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).
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. [2]
Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian Wikipedia users will also be able to enable CirrusSearch in their Beta Features options. [3]
Plural form rules for some languages will be changed. Many translations of the user interface for Belarusian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian and other languages will need to be changed. [4][5][6]
You will see a warning when you try to delete a page linked to from other pages. [7][8]
You will be able to use keyboard shortcuts in the Translate tool, by pressing Alt+1 and similar key groups. [11][12]
E-mails sent by MediaWiki will include the name of the site in their From: line. You will be able to change this name on your wiki by editing the MediaWiki:Emailsender page. [13][14]
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 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 File: namespace on Wikimedia Commons may be slow due to a search engine issue. [17]
VisualEditor news
VisualEditor will be added for all users on several Wikipedias on January 13. [18]
You can now add and remove __NOTOC__, __FORCETOC__ and __NOEDITSECTION__ in the page metadata menu. [19][20][21]
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. [22][23]
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. [24]
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.
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).
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 translate it and ask in Bugzilla. [30][31]
You can give comments on an idea to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. [32]
You can watch a video to learn how to report problems in Bugzilla. [33]
VisualEditor news
In the toolbar, the menu to edit the styles (like bold, italic, etc.) now has a down arrow (). The order of the Insert menu has also changed a little.
You can now edit <gallery /> tags with a very basic tool. [34]
You can now see a help page about keyboard shortcuts in the page menu. [35]
When you change categories, you will now see them when you save the page. [36]
When you edit templates, you will now see the parameters in the right order. The ones that you must add have a star (*). [37][38]
The page will now be saved faster, thanks to a new way of coding the text that sends 40% less text to the servers. [39]
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. [41]
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. [42]
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. [43]
Future software changes
Orange bar with new messages
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. [44][45]
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. [46]
You will see a warning when you try to delete a page included in at least one other page. [47]
). The order of the Insert menu has also changed a little.
