User talk:Rachel99

Qgil (talk) 16:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to testing!
Hi! Just wanted to thank you for starting to contribute as a tester! Please do say hi if you see me in #mediawiki on IRC (I'm sumanah). Thanks! Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 17:36, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to Wikipedia Search browser testing automation
WHAT: Writing Wikipedia search feature descriptions in plain English for our automated testing process. Let's feed the Test backlog.

WHEN: Demo via video streaming on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 at 17h UTC and we will be helping volunteers during the rest of the week. This is an ongoing activity: you can arrive / leave at any time.

WHERE: IRC channel.

For more details, check QA/Browser testing/Search features.--Qgil (talk) 19:06, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Very happy to see some of this automation showing up for gadgets! Sj (talk) 14:38, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-31
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes; not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 25. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 29, and on all Wikipedias on August 1.
 * Wikivoyage was offline for around 40 minutes on July 24.
 * Pywikipediabot moved their code from SVN to git; bot owners need to update their tools.
 * The Notifications and Thanks extensions were added to Meta-Wiki on July 26; other wikis will get them soon.
 * It is now possible to add edit summaries on Wikidata using the API; the feature will be added to user interface soon.
 * The software that resizes large PNG images on all wikis was changed on July 25. Resizing of PNG files bigger than 35 megapixels should be faster and more reliable now.
 * Three new webfonts (Gentium, Old Persian and Shapour) will be added to Universal Language Selector., ,
 * Special:MIMESearch, which gives a list of files by type, will be enabled on all Wikimedia wikis with MediaWiki version 1.22/wmf12 (bug #13438).
 * A mailing list to discuss multimedia features was started; users are encouraged to sign up.
 * VisualEditor news:
 * On July 24, VisualEditor was added for logged-in users on the German (de), Spanish (es), French (fr), Hebrew (he), Italian (it), Polish (pl), Russian (ru) and Swedish (sv) Wikipedias; it will be added for all users on those wikis on July 29.
 * A preference to completely disable VisualEditor while it is in beta phase was added on July 24.
 * Many bugs were fixed in right-to-left languages.
 * It is possible again to scroll down in the template editing window (bug #51739).
 * VisualEditor now works with the FlaggedRevisions extension. (bug #49699)
 * If the user opens VisualEditor using a section edit link, the title of the section is added to the edit summary (bug #50872).
 * Invisible templates now can't be deleted by accident or on purpose (bug #51322).

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 20:59, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-34;
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

New features


 * The previous version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on August 15. It was enabled on non-Wikipedia sites on August 19, and on all Wikipedias on August 22.
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on August 22. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia sites on August 26, and on all Wikipedias on August 29.
 * You can now use new styles of galleries. Please give feedback to User:Bawolff.
 * You can now visit a random page in a category, for example Special:RandomInCategory/Science. (25931)
 * You can now use the and  for the German layer of [[:File:Gerrit patchset 25838 test.svg].
 * Developers are looking for wiki communities to try the new search system.

VisualEditor news
 * You can now create and edit references inside media captions.
 * You now need to press the "delete" key twice to delete a template, reference or image; the first time, they only become selected, to avoid accidental deletion of infoboxes and similar content.
 * When you resize images, you will now still see them, and their size will also be seen in the center.

Future
 * The new notifications system ("Echo") will be added to almost all wikis that don't already have it on October 22. It will notify you of changes and events that affect you.
 * MediaWiki 1.22wmf22 was added to test wikis on October 17. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on October 21 and all Wikipedia wikis on October 24 (calendar).
 * The interface to reset your password will soon be changed.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 09:37, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-43
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

New features
 * The "Toolbox" section in the site sidebar is now called "Tools" in English. You can do the same in your language by editing the interface text on translatewiki.net. Someone else may have already done it.

VisualEditor news
 * On wikis with VisualEditor, you can now use it on pages in the   ,      and      spaces.

Problems
 * On October 22 (UTC), an error in the site settings caused  sites (like Meta-Wiki and Commons) to redirect to   for a few hours.

