Talk:Roadmap/Archive

Previous discussions:

Old discussion, originally on meta:
 * Archive 1 (6 April 2004 to ~5 July 2004)
 * Archive 2 (up to June 2006 - also contains full page history from discussion on meta)

WYSIWYG
This seems to be the biggest challenge ... yet no mention? Come on!!!

WYSIWYG is the problem of the moment. Focus on the markup and the parser. You can improve and move toward WYSIWYG!!!


 * Correct, WYSIWYG is not currently on our short-to-medium-term roadmap. --Brion VIBBER 12:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)#


 * Which is a pity, I might add. --Helge 19:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Linking elements
Can you consider in a future development of Mediawiki a way to make the linking of elements easier?

A major problem is that users can't remember easily the names of the files or the many articles linked to another. Also the MediaWiki syntax is also problematic for users that refuses to learn new software beyond a the use of MS-Word or a browser (they don't have to learn how to code a page). I believe that wikis should be for anyone who needs to use it, but that doesn't mean that they have to learn a new way of programming or encoding text. (thinking in non-geek users, or users that have a basic knowledge of using a computer). So if you can, please try to solve that.

Thanks.

1.10
You do realise that 1.10 is not the standard nomenclature for a product release after version 1.9, right? It should be 1.91 or 1.9a or even 2.0. 1.10 feels like a step backwards. Perhaps it was just a typo. Chris Fullmer 21:41, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It is very common to number in this way, particularly in the open source community. E.g. Bugzilla (2.8 was followed by 2.10 - they only release even numbered versions), MAME (0.99 has recently been superceded by 0.100) Linux (1.2.8 followed by 1.2.10) and many others. Each component is treated as a separate number, rather than the whole being treated as a decimal value (which is impossible when there are more than two components, anyway). --HappyDog 16:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Correct. Some people dont really find this system intuitiv ... but its logical :) After 1.9 comes 1.10, 1.11, ... until you get a big development-step to 2.0. What you think of, is 1.1.0, not 1.10. --Nyks 13:27, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Furthermore, in some languages, the dot is not used as the decimal separator and there is absolutely no ambiguity: 1.10 cannot be confused with 1,10... Bonne journée!

the future?
Can anyone comment on using MediaWiki as a digital archive repository? Not so much from a suitability point of view as much as how much we can rely on the software performing for the foreseeable future. Is it a wise move to put lots of (historical, socialogical) archive material in the MediaWiki format, or is this just asking for trouble in terms of compatibility, etc? (i..e. is lock-in a worry with this software?) Sorry if this isn't really the right place to ask this, but I couldn't find a better. Thanks. (--Wikipedia:User:Samwilson 2006-08-02)


 * Lock-in, and do it now, before we sell out to Microsoft. I'm serious, I've got an offer here... ;)


 * At present, MediaWiki stores content in the database in a manner which means text is still accessible should Vibber et al. go nuts and sell all our souls to Bill's blokes. Since Wikipedia is the number one customer for MediaWiki, and since Wikimedia are committed to free and open access to information for all, it's quite likely that MediaWiki is going to remain sane and straightforward about storing data. 164.11.204.52 21:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

What about Web2.0 (Ajax)?
The headline says it all. My question: is there any plans to use Ajax for Mediawiki to develop a more userfriendly software? I think new Ajax-driven pages is much more userfriendlier!


 * There are, in fact, some features making use of AJAX, including extensions which are also live on large sites such as Wikipedia. AJAX features will be implemented according to performance friendliness, overall demand, developer interest, the ability to provide functionality which degrades gracefully, and whether or not the feeling exists that a Web 2.0 approach is the best for solving a given problem. 164.11.204.52 21:09, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Release dates?
Hey, with the oct release date for 1.8 coming fast - Does the active cvs maintainers have any ETA for final release or even a changelog with major/minor changes to the releases.

What new awesome features can we expect from Mediawiki :) 149.135.61.177 06:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * You don't seem to be capable of searching too hard. The changes to the software are always listed in the RELEASE-NOTES which can be checked out of Subversion, or viewed when released in the distribution tarball. robchurch | talk 05:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Templates?
I still searched hours to edit the footer (links to privacy policy, ...). Is it possible to make such section (footer, navigation, toolbox etc) to a kind of template for easy edit? (a good example for this is the new beta version of blogger). captainslater --217.116.64.48 12:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Empty Roadmap in a Roadmap-Site ...
An empty roadmap, which is linked directly on www.mediawiki.org :( Could anyone, who knows it, add the major new planed features? --Nyks 13:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I have updated the page to reflect the current situation. I will also remove the link from our front page. --HappyDog 18:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Permalinks for Versions
(Explanation for this.) I think it would be very useful to have a page on mediawiki.org for each version, containing a changelog / an overview over planned changes. A permalink that can be used to link to, e.g. from weblogs or other outside sources. It's also a pity that it's virtually impossible for a visitor of this site to get an idea what changes are coming with v1.9, at a time when v1.9alpha is already powering this site. A dedicated page MediaWiki 1.9.* would change that. --Helge 19:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The reason for this is that there is no official roadmap, and no official items that will appear in a specific future version. Here is a recent exchange I had with Brion (lead developer) on wikitech-l:

Mark Clements wrote: > Are there any kind of concrete plans for specific future versions of > MediaWiki, or is it just a matter of "we've got a bunch of bugs and feature > requests and we'll do the ones we feel like".

Generally we have a few things floating around which we'd like to make sure we get in, some of which happen sooner and others which happen later.

