Wikipedia:MediaWiki 1.4 release notes

Security reminder: MediaWiki does not require PHP's register_globals setting since version 1.2.0. If you have it on, turn it *off* if you can.


 * NOTE TO COMMITTERS: Before 1.5.0 release, rearrange these nicely
 * and move 1.4 stuff to HISTORY.

This page is old; see MediaWiki for current info.

Stuff not in MediaWiki 1.4, but maybe in 1.5
New exciting things! Need further work and testing...
 * user groups/permissions scheme
 * e-mail change notifications
 * 'live preview' reduces preview reload burden on supported browsers
 * Schema reworking: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_Database_Schema_Changes/October_2004
 * ...and more!

Need to merge:
 * stuff

Version Enotif+Eauthent EN+EA v2.00/CVS, 14.12.2004
written by Thomas Gries, Berlin and Markus Arndt, Munich

Executive summary for the impatient reader:

Enotif adds e-mail notification to MediaWiki and sends e-mails to watching users when a watch-listed page or user_talk page is changed http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=454 Visit the complete documentation on http://meta.wikipedia.org/Enotif

Eauthent is a mechanism to use a temporary one-time password cycle to check whether the email address a user has entered is a valid one. http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=866 Visit the complete documentation on http://meta.wikipedia.org/Eauthent

The current patch has only been checked for (see DefaultSettings.php):

- php mail ( = not using PEAR:Mail module --- I do not know anyone who uses that) $wgSMTP = false; - MySQL database ( = not using PostgreSQL --- I do not know anyone who uses that) $wgDBtype = "mysql"; $wgSearchType = "MyISAM";

- STILL TODO: NEW (newpageletter) and CORR (minoreditletter) markers needs corresponding "spacers"

- table user_newtalk dropped; changes on usertalk pages and their notifications are now fully handled via existing table watchlist The user interface and behavious is unchanged to previous version. - updaters.inc for compatibility with older mediawiki tables: the conversion script converts existing user_newtalk entries watchlist table entries (user_newtalk) id ==> (watchlist) NS_USER_TALK:namefromId(id) timestamp=1 - minor bug fixes: updated marker now correctly shown on watchlist page watching users number display with enhanced RC view + RCUseModStyle - wfUrlencode instead of rawurlencode in enotif mails - duplicate enotif code moved from UserTalkUpdate.php and merged into UserMailer.php and using usermailer solely - fixed an enotif mail text error for user names with spaces - fixed missing part for suppressing watching user number

v1.36: magic watchlist shows and counts now only the content page, notwithstanding the content and talk page are stored separately in watchlist.
 * bug fixed: rawurlencode for pagetitles in enotif mails
 * bug fixed: link to userpages of anonymous user are correct now

bugs fixed regarding missing $oldid parameter
 * Enotif v1.34

Implements almost all enotif options as user preferences. These are only shown on the user preference page, if they are globally enabled by the corresponding admin option in DefaultSettings.php. Added admin feature to let enotifs appear to come from the page editor. This facilitates automatic mail sorting and anti-spam filtering; feature was originally proposed by Nick Triantos, thank you ! Page editor's email address is however only shown, if this user enabled the option "reveal my email address" in user preferences. Otherwise, the enotifs appear to come from WikiAdmin as usual (tricky to program, but simply trust the algorithm. or look into UserMailer.php and UserTalkPage.php).
 * v1.33
 * Details:

applied after two first reviews by Brion Vibber. v1.31 is basically the same as the older Enotif v1.30 and v1.22 versions.
 * Changes from previous enotif versions
 * v1.31 is an improved version with many security and also cosmetic changes

Added UseMod style for recent changes view so that only the most recent change of any page is listed. The (diff) and (hist) still allow to retrieve the older versions at users' discretion, but the RC view is much cleaner for trusted environments such as medium-size companies or family wikis.


 * Enotif v1.30 redesign after review by Brion Vibber 25.10.2003

email address in preferences, so that they can see, what watched pages have changed. classic skin and in monobook skin in recent changes view for the older (already visited) versions of watched pages - i.e. page versions before the enotif was sent do not bear that marker any longer. visited version of the watching user. recommended way (starting index.php and re-using the old database name). run php /maintenance/update.php OR see /maintenance/archives/patch-email-notification.sql and apply the command ALTER TABLE watchlist ADD (wl_notificationtimestamp varchar(14) binary NOT NULL default '0'); manually to your database, which does not harm the non notification versions
 * v1.22 "updated (since my last visit)" also shown for users without stored
 * show "updated (since my last visit)" markers in RC, history and watchlist
 * Systemvariables to suppress updated marker in all views
 * show number of watching users in RC and on bottom of articles in
 * Systemvariables in DefaultSettings.php to enable or disable features
 * v1.21 now suppresses displaying the marker "updated (since my last visit)"
 * enotif mails come with a link to the diff view between current and last
 * database structure is changed automatically when installing via the

for the accompanying talk_page talk:x and vice versa;
 * adding a page x to the watchlist does automatically add a watch

MediaWiki 1.4 BETA
[Not everything is 100% working in beta yet, the installer needs fixes still.]

Major changes from 1.3.x:
 * Support for table prefixes for better sharing with other web apps
 * (?) PostgreSQL support
 * Optional article validation voting features
 * 'Recentchanges Patrol' to mark new edits that haven't yet been viewed
 * Support for faster C++ diff module (WikiDiff extension)
 * More scary link caching modes
 * Old manually maintained log pages replaced with searchable Special:Log
 * Skins system more modular: templates and CSS are now in /skins/
 * New user preference for limitting the image size for images on image description pages
 * Error pages no more offer edit / talk / watch links (502)
 * Allow user to preview article on first edit (530)
 * New dark background skin named Amethyst (thanks Sorwena and Sorkhiri)
 * RFC 1234 will now make an internal link: RFC 1234; RFC 1234 creates a "magic" ext. link just as before: RFC 1234. (479)
 * PhpTal skins shown bogus 'What links here' etc on special pages (511)
 * Experimental code to manage user and group rights (Special:Userlevels)
 * UI language switching
 * Adding filter and username exact search match for Special:Listusers (770)
 * Special:Listadmins is outdated, use Special:Listusers instead (857)
 * Traditional/Simplified Chinese conversion
 * New tag " " to generate a table of image thumbnails (see Gallery tag)
 * Installer dies early if it cannot write LocalSettings.php (733)
 * Various special pages no more show the rss/atom feed links (705)
 * Support for external authentication plug-ins
 * Use category backlinks in Special:Recentchangeslinked for categories (144)
 * ... and more!

Caveats
Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)

The new 'MonoBook' skin is not compatible with PHP 5 due to bugs in the underlying PHPTAL library. It will be automatically disabled when running on PHP5; the older look and feel will be used instead.

For notes on 1.3.x and older releases, see HISTORY.

Online documentation
Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being built up on Meta-Wikipedia, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License:

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents

Mailing list
A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia wikitech-l list:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

IRC help
There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net