MediaWiki/1.6

= Mediawiki release notes =

MediaWiki 1.6.2

 * Further improvements to Hebrew localisation
 * Fix 'copyright' message for Romanian
 * (bug 5476) Invalid xhtml in German localization
 * (bug 5479) Id translation for preferences tabs caption
 * (bug 5493) Id translation for special pages
 * Additional path fixes in the updater
 * (bug 5344) Fix regression that broke slashes in extension tag parameters

MediaWiki 1.6.1
April 5, 2006

Some minor issues in the 1.6.0 release have been corrected:
 * (bug 5458) Fix double-URL encoding in block log link in contribs and contribs link in block log
 * (bug 5462) Bogus missing patch warning in updater
 * (bug 5461) Use of deprecated "showhideminor" in Special:Recentchangeslinked
 * PHP warning when allow_call_time_pass_reference is off
 * Update to Finnish localization

MediaWiki 1.6.0
April 5, 2006

MediaWiki is now using a "continuous integration" development model with quarterly snapshot releases. The latest development code is always kept "ready to run", and in fact runs our own sites on Wikipedia.

Release branches will continue to receive security updates for about a year from first release, but nonessential bugfixes and feature development happen will be made on the development trunk and appear in the next quarterly release.

Those wishing to use the latest code instead of a branch release can obtain it from source control: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download_from_SVN

User interface:

 * The account creation form has been separated from the user login form.
 * Page protection/unprotection uses a new, expanded form

Templates:

 * Categories and "what links here" now update as expected when adding or removing links in a template.
 * Template parameters can now have default values, as

Uploads:

 * Optional support for rasterizing SVG images to PNG for inline dislay

Feeds:

 * Feed generation upgraded to Atom 1.0
 * Diffs in RSS and Atom feeds are now colored for improved readability.

Database:

 * MySQL 3.23.x support dropped; 4.0 or later required
 * Experimental support for Unicode mode of MySQL 4.1/5.0 (moderately tested)
 * Experimental Oracle support (not well tested!)

Anti-spam extension support:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/SpamBlacklist_extension http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ConfirmEdit_extension
 * Spam blacklist extension now has support for automated cleanup:
 * Support for a captcha extension to restrict automated spam edits:

Numerous bug fixes and other behind-the-scenes changes have been made; see the file HISTORY for a complete change list.

Compatibility
Older PHP 4.2 and 4.1 releases are no longer supported; PHP 4 users must upgrade to 4.3 or later.

MediaWiki 1.6 is the last major version to support PHP 4; future versions will require PHP 5.

MySQL 3.23.x is longer supported; some older hosts may need to upgrade. At this time we still recommend 4.0, but 4.1/5.0 will work fine in most cases.

Upgrading
Several changes to the database have been made from 1.5; these are relatively minor but do require that the update process be run before the new code will work properly:


 * A new "templatelinks" table tracks template inclusions.
 * A new "externallinks" table tracks URL links; this can be used by a mass spam-cleanup tool in the SpamBlacklist extension.
 * A new "jobs" table stores a queue of pages to update in the background; this is used to update links in including pages when templates are edited.

To ensure that these tables are filled with data, run refreshLinks.php after the upgrade.

If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, some major database changes are made, and there is a slightly higher chance that things could break. Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!

See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.

Caveats
Some output, particularly involving user-supplied inline HTML, may not produce 100% valid or well-formed XHTML output. Testers are welcome to set $wgMimeType = "application/xhtml+xml"; to test for remaining problem cases, but this is not recommended on live sites. (This must be set for MathML to display properly in Mozilla.)

For notes on 1.5.x and older releases, see HISTORY.

Online documentation
Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being built up on Meta-Wikipedia, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation

Mailing list
A MediaWiki-l mailing list has been set up distinct from the Wikipedia wikitech-l list:

http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:

http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce

It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.

IRC help
There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net