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)

Tech News: 2014-21
 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
 * Tech News is one year old this week; thank you for being with us!

Recent software changes
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf5) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 15. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 20, and all Wikipedias on May 22 (calendar).
 * The jQuery JavaScript library was updated on May 16. Please check that your gadgets and scripts still work.
 * MediaViewer was enabled for all users on the Kannada (kn) and Telugu (te) Wikipedias on May 13. It will be enabled on the German (de), English (en), Italian (it) and Russian (ru) Wikipedias and on all Wikisource wikis on May 22. Feedback is welcome.
 * VisualEditor was added as a beta feature to Wikimedia Commons on May 15. You can enable it in your preferences.
 * You can read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for April 2014.

VisualEditor news
 * VisualEditor's buttons and icons can now be accessed using keyboard keys.
 * VisualEditor's new citation tool now matches templates like  and not just.
 * VisualEditor's welcome message will no longer be shown to users who have already seen it.
 * VisualEditor now shows a clearer message when you cancel an edit.
 * The toolbar of the PageTriage extension will no longer be visible inside VisualEditor.

Future software changes
 * User ID number will no longer be visible in preferences.

Problems
 * For several hours on May 16, there were problems with loading gadgets on some wikis due to a server problem.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  07:18, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-22
 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 (1.24wmf6) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 22. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 27, and all Wikipedias on May 29 (calendar).
 * MediaViewer will be enabled on all Wikisource wikis on May 29, and on the German (de) and English (en) Wikipedias on June 3. Feedback is welcome.

'''VisualEditor news
 * VisualEditor's welcome message and wikitext warning now say that you can switch to source mode editing and keep your edits without saving them.
 * A bug that caused files not to appear after saving edits in the  namespace was fixed last week.
 * VisualEditor tabs will no longer appear in namespaces where VisualEditor is disabled.
 * It is now possible to edit inline images with VisualEditor; many minor bugs related to images have also been fixed.
 * VisualEditor will no longer convert spaces to underscores inside links to pages in namespaces that include spaces in their names.

Future software changes
 * Wikimedia Labs will stop working for about 10 minutes around 18:00 UTC on May 30 due to a server upgrade.
 * It will soon no longer be possible to upload different files under the same name at the same time using the UploadWizard tool.
 * Links to TIFF, DjVu or PDF files created with the syntax  will now show an image caption if there is any text after page number; previously they caused the given page to appear.
 * You will soon see information about global blocks for IP addresses on their contributions page on your local wiki.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2014-W22"/> 08:29, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-23
<section begin="technews-2014-W23"/> 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 (1.24wmf7) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 29. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 3, and to all Wikipedias on June 5 (calendar).
 * CirrusSearch was enabled as the primary search method on all Wikipedias with less than 100,000 pages on May 30.

VisualEditor news
 * Templates that redirect to other templates now get the TemplateData of their target.
 * The toolbar of the PageTriage extension will no longer be visible after you save an edit with VisualEditor.
 * VisualEditor now checks if your browser supports SVG files to avoid displaying broken icons.
 * There is now a new type for TemplateData parameters:  for dates and times in the ISO 8601 format.

Future software changes
 * MediaViewer will be enabled on the German (de) and English (en) Wikipedias on June 3. Feedback is welcome.
 * You will soon see a warning if you visit a contributions page for a user that does not exist.
 * The search tab will soon be removed from user preferences. You will be able to set your search preferences on [ Special:Search].
 * You will soon see a label next to the little triangle arrow for the Actions menu in the Vector skin (screenshot).

Problems Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2014-W23"/> 08:07, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * For about 20 minutes on May 29, all wikis were broken due to a configuration error.

Tech News: 2014-24
<section begin="technews-2014-W24"/> 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 (1.24wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 5. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 10, and to all Wikipedias on June 12 (calendar).
 * You can now use guided tours on the Arabic (ar), Bengali (bn) and Norwegian (no) Wikipedias. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to [//translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:Translate&group=ext-guidedtour&filter=&action=translate translate it] and ask in [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org Bugzilla].

VisualEditor news
 * You should no longer be able to add empty references with VisualEditor.
 * The "use an existing reference" button in the reference tool is now shown as disabled, rather than hidden, when the reference has content.
 * You will now see category contents again after saving an edit to a category page with VisualEditor.

Future software changes
 * MediaViewer will be enabled by default on all wikis on June 12. Feedback is welcome.
 * You will be able to use information from Wikidata directly in Wikiquote pages starting on June 10.
 * On wikis with the Translate extension enabled, translation administrators will soon be able to use the page migration tool to import existing translations to the new system.
 * You will soon see metadata on file description pages for Ogg files (example video, example audio). Some metadata with non-English characters may need to be purged or transcoded to UTF-8 before they show correctly.
 * Templates containing  or   tags will no longer need dummy parameters to prevent caching.
 * You will no longer be able to use Special:Thanks directly. The page will soon show an error message when you visit it.
 * Hovercards will no longer flicker.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2014-W24"/> 07:39, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-25
<section begin="technews-2014-W25"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Reminder
 * You can subscribe to the wikitech-ambassadors mailing list to get news more quickly and to send feedback or report problems.

Recent software changes
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf9) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 12. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 17, and to all Wikipedias on June 19 (calendar).
 * You can now read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for May 2014.

VisualEditor news
 * You can now easily see the target of a link or other information using the context menu.
 * When you edit a reference, you can now empty it and click the "use an existing reference" button to switch it to re-use another reference.
 * You can now add and edit  and   in the page settings menu.
 * The tool to insert special characters is now wider and simpler; the order of mathematical symbols is now correct.

