Project:Tech News

Tech News: 2014-17
  Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.  Tech News updates
 * You can now subscribe to an [//meta.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=featuredfeed&feed=technews&feedformat=atom Atom] or [//meta.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=featuredfeed&feed=technews&feedformat=rss RSS] feed to read Tech News in your news aggregator. The newsletter will now also show on the [//en.planet.wikimedia.org/ English Planet Wikimedia] every Monday.
 * We are looking for contributors to help write a new issue every week. If you would like to help, please contact us.

Recent software changes
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf1) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on April 17. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on April 22, and all Wikipedias on April 24 (calendar).
 * CirrusSearch was enabled as a beta feature on 27 new wikis on April 18. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/126671/] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/126806/]
 * Problems with various fonts in SVG files were fixed last week. Files that use DejaVu Sans Condensed, DejaVu Serif Condensed, DejaVu Sans Light, Kochi Gothic and Kochi Mincho fonts now show correctly. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=63206] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/126834/] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64002] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/126729/]
 * The page view statistics site developed by Henrik (stats.grok.se) should now work faster.
 * You can read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for March 2014.

VisualEditor news
 * If you try to add a category which redirects to another category, VisualEditor will now suggest adding the target category directly. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52414] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/118218/]
 * VisualEditor tabs will no longer appear on Education Program pages. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53477] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/125233/]
 * You can now use VisualEditor on Meta-Wiki and the French Wikinews by enabling it in your preferences. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/125774/] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=63841] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/125538/]

Future software changes  Problems
 * MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on the Czech (cs), Estonian (et), Finnish (fi), Hebrew (he), Polish (pl), Romanian (ro), Slovak (sk), Thai (th) and Vietnamese (vi) Wikipedias on April 24. Feedback is welcome. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/125033/]
 * Edits by anonymous users will now be marked with a new CSS class . This way, you can easily make those edits use a different color, font or background. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43179] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/115095/]
 * The user preference to remember login will soon be removed from all wikis. The edit review preferences will be moved to the recent changes tab, and the preference for the WikiLove tool will be moved to the editing tab. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52342] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=63576] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52757]
 * You will soon be able to give parameters to preloaded templates. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12853] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/116482/]
 * You will soon be able to use CodeEditor in read-only mode on pages that you cannot edit. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45258] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/120397/]
 * It is now proposed to replace [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org Bugzilla], [//gerrit.wikimedia.org Gerrit] and other tools by a single tool called Phabricator. You can test Phabricator and add your opinion on MediaWiki.org.
 * An IRC discussion about Phabricator will take place on April 22 at 03:30 AM UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion).
 * For about 40 minutes on April 17, there were problems with page loading due to high server load.
 * There is a problem with the rendering of formulas with MathJax. If you enabled MathJax in your preferences, you might need to turn it off and on again. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=63915]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 

Tech News: 2014-18
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf2) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on April 24. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on April 29, and all Wikipedias on May 1 (calendar).
 * You can now use interwiki prefix  to link to pages on Wikimedia Commons.

VisualEditor news
 * You will soon be able to set content language and direction with VisualEditor.
 * VisualEditor now works on all Wikipedias after broken  pages (and similar) were fixed last week.
 * VisualEditor dialogs now use an animation of moving lines rather than animated GIF images.

Future software changes
 * CirrusSearch will be enabled as a beta feature on 41 new wikis, including Meta-Wiki and the Swedish (sv), Russian (ru), Polish (pl), Japanese (ja) and Chinese (zh) Wikipedias next week. This change means that CirrusSearch will now be enabled on all Wikimedia wikis.
 * MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on the French (fr) and Dutch (nl) Wikipedias on May 1. Feedback is welcome.
 * The mobile version of Wikimedia wikis will soon include filters to limit the number of uploaded files that are copyright violations.
 * CodeEditor will soon have a status bar about errors and warnings.
 * You can test a new version of Winter, a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. Comments are welcome.

Problems
 * For about 30 minutes on April 21, there were problems with image scaling due to a high server load.
 * On April 22, it was not possible to use the Collection extension for about 90 minutes due to a server move.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  07:23, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-19
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf3) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 1. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 6, and all Wikipedias on May 8 (calendar).
 * The Compact Personal Bar was added as a beta feature to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 1. It will be added as a beta feature to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 6, and to all Wikipedias on May 8. To test it, you can enable it now in your preferences on MediaWiki.org.
 * It is now easier to disable the CodeEditor tool.

VisualEditor news
 * External links in VisualEditor are now in the same light blue color as in MediaWiki.
 * The template tool now tells you if a parameter is obsolete.
 * You can now add "suggested" parameters in TemplateData; VisualEditor will add them like required ones.
 * There is a new type for TemplateData parameters:  for file names.
 * Editing formulae in VisualEditor will soon be enabled for all users.
 * You will soon be able to try a new beta feature to edit text in another language.

Future software changes
 * MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on the Japanese (ja), Portuguese (pt), Spanish (es), Swedish (sv) and Telugu (te) Wikipedias on May 8. Feedback is welcome.
 * You can help translate about 100 new language names that have been added to our data source. They are used, for example, as hover text for interwiki links. Send an e-mail to Nemo if you want to help.
 * If you click on a redirect page in your watchlist, you will soon access the redirect itself.

Problems
 * For about 40 minutes around 00:20 UTC on April 29, there were problems with page loading due to high server load.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  07:29, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-20
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf4) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 8. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 13, and all Wikipedias on May 15 (calendar).

VisualEditor news
 * A new citation system in VisualEditor was enabled on the English Wikipedia. It will soon be enabled on more wikis.
 * Templates that were previously broken in VisualEditor should now appear correctly.

Future software changes
 * It will soon be possible to move category description pages. Pages in changed categories will still have to be moved independently.
 * You will soon be able to clear your watchlist with one click or through the API.
 * You will soon be able to link to Flow posts and workflows with.
 * The jQuery JavaScript library will soon be updated. Please check that your gadgets and scripts will still work.
 * The Vector skin will work faster, as the sidebar will no longer collapse partly after being loaded.
 * MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on Wikimedia Commons on May 15. Feedback is welcome.
 * An IRC discussion about Phabricator will take place on May 14 at 18:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion).
 * Toolserver tools will be stopped on June 30. Please make sure to change gadgets [ that link to the Toolserver] to point to Tool Labs instead.

Problems
 * There were problems with generating file thumbnails for all wikis between May 3 and May 6 due to a configuration error.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  06:00, 12 May 2014 (UTC)