[IT-SecNots] [MediaWiki-announce] MediaWiki 1.24.0 released

[Markus Glaser <glaser AT hallowelt.biz>]

Hello everyone,

I am happy to announce the availability of the first stable release of the 
new MediaWiki 1.24 release series.

MediaWiki 1.24 is a large release that contains many new features and bug 
fixes. This is a summary of the major changes of interest to users. You can 
consult the RELEASE-NOTES-1.24 file for the full list of changes in this 
version.

Our thanks to everyone who helped to improve MediaWiki by testing the release 
candidates and submitting bug reports.

== What's new? ==
MediaWiki 1.24 includes all changes released in the smaller 1.24wmfX software 
deployments to Wikimedia sites.

== Preferences made easier ==
MediaWiki is known to be extremely flexible and customisable, but few users 
use its full potential. In 1.24, we aim to make dozens obscure preferences 
easily discoverable and obvious to use.

== New features ==
* Category pages can now be moved (bug 5451).
* MergeHistory for all administrators by default (bug 66155).
* Improvements have been made to the password storage system, allowing 
improved security against offline attacks should a wiki's database be 
compromised by attackers. Then, the default password storage algorithm was 
changed to PBKDF2. PBKDF2 and Bcrypt have built-in support in PHP. The new 
extensible password API makes it trivial to implement scrypt support if we 
wanted to.

== Usability == 
* The move feature and other actions are now discoverable in Vector, thanks 
to a label for the dropdown where they're hidden by default (bug 44591).
* Specify default language on a per-page basis
* Redirect to Special:UserLogin when logging is in required to proceed, 
instead of showing an error message

== Performance ==
In 2014, MediaWiki development has a new focus on frontend performance.
* (bug 39035) Improved Vector skin performance by removing collapsibleNav, 
which used to collapse some sidebar elements by default. This removes -list 
id suffixes like p-lang-list: instead of using things like #p-lang-list, you 
can do #p-lang .body ul. If you would like CollapsibleNav back please use the 
CollapsibleVector extension.

==Upgrade notices for MediaWiki administrators==

=== Breaking changes ===
* Upgrade jQuery to version 1.11.x: 
[[mailarchive:wikitech-l/2014-June/076842.html]]
* Support for register_globals (deprecated 5 years ago) was dropped, 
MediaWiki will no longer run with it enabled.
* {{!}} is now a magic word that results in |, mainly for use in templates 
and other complex templates. If your wiki has another template at Template:!, 
you will need to change the name and update any usage of it. If your 
Template:! is just |, it can be safely deleted.

=== API changes === 
Starting with MediaWiki 1.24, we're cleaning up the API, and working towards 
an API 2.0. See the roadmap for more details.
* Rarely used formats deprecated: dbg, dump, txt, wddx, yaml. These may be 
removed in a future release.
* Token handling overhauled: the action=tokens module is now deprecated and 
replaced by action=query&meta=tokens. Most actions now just take a generic 
"csrf" token, and the token type is now properly documented in the 
auto-generated documentation.
* And more! See the RELEASE-NOTES-1.24 file for a full list.

=== Directory changes ===
* The legacy '''skins/common/''' directory has been emptied and deleted as 
part of the skin system cleanup. Files that have been present in it have been 
moved elsewhere or deleted (if they were unused). If you loaded any of these 
files as part of your custom skin or on-wiki CSS/JS, you should make a copy 
of the old files in a non-MediaWiki directory. See the RELEASE-NOTES-1.24 
file for the full list of moved/deleted files.

=== Browser support deprecated or removed === 
* Full support for Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7  has been 
removed: it will browse MediaWiki without JavaScript. JavaScript fixes 
specific to it have also been removed. Additional IE6  and IE7 fixes that 
exist in MediaWiki:Common.js and similar can be safely removed.

=== Skins no longer loaded after upgrade? ===
MediaWiki 1.24 no longer uses the skin autodiscovery mechanism to load 
default skins, instead requiring that the skins be manually loaded in 
LocalSettings.php, much like extensions (see [[Manual:Skin 
configuration#Installing skins]]).

This will require you to update LocalSettings.php after the upgrade - a 
prominently displayed warning message should guide you through the process, 
suggesting the exact configuration that you need to add. If you're upgrading 
via a tarball release, that is all you need to do. If you're upgrading via 
git or otherwise from source, note that the skins themselves have been each 
moved to a separate repository and will need to be installed separately (much 
like extensions, some basic ones are included in the tarball).

=== Composer ===
If you are using extensions managed by composer, make sure to backup your 
existing composer.json file as it will be overwritten on upgrade.

Full release notes:
https://git.wikimedia.org/blob/mediawiki%2Fcore.git/1.24.0/RELEASE-NOTES-1.24
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Release_notes/1.24


**********************************************************************
Download:
http://download.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.24/mediawiki-1.24.0.tar.gz

GPG signatures:
http://download.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.24/mediawiki-1.24.0.tar.gz.sig

Public keys:
https://www.mediawiki.org/keys/keys.html

Mark Hershberger and Markus Glaser
(Wiki Release Team)

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