Future
 * MediaWiki 1.23wmf1 was added to test wikis on October 24. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on October 28 and all Wikipedia wikis on October 31 (calendar).
 * In the next days, servers in San Francisco will start providing (cached) content to users located in Oceania. If you are in that area and notice problems, please tell us.
 * You will soon be able to test new features easily using the "Beta Features" view. VisualEditor will be in the list on sites where it works and isn't automatically enabled. Another example is a set of changes in the article text style.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 10:05, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-44
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

New features
 * The style and colors for warning boxes, error messages, and success messages in all skins of MediaWiki has been changed.

VisualEditor news
 * You will soon be able to switch from editing in VisualEditor to editing wikitext directly without having to save the page. You can't yet switch from wikitext to VisualEditor but developers hope to make it possible in the future.

Problems
 * There was a problem on October 31 during the activation of MediaWiki 1.22wmf2 on test wikis. mediawiki.org was also broken, and if you had problems logging in, it was probably because of this as well.

Future
 * Because of the problem with MediaWiki 1.22wmf2, the calendar has changed. It will be added to mediawiki.org and non-Wikipedia sites on November 4, and all Wikipedia sites on November 7.

JavaScript / Gadget developers
 * Due to a recent change, gadgets and user scripts that use jQuery UI should explicitly load the appropriate modules, as they may not be loaded by default.
 * Developers have started to remove long-deprecated methods. You should check the JavaScript console (in  mode) and look for deprecation warnings and their stack trace.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 10:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-45
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

New features
 * You can now use the "Autonym" font of the Universal Language Selector (ULS) to display the name of languages (for example in navigation templates) in their correct script. To do this, add the CSS class  to the elements that include language names. Note that this font only works for the name of languages, not for any other text.

Problems
 * There was a problem with Parsoid (the program used by VisualEditor to convert wikitext to annotated HTML) on November 4, between 19:40 and 20:40 (UTC). Encoding issues caused non-ASCII characters (including those with diacritics, like "é") to be broken when converted to wikitext and saved to the page.

Future
 * The Beta Features tool is now available on Commons and Meta-Wiki. With it, you can test new features before they're added for everyone. The plan is to add this tool to all wikis on November 21.
 * MediaWiki 1.23wmf3 was added to test wikis on November 7. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on November 12 and all Wikipedia wikis on November 14 (calendar).
 * The MassMessage tool will be added to all wikis on November 14. It will make it simpler to send messages across wikis.
 * The button of the Search page will soon be changed to be blue and bigger (see the difference).
 * You will soon be able to add a page name as parameter for,   and   and similar functions, by writing for example.
 * In the future, when you hide a CentralNotice banner on a wiki, it will also be hidden on other Wikimedia sites.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 13:28, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-46
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * There was a problem caused by too many requests to the database on November 14.

Future
 * MediaWiki 1.23wmf4 was added to test wikis on November 14. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on November 19 and all Wikipedia wikis on November 21 (calendar).
 * The new Search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added to, Wikimania and Wikisource wikis on November 19, and Wiktionary wikis on November 21 (except where it's already available). Once it is added, you can test it by adding   to the address of the search results page. It will become the main search engine on Wikivoyage wikis on November 21.
 * The MassMessage tool will be added to all wikis on November 19 instead of November 14. It will make it simpler to send messages across wikis.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 09:05, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-47
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

New features
 * The Beta Features announced before are now available on all Wikimedia wikis. You can test new features easily by changing your Beta preferences. VisualEditor is one of those features on sites where it works and isn't automatically enabled. There is also a new media viewer and changes in the article text style.
 * Tools developers can now create tools that use the OAuth protocol to connect to accounts on Wikimedia sites. As a user, you can use those tools to make edits and other changes with your account without giving the tool your password.

Problems
 * Wikis that are currently testing CirrusSearch had problems with search results on November 18 from 16:00 to 20:00 UTC.