There's not a concrete master plan at this time.

> The reason I ask is that http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_roadmap is > quite prominently linked to from the main page of mediawiki.org, but > contains no useful content. It has dates for versions 1.9 and 1.10, but > under 'planned milestones' they both just say 'no plans yet'.

Please remove any such links you see to that kind of page; they're never official or maintained.
 * Furthermore, past versions can be seen at Release notes (each with its own sub-page). --HappyDog 13:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, but at least present and past versions could and should IMO get a permalink each - and they kind of have already (as I just discovered). Linking version numbers to those pages instead (no matter if they exist already or not, it's a wiki after all ;-) would be cool. Speaking of it, i'd also link the version numbers displayed on the main page. --Helge 19:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Some wishlist notes

 * Web-based configuration and farm manager (to decentralize some administrative work)
 * Support for renaming images (bug 709)
 * Parser rewrite
 * Navigatonal images (bug 639)
 * Expiry for protection (bug 4133)
 * Fix various section edit link display issues
 * Support for protecting page titles from creation (bug 2919)
 * Framework for securely running extensions such as WikiTeX

...--Eloquence 11:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Internal links, produce preview bubble of the first line of page to be directed to.--Rovo 16:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * wikipedia:User:Lupin/popups.js already does this.-- 24.57.132.221 18:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

InfoEng
Hello... I should have posted here first, perhaps, but as a wiki newbie I posted a change to the roadmap. I am working to implement information currency, described at http://infoeng.sf.net/information-currency-rfc.txt and http://infoeng.sf.net/information-currency-trading-rfc.txt. I've developed icsvn, and I'm hoping that wiki ic will at least be available for possible integration. I'm envisioning a scrolling market display that pops up over a mediawiki entry... with the market for the mediawiki entry ic being displayed at the popup, enabling the casual user to perceive the group market consensus on the mediawiki concept.

I'm trying to get that done by the time of 1.11 for evaluation and potential integration, but I've got to start somewhere. --JPatrickBedell 21:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * This was the corresponding change … -- :Bdk: 12:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Nothing like that will ever be part of MediaWiki; that's just silly.

If you want it on your own wiki feel free to make your own extension, but... whatevah. --Brion VIBBER 13:17, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

With the timeframe for support for revision tagging, does "by end of year?" mean end of 2006, end of 2007, or end of whatever year it currently is? AGrimm 22:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


 * That was vaguely targeting end of 2006, but it's ended up sliding. There's a new programmer on it, we're hoping to see it ready for demoing and public testing in a month or two from what I heard. --brion 22:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Should be ready soon. Aaron 06:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

LocalReplication

 * 09:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi,

I'm using mediawiki in my enterprise. I'have a problematic:

How can I work on my mediawiki at home. How can users work on mediawiki in disconnect mode ?

My suggestion is : using a Replication mode (as Lotus can do it for example with its .nsf files). My idea is to include a new feature:


 * 1) Using a global diffbetween a master site (on the server) and the replication site (on the client).
 * 2) An assistant on the master site (a link) allows the user to install a replication on its computer on the fly.
 * 3) An assitant on the replication site allows user to synchronize master and replication sites.

What do you think about this ? Sorry for my poor english ....

Salokine (salokine . terata at free . fr)


 * It would be nice to have, but would be hard to implement with the current structure, and it's outside of mediawiki's main goals.
 * Automatically synchronizing wikis would probably be doable - Special:Export and Special:Import can be used to copy data from one to the other, a special import mode with conflict detection and merging would be feasable (although it might require the XML representation to be extended).
 * But MediaWiki has no "offline" mode, and is not likely to get one. Sure, MediaWiki can be installed locally, but it still required MySQL, Apache and PHP to run.
 * MediaWikis main objective is to provide an online platform for collaboratively collecting and editing informational content. More specifically, it's goal is to support WikiMedia projects like Wikipedia. Providing ways of synchronizing data sets between "working copied" falls outside mediawiki's scope and is typically handeled by revision management software or replication middleware. Maybe MediaWiki could be made to work on top of one of thse, but it would not be a simple task.
 * Basically, it seems MediaWiki is not the right tool for what you are trying to do. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 11:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree completely, dear Duesentrieb:
 * This feature is absolutely essential. MediaWiki has become a good tool for knowledge and content management. There is life beyond Wikipedia.
 * MediaWiki DOES have an offline mode, which is the Wiki on a stick ! And exactly here the necessity for synchronizing with a main (backup) version becomes essential.
 * For every online tool after a while the request comes up: How can I use it if temporarily offline.
 * MediaWiki DOES have a sophisticated revision management system, so the request falls within the scope of MediaWiki.
 * Ok: I agree on ONE single point: This new idea is not on the roadmap of Wikipedia driven MediaWiki developers.

Lowfyr (webmaster (at) lowfyr DOT de)

I searching a Wiki with exact this features, and i was suprised that mediawiki does not have such a feature. I think that there are many intresting possibilities with such a feature.

SMW
Is it planned to force the development of the SMW Extension so that it can get started to use at Wikipedia? 195.3.97.222 15:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * There are no plans currently. We will cross that bridge when it comes. Aaron 21:48, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

This would be very very cool. SMW seems to have matured lately, imo. 83.233.97.210 00:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Mediawiki 1.11 planned for July 07 still?
Cannot wait to get my hands on flaggedrevs extension:
 * Will it go stable once MW 1.11 will be released?
 * Will that happen in July still ?
 * It will be out in august. Though the extension itself is still in testing. Aaron 07:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)