Release notes/1.25/en

= MediaWiki release notes =

Security reminder: If you have PHP's register_globals option set, you must turn it off. MediaWiki will not work with it enabled.

MediaWiki 1.25
THIS IS NOT A RELEASE YET

MediaWiki 1.25 is an alpha-quality branch and is not recommended for use in production.

Configuration changes

 * $wgPageShowWatchingUsers was removed.
 * $wgLocalVirtualHosts has been added to replace $wgConf->localVHosts.
 * $wgAntiLockFlags was removed.

New features

 * (bug 58139) ResourceLoaderFileModule now supports language fallback for 'languageScripts'.
 * Added a new hook, "ContentAlterParserOutput", to allow extensions to modify the parser output for a content object before links update.
 * (bug 35785) Enhanced recent changes and extended watchlist are now default. Documentation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Enhanced_recent_changes and https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgDefaultUserOptions.
 * (bug 67341) SVG images will no longer be base64-encoded when being embedded in CSS. This results in slight size increase before gzip compression (due to percent-encoding), but up to 20% decrease after it.
 * Upgrade jStorage to v0.4.12.
 * MediaWiki now natively supports page status indicators: icons (or short text snippets) usually displayed in the top-right corner of the page. They have been in use on Wikipedia for a long time, implemented using templates and CSS absolute positioning.
 * Basic wikitext syntax: Foo.svg
 * Usage instructions: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Page_status_indicators
 * Adjusting custom skins to support indicators: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skinning#Page_status_indicators

Bug fixes

 * (bug 71003) No additional code will be generated to try to load CSS-embedded SVG images in Internet Explorer 6 and 7, as they don't support them anyway.
 * (bug 67021) On Special:BookSources, corrected validation of ISBNs (both 10- and 13-digit forms) containing "X".

Action API changes

 * (bug 65403) XML tag highlighting is now only performed for formats "xmlfm" and "wddxfm".
 * action=paraminfo supports generalized submodules (modules=query+value), querymodules and formatmodules are deprecated
 * action=paraminfo no longer outputs descriptions and other help text by default. If needed, it may be requested using the new 'helpformat' parameter.
 * action=help has been completely rewritten, and outputs help in HTML rather than plain text.
 * Hitting api.php without specifying an action now displays only the help for the main module, with links to submodule help.
 * API help is no longer displayed on errors.
 * Internationalized messages returned by the API will be in the wiki's content language by default. 'uselang' is now a recognized API parameter; "uselang=user" may be used to select the language from the current user's preferences.
 * Default output format for the API is now jsonfm.
 * Simplified continuation will return a "batchcomplete" property in the result when a batch of pages is complete.
 * Pretty-printed HTML output now has nicer formatting and (if available) better syntax highlighting.

Action API internal changes

 * ApiHelp has been rewritten to support i18n and paginated HTML output. Most existing modules should continue working without changes, but should do the following:
 * Add an i18n message "apihelp-{$moduleName}-description" to replace getDescription.
 * Add i18n messages "apihelp-{$moduleName}-param-{$param}" for each parameter to replace getParamDescription. If necessary, the settings array returned by getParams can use the new ApiBase::PARAM_HELP_MSG key to override the message.
 * Implement getExamplesMessages to replace getExamples.


 * Modules with submodules (like action=query) must have their submodules override ApiBase::getParent to return the correct parent object.
 * The 'APIGetDescription' and 'APIGetParamDescription' hooks are deprecated, and will have no effect for modules using i18n messages. Use 'APIGetDescriptionMessages' and 'APIGetParamDescriptionMessages' instead.
 * Api formatters will no longer be asked to display the help screen on errors.
 * ApiMain::getCredits was removed. The credits are available in the 'api-credits' i18n message.
 * ApiFormatBase has been changed to support i18n and syntax highlighting via extensions with the new 'ApiFormatHighlight' hook. Core syntax highlighting has been removed.
 * ApiFormatBase now always buffers. Output is done when ApiFormatBase::closePrinter is called.
 * The following methods have been deprecated and may be removed in a future release:
 * ApiBase::getDescription
 * ApiBase::getParamDescription
 * ApiBase::getExamples
 * ApiBase::makeHelpMsg
 * ApiBase::makeHelpArrayToString
 * ApiBase::makeHelpMsgParameters
 * ApiFormatBase::setUnescapeAmps
 * ApiFormatBase::getWantsHelp
 * ApiFormatBase::setHelp
 * ApiFormatBase::formatHTML
 * ApiFormatBase::setBufferResult
 * ApiFormatBase::getDescription
 * ApiMain::setHelp
 * ApiMain::reallyMakeHelpMsg
 * ApiMain::makeHelpMsgHeader

Languages updated
MediaWiki supports over 350 languages. Many localisations are updated regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as changes to languages because of Bugzilla reports.

Other changes

 * The skin autodiscovery mechanism, deprecated in MediaWiki 1.23, has been removed. See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skin_autodiscovery for migration guide for creators and users of custom skins that relied on it.
 * Javascript variable 'wgFileCanRotate' now only available on Special:Upload.
 * (bug 56257) Set site logo from mediawiki.skinning.interface module instead of inline styles in the HTML.
 * Removed ApiQueryUsers::getAutoGroups. (deprecated since 1.20)
 * Removed XmlDumpWriter::schemaVersion. (deprecated since 1.20)
 * Removed LogEventsList::getDisplayTitle. (deprecated since 1.20)
 * Removed Preferences::trySetUserEmail. (deprecated since 1.20)
 * Removed mw.user.name and mw.user.anonymous methods. (deprecated since 1.20)
 * Removed 'ok' and 'err' parameters in the mediawiki.api modules. (deprecated since 1.20)
 * Removed 'async' parameter from the mw.Api#getCategories method. (deprecated since 1.20)
 * Removed 'jquery.json' module. (deprecated since 1.24) Use the 'json' module and global JSON object instead.
 * Deprecated OutputPage::readOnlyPage and OutputPage::rateLimited. Also, the former will now throw an MWException if called with one or more arguments.

Compatibility
MediaWiki 1.25 requires PHP 5.3.2 or later. There is experimental support for HHVM 3.3.0.

MySQL is the recommended DBMS. PostgreSQL or SQLite can also be used, but support for them is somewhat less mature. There is experimental support for Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.

The supported versions are:


 * MySQL 5.0.2 or later
 * PostgreSQL 8.3 or later
 * SQLite 3.3.7 or later
 * Oracle 9.0.1 or later
 * Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (9.00.1399)

Upgrading
1.25 has several database changes since 1.24, and will not work without schema updates. Note that due to changes to some very large tables like the revision table, the schema update may take quite long (minutes on a medium sized site, many hours on a large site).

If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons repository, make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise due to database schema changes.

If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure new database fields are filled with data.

If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, you should upgrade to 1.5 first. The upgrade script maintenance/upgrade1_5.php has been removed with MediaWiki 1.21.

Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!

See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.

For notes on 1.23.x and older releases, see HISTORY.

Online documentation
Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is available on MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License (except for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in the public domain): https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation

Mailing list
A mailing list is available for MediaWiki user support and discussion: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce

It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.

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