Future
 * There will be no major code changes on the week of November 25 because many developers will be on holiday for Thanksgiving.
 * The editing interface of  pages on Wikisource (working with the Proofread Page extension) will soon also work without JavaScript.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 07:03, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-49
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

This newsletter is now posted using MediaWiki message delivery.

New features
 * The CommonsMetadata feature was added to all wikis. It creates metadata information about multimedia files (like their license) that can be read automatically by computer programs. It not only works for Commons, but for all wikis, and you can use it for files on your wiki by editing templates used to describe metadata.
 * JavaScript code used on Wikimedia sites is now saved locally on your computer to load faster.

VisualEditor
 * You can now paste formatted content copied from external sources (not just as plain text) into VisualEditor; this includes copy/pasting from other VisualEditor windows.
 * You can now open VisualEditor by adding  to the page URL, regardless of your user preferences.
 * Many bugs have been fixed, and VisualEditor should also look faster, for example when you save a page.

Problems
 * Due to issues, the new search tool ("CirrusSearch") was recently removed from wikis where it was enabled, then added again.

Future
 * MediaWiki 1.23wmf6 was added to test wikis on December 5. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on December 10 and all Wikipedia wikis on December 12 (calendar).
 * The old Etherpad tool (replaced by a new version) will be removed on December 30, 2013. You can still save old pads before that date using the old address: https://etherpad-old.wikimedia.org.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 08:38, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-50
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

New features
 * You can now see a legend on Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlist that explains the symbols used.
 * If your wiki is testing the new search tool ("CirrusSearch"), you can now test it by adding "New search" in your Beta features preferences.

VisualEditor
 * The toolbar is now simpler; all text styles (bold, italics, underline, subscript, etc.) are in the same menu, and the "More" menu is called "Insert".
 * You can now use a basic tool to add special characters to your text. You can add more characters (useful in your language) by editing the MediaWiki interface on translatewiki.net.
 * The tool to add and edit mathematical text is now called "formula".

Problems
 * There was a problem with the "" tool (Collection); books could only be exported to PDF format. The change has been undone.
 * The log-in system for external tools ("OAuth") was broken on wikis that tested the new search tool. It was fixed last week.
 * Because of a bug, this newsletter is delivered to users using the new MediaWiki message delivery, and to community pages using the old EdwardsBot.

Future
 * MediaWiki 1.23wmf7 was added to test wikis on December 12. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on December 17 and all Wikipedia wikis on December 19 (calendar).
 * You will soon be able to select the language of SVG images that have translations using a drop-down menu on the image page. (see example)
 * GLAMToolset, a tool to help GLAM groups (like museums) upload many pictures to Commons, will be added to Commons on December 17.
 * A Draft namespace will be added to the English Wikipedia to make it easier to create new pages. You will be able to use VisualEditor for drafts if you have enabled it.

Other
 * You can read the summary of the technical report for November 2013 to learn more about VisualEditor, Mobile and other features.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 08:24, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-51
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 (1.23wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on December 19. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia wikis on December 31 and on all Wikipedia wikis on January 2, 2014 (calendar).
 * You can now test the new search tool ("CirrusSearch") on all Wikisource, Wiktionary and Wikimedia chapter wikis hosted on Foundation servers. Enable "New search" in your Beta features preferences.
 * There was a bug where notifications were not sent when the signature of the user leaving the message linked to a translated namespace. The problem was fixed in the software and will soon be fixed on Wikimedia sites.
 * You can now use the log-in system for external tools (OAuth) on all Wikimedia wikis that use the unified login.
 * If your wiki adds stars or other icons to interwiki links for featured articles in other languages, you may need to [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.js?diff=585965732 change the JavaScript code].
 * You can thank other users for their edits even if your browser does not have JavaScript.
 * All edits made through Flow, the new discussion system for MediaWiki, are now visible in user's contributions. You can test it on the Flow talk page on MediaWiki.org.
 * You can test a visual tool that shows edits made to an article over time. It only works for English Wikipedia pages for now and is slow on long articles.
 * You can test the first version of the new mobile Wikipedia app for Android and iOS.
 * Translatewiki.net, the site where you can translate the MediaWiki software, now has a [//translatewiki.net new main page] for users without an account.

