MediaWiki 1.17

MediaWiki 1.17 is a very large release, and contains many new features and bug fixes like always. This is intended to be a summary of the major changes we believe to be of interest to users. As always, you can consult the RELEASE-NOTES file for the full list of changes in this version.

As of 1.17 the minimum supported PHP version is now 5.2.3.

PHP 5.2.3
For the MediaWiki administrators, the most important change is that we now requires PHP version 5.2.3. Why? Well it brings some tools for your beloved developers. Since it got released on June 1st 2007, we believe this requirement will not be a hassle for the administrators. Anyway make sure you fix your PHP installation and contact your host if it runs an outdated PHP version.

New installer
MediaWiki 1.17 is shipping with a completely redesigned installer to fix a lot of outstanding bugs, cleanup the code quality, and make it easier to use. Notably, you can now run upgrades from the web without having to move LocalSettings.php. A couple of other notable changes:
 * The installer can now be fully localized like the rest of the software and contains numerous help dialogs.
 * The configuration script directory has been renamed from config/ to mw-config/.
 * You now download your generated LocalSettings.php at install completion, rather than writing it straight to the configuration directory--this was a security risk.
 * IBM DB2 and MSSQL support were dropped from the installer

ResourceLoader
On a typical wiki, every page view includes hundreds of kilobytes of JavaScript. In many cases, some or all of this code goes unused due to browser support or because users do not make use of the features on the page. In these cases, bandwidth, and loading time spent on downloading, parsing and executing JavaScript code is wasted. This is especially true when users visit MediaWiki sites using older browsers like Internet Explorer 6, where almost all features are unsupported, and parsing and executing JavaScript is extremely slow.

ResourceLoader is a new feature in MediaWiki 1.17 that solves this problem by loading resources on demand and only for browsers that can run them. It also improves client-side performance by minifying JavaScript and CSS code (which reduces the code's size and parsing time), batch loading resources (which reduces the number of requests made), and optionally embedding images as data URIs (which can further reduce the number of requests made).

Category sorting
Category sorting has been drastically improved.
 * In English, lowercase and uppercase letters now sort the same
 * Sub categories, pages and files can now be paged separately
 * When several pages are given the same sort key, they sort by their names instead of randomly

Language support
As always, every release brings support for languages in MediaWiki, and the usual improved translation and features for the many supported languages.

New languages:
 * Moroccan Spoken Arabic (ary)
 * Banjar (bjn)
 * Kabardian (Cyrillic) (kbd-cyrl)
 * Latgalian (ltg)
 * Minangkabau (min)
 * Dutch (informal) (nl-informal)
 * Rusyn (rue)

API
The usual API bugfixes and new features have been added to 1.17, providing more options for input and output.
 * API Output can now be formatted by PHPs var_export (format is dbg)
 * An API module was added to list page properties
 * PARAM_REQUIRED can now be used on parameters, to have the API enforce existence before code even reaches the module
 * The API now has a Really Simple Discovery module, useful for publishing service information by the API

API Breaking Changes
The API contains 3 breaking changes against previous releases
 * action=patrol now requires POST
 * patrol token is no longer the same as edit token
 * Session keys returned by ApiUpload are now strings instead of integers

Other

 * Inline Interwiki link usage is now tracked
 * Users can now add CSS and JS to all skins by using User: /common.css and User: /common.js