Future software changes
 * Media Viewer will be enabled by default on all wikis on June 19. Feedback is welcome.
 * You will no longer be able to use navigation popups and Hovercards at the same time.
 * You will no longer see image thumbnails on search results pages on Wikibooks and Wikisource wikis.
 * It will soon be possible to globally rename global (<abbr title="Single User Login">SUL ) users.
 * Tablet users will be redirected to the mobile view of Wikimedia wikis starting on June 17.
 * The special page that lists most linked-to templates will soon include pages from all namespaces; it will also be renamed to.
 * An IRC discussion about Phabricator will take place on June 17 at 17:30 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). You can also read a blog post about the upcoming switch to Phabricator.
 * You can now comment on the draft 2014-15 goals of the Wikimedia Foundation engineering department.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2014-W25"/> 07:13, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-26
<section begin="technews-2014-W26"/> 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 (1.24wmf10) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 19. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 24, and to all Wikipedias on June 26 (calendar).

VisualEditor news
 * You can now drag-and-drop selections of content, not just files and templates.
 * When dragging an item, you will now see a line that helps you to drop it.
 * You can now only move an image to the start of a paragraph, not to the middle of it, so you don't accidentally split it.
 * You will now be warned if you add wikitext to file captions and references.

Future software changes
 * You will no longer be able to upload files on wikis that do not have any copyright tags.
 * CirrusSearch will be enabled as the primary search method on additional 70 new wikis, including Meta-Wiki and Wikimedia Incubator, during the next week.
 * CirrusSearch results will soon take into account categories, the first paragraph and the wikitext of a page. You will also be able to use regular expressions to search the wikitext. It will take a few days for the changes to be enabled on all wikis.
 * You will soon be able to watch translations for e-mail notifications without receiving an e-mail when they are reviewed by another translator.
 * An IRC meeting to organize old high priority MediaWiki bug reports will take place on June 24 at 17:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion).

Problems
 * On June 19, all wikis were broken for about 15 minutes due to a high server load.
 * Between June 13 and June 15 there were problems with the scaling of video files 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. <section end="technews-2014-W26"/> 07:20, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-27
<section begin="technews-2014-W27"/> 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 (1.24wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 26. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 1, and to all Wikipedias on July 3 (calendar).

VisualEditor news
 * Context menus in VisualEditor will no longer flicker and disappear when you insert a new reference, formula, image, etc.
 * A bug that prevented relocating items due to cache was fixed last week.
 * VisualEditor will no longer scroll to the bottom of the page when you try to edit section 0. When you try to add a formula, VisualEditor will no longer scroll to the top of the page.
 * Links to category pages or file pages added with VisualEditor will now work correctly.

Future software changes
 * You will no longer be able to upload files on wikis that do not have any copyright tags.
 * 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.
 * CirrusSearch will be enabled on June 30 as the primary search method on 34 new wikis, including the Czech (cs), Danish (da), Finnish (fi) and Hebrew (he) Wikipedias.
 * All Wikimedia wikis will be using a security method called perfect forward secrecy starting on July 1. If you see a problem, please report it.
 * Starting on July 1, it will be possible to globally rename global (<abbr title="Single User Login">SUL ) users.
 * You will soon see block information when you visit the contributions page or try to edit the user page or user talk page of a user who is affected by an IP range block.
 * You will soon be able to use  as a magic word to produce the pipe character, for instance for use in tables.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2014-W27"/> 06:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-28
<section begin="technews-2014-W28"/> 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


 * 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 (1.24wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 3. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 8, and to all Wikipedias on July 10 (calendar).
 * CirrusSearch was enabled on July 1 as the primary search method on 36 new wikis, including the Norwegian (no), Portuguese (pt) and Ukrainian (uk) Wikipedias.
 * It is now possible to create Atom or RSS feeds for Word of the Day, Word of the Week and similar entries on Wiktionary wikis.
 * You can now use a graphical interface to edit TemplateData information on the English (en), French (fr) and Italian (it) Wikipedias.

VisualEditor news
 * Saving an edit with VisualEditor will now be much faster.
 * You can now add a caption when you add a file to a page with VisualEditor. You can also change the file to a different one and keep the existing caption.
 * When you switch to the Edit source tab, you are now asked to keep your changes. You no longer need to find the option in the menus.
 * The reference tool that adds empty  tags is now at the bottom of the Cite menu, below references that use templates like.
 * Context menus will no longer be shown over items that you can edit directly, for example formulæ.

Future software changes
 * Starting on July 9, it will be possible to globally rename global (<abbr title="Single User Login">SUL ) users. The feature was first scheduled for July 1, but was delayed due to bugs.
 * A plan to enable CirrusSearch as the primary search method on the 11 largest Wikimedia wikis has now been prepared.
 * If you use references on a page, you will soon always see them at the bottom of the page, even if you forget to add the  tag (or a template).
 * Black-and-white XCF images will soon display correctly.
 * Description pages of SVG files will soon always show download links for multiple resolutions (example). The links were previously shown only for SVG files in large original resolutions.

Problems
 * Between July 2-3, there were problems with loading pages on multiple wikis due to a configuration issue.
 * For a few hours on July 1, there were problems with uploading new files on Wikimedia Commons 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. <section end="technews-2014-W28"/> 07:07, 7 July 2014 (UTC)