Future software changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 08:22, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * There will be no technical changes this week (December 23 to December 29) due to end-of-year holidays.
 * When someone deletes, restores, uploads, or moves a file on Commons, pages on all wikis that use that file will be refreshed.
 * New users will soon have their user and talk pages added to their watchlist as soon as they create an account..
 * The new search tool (CirrusSearch) will not show the text of versions of a page that have been hidden.
 * You will soon be able to see the raw HTML created by some wikitext by using the Special:ExpandTemplates tool.

Tech News: 2014-01
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
 * You can now see the text of DjVu and PDF files in search results on wikis testing the new search tool (CirrusSearch). [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6421] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/101252/]
 * With the new version of the Wikibase DataModel extension, you can install it outside Wikimedia wikis.

VisualEditor news
 * Images are now shown inside VisualEditor as HTML5  elements. Comments are welcome. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53436]
 * You can now test a basic version of VisualEditor on mobile devices; see [//en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar?mobileaction=alpha this article] as an example.

Problems
 * On December 23, Wikimedia Labs was broken for 4 hours due to an NFS problem. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58888]

Future software changes
 * CirrusSearch will be added as the second search method for Spanish (es), French (fr), Portuguese (pt) and Russian (ru) wikis on December 30. Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies and Wikinews users will also be able to enable it in their Beta Features options.
 * AbuseFilter log entries will be visible in CheckUser tool reports. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29583] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/92053/]
 * It will soon be possible to search for log entries done by users without an account. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54404] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/85436/]
 * It will no longer be possible to globally hide users with more than 1,000 edits. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23653] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/103216/]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. 08:40, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-02
 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 (1.23wmf9) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 2. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia wikis on January 7 and on all Wikipedia wikis on January 9 (calendar).
 * The [//etherpad-old.wikimedia.org old note-taking site] (Etherpad) was removed on December 30, 2013. You can see most of the documents on [//etherpad.wikimedia.org the new site]. [//lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-December/073755.html]

Problems
 * On January 2, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata and all Wikivoyage projects were broken for 2 hours due to language cache update issues.
 * On the same day, it was not possible to edit most wikis for about 30 minutes, due to a database replication problem.

Future software changes
 * The new search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added as the default search method for Italian Wikipedia, French Wikisource, Wikidata and all Wikivoyage sites, and as a second search method for the German Wikipedia and all Wikibooks sites on January 6.
 * Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian Wikipedia users will also be able to enable CirrusSearch in their Beta Features options.
 * Plural form rules for some languages [//translatewiki.net/wiki/Thread:Portal_talk:Ru/Plural_changes_in_many_languages will be changed]. Many translations of the user interface for Belarusian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian and other languages will need to be changed. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56931] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/105148/] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/104795/]
 * You will see a warning when you try to delete a page linked to from other pages. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35485] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/65162/]
 * You will be able to hide redirect pages on the list of protected pages. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19233] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/104395/]
 * You will be able to use keyboard shortcuts in the Translate tool, by pressing Alt +1 and similar key groups. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/103072/] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/104934/]
 * E-mails sent by MediaWiki will include the name of the site in their  line. You will be able to change this name on your wiki by editing the   page. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32770]
 * Images viewed in the Beta Features media viewer will load faster. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56695] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/95282/]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  08:34, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-03
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

You can read a [//blog.wikimedia.org/2014/01/07/tech-news-fighting-technical-information-overload-for-wikimedians/ recent blog post] about how Tech News is put together, translated and sent to you across wikis each week.

Recent software changes
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf10) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 9. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 14, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 16 (calendar).
 * Searching in the  namespace on Wikimedia Commons may be slow due to a search engine issue. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/106537/]

VisualEditor news
 * VisualEditor will be added for all users on several Wikipedias on January 13. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/102208/]
 * You can now add and remove,   and   in the page metadata menu. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56866] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56867] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=57166]

Problems
 * For a few hours on January 6, it was not possible to edit pages using the Translate tool on Wikimedia Commons and the Wikimania 2013 wiki, due to a settings error. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59740] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59739]
 * For about 20 minutes on January 9, there were problems with CSS and JavaScript due to high server load.

