built up on MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation
 403 License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in
 404 the public domain) :
 405
 406   http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
 407
 408
 409 === Mailing list ===
 410
 411 A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia
 412 wikitech-l list:
 413
 414   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
 415
 416 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
 417
 418   http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
 419
 420 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
 421 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
 422
 423
 424 === IRC help ===
 425
 426 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net