Future software changes
 * Wikidata will be added to all Wikisource wikis on January 14. [//wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deployments#Week_of_January_13]
 * The new search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added as the second search method for the English Wikipedia on January 13. On Wikibooks and the German Wikipedia, you will also be able to test it by adding it in your Beta Features options.
 * You will soon be able to export page collections into other formats than PDF. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58151]
 * It will soon be possible to upload groups of photos from Flickr using UploadWizard. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43320] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/105393]
 * The Wikimedia Foundation has shared a multimedia vision for 2016. You are invited to comment.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  09:33, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-04
 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 (1.23wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 16. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 28, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 30 (calendar).
 * You can now see relatively recent results on special pages like Special:DoubleRedirects, Special:UncategorizedPages or Special:WantedCategories. They were disabled before because they were very slow. The results are now updated once a month. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15434]
 * As of January 16, you can make and use guided tours on the Asturian, Farsi and Russian Wikipedias. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to [//translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:Translate&group=ext-guidedtour&filter=&language=&action=translate translate it] and ask in [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org Bugzilla]. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/105997/]
 * You can give comments on an idea to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages.
 * You can watch a video to learn how to report problems in Bugzilla. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54606]

VisualEditor news
 * In the toolbar, the menu to edit the styles (like bold, italic, etc.) now has a down arrow (VisualEditor - Icon - Text style.svgVisualEditor - Icon - Down.svg). The order of the Insert menu has also changed a little.
 * You can now edit  tags with a very basic tool. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/107537/]
 * You can now see a help page about keyboard shortcuts in the page menu. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52844]
 * When you change categories, you will now see them when you save the page. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48560]
 * When you edit templates, you will now see the parameters in the right order. The ones that you must add have a star (*). [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51930] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53611]
 * The page will now be saved faster, thanks to a new way of coding the text that sends 40% less text to the servers. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59660]
 * Your wiki can ask to test a new tool to edit TemplateData. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51734]

Problems
 * There was a problem with search on the English and German Wikipedias between January 6 and January 14. You could not see new pages and changes in search results. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59979]
 * There were "pool timeouts" errors on several wikis on January 13; it was caused by a code change that was made to fix another problem. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59993]
 * On January 17, Bugzilla and Wikimedia Labs were broken for about 20 minutes due to network problems. IRC channels with recent changes (irc.wikimedia.org) were broken for about two hours.

Future software changes
 * If you have removed JavaScript in your web browser, you will soon be able to see the orange bar saying that you have new messages. If you have changed how the bar looks with a gadget, you may need to change the gadget again. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56974] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/95102/]
 * You will soon be able to add a given Flickr user to a blacklist so that their files can't be uploaded using UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons and other wikis. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/42770]
 * You will see a warning when you try to delete a page included in at least one other page. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/108188/]
 * You will so longer see disambiguation pages in Special:LonelyPages. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3483]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  10:21, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-05
 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


 * Pages from Wikimedia sites now load faster in your browser thanks to "module storage", a way for your browser to save data like JavaScript and CSS on your computer to avoid downloading them again. See video.
 * The code used to show videos has changed. You should be able to play the video on the page, with the play button on top of the video. If you see the play button on the right of the video, or if clicking on the video leads you to the original file, please file a bug or tell User:Bawolff. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/55550]
 * The  page will be removed because it's too slow. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/107988]
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 16. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 28, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 30 (calendar).

Problems
 * On January 21, Universal Language Selector was turned off on all Wikimedia sites because it makes pages load slowly. If you want to use web fonts, or write in scripts that aren't on your keyboard, you need to add it as an option in your preferences. It will be turned back on when the issues are resolved. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/56433]
 * For about 20 minutes on the same day, there were problems with CSS and JavaScript due to high server load.

Future software changes
 * You can give comments about the new version of "Winter", a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  09:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-06
 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 (1.23wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 30. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 4, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 6 (calendar).
 * Global AbuseFilter rules are now active on all [//noc.wikimedia.org/conf/small.dblist small wikis]. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60408] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/109435/]
 * The buttons used in pages like log-in, account creation and search are now using the same colors and styles. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58297] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/103494/]
 * You can now link to diffs using  and similar links. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/63395/]
 * There is no longer an option to hide tables of contents on all pages. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52813]
 * Searching in the  namespace on Wikimedia Commons is now faster, after a bug was fixed on January 29. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/110191/]
 * All Wikimedia wikis now have high-resolution favicons. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45036]

VisualEditor news
 * You can now see a list of keyboard shortcuts by pressing Ctrl +/ inside VisualEditor. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/107153/]

Future software changes
 * Edits and files hidden with the Oversight tool will be moved to the RevisionDelete system. The Oversight tool will then be removed from Wikimedia wikis. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60373] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18598] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/18229/]
 * For languages where not all sister projects exist, you will be able to link to other language projects using double interwikis (, , etc.). [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/94716/]
 * It will soon be possible to use the GettingStarted tool on other wikis than the English Wikipedia. You can translate it on [//translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:MessageGroupStats&x=D&group=ext-gettingstarted&suppressempty=1&language= Translatewiki.net].
 * You will soon be able to include the Special:Contributions page into other pages. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/106320/]
 * You will be able to see where a file is used inside MultimediaViewer, the new tool for viewing media files. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60087] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/107993/]
 * It will soon be possible to send MassMessage messages using the API. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/87311/]
 * You will soon see audio statistics on the Special:TimedMediaHandler page. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/97998/]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  08:30, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-07
 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 (1.23wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 6. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 11, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 13 (calendar).
 * The Vector search box was changed to fix old display and accessibility issues; for example, you can now use full-text search even if you have disabled JavaScript. Please report any problems you see. The option to disable the "simplified search bar" on Vector will also be removed. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/50660] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/25127] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/24248] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/82100/] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/99422/]
 * You are now notified when someone adds a link to your user page on wikis where it didn't work before (wikis with dates in the year-month-day order, including Hungarian, Japanese, Korean and some variants of Chinese). [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/108329/]

VisualEditor news
 * You can now set media items' alt text and position, and directly set their size, in the media tool. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/38129] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/51293]
 * The gallery tool was improved and several issues were fixed. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/60307] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/60502] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/60779]

Problems
 * On February 3, all wikis were broken for about an hour due to a traffic balancing issue. [//wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incident_documentation/20140203-LVS]
 * On February 6, some wikis were broken for about half an hour in total due to a problem with the Math extension.

Future software changes
 * Some methods from Scribunto's mw.message library will be removed after February 18. If you use them in your templates or modules, please check to make sure that things will not break. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/60758] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/110983/]
 * You will soon be able to use GettingStarted on 23 new Wikipedias. It helps new users by listing possible tasks and giving help. The new version was also added to the English Wikipedia on February 7th. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/111460/]
 * You will soon see results from other wikis when you use the new search tool (CirrusSearch). [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/44420] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/105986/]
 * The WikiLove tool was redesigned and should also load faster.
 * Edits made with WikiLove or after a GettingStarted suggestion will be tagged. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/60911] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/110315/]
 * It will soon no longer be possible to hide section editing links in your preferences. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/52811]
 * You will soon be able to use the revision deletion feature via the API. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/23005]
 * You will soon be able to choose mobile view on non-mobile devices using a Beta Feature option. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/36636] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/102866/]
 * If you have questions about Universal Language Selector, you can join an IRC meeting on February 12 at 17:00 UTC, in the #wikimedia-office channel on Freenode.
 * Developers are preparing for Google Summer of Code 2014. You can propose ideas.
 * bugzilla.wikimedia.org will be updated this week. You won't be able to access it from 22:00 UTC on February 12 until 01:00 UTC on February 13 at the latest.
 * The  tag will be renamed to  . The old tag will still work.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  09:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC)