#MediaWiki release 1.18 is out

The new MediaWiki stable release has been announced and, the list of new features is impressive. When you have your own MediaWiki installation, you definitely want to consider upgrading.

There are several innovations that are quite relevant:

• jQuery is included as standard and, it is used
• several new languages have been added
• several extensions are now included as part of the distribution
• the qqx messages trigger a screen that helps identify specific messages

add &uselang=qqx at the end of the URL

An "in your face" message is often hard to identify. Adding &uselang=qqx to the URL will provide you with the information you need to identify the message at translatewiki.net for localisation or local modification. For the localisers this is a very significant tool.

Given that extensions are included in the new release, it will be a good idea to have three extensions included in the next release for Wikis that do not have English for its user interface. They are:

• LocalisationUpdate
• Narayam
• WebFonts

In this way a language will always be up to date with the latest localisations, it will be supported with input methods and fonts that make the Wiki accessible to as wide a group of people as we can make it. What would be really awesome is when new and improved keyboard methods and fonts can be distributed in a similar way as the messages...

Thanks,

      GerardM

#MediaWiki 1.18; RTL is no longer like Mr Bean driving in France

Support for right to left scripts is one of those un-holy grails that everybody seems to be looking for. The objective is for readers and editors to easily read and write.

When it is wrong, it feels like driving in Great Britain where nobody will drive on the right side of the road. Everything is where you do not expect it and, it looks awkward.

With release 1.18 MediaWiki many bugs that have to do with mixing and matching scripts with different directions have been tackled. On Commons and any other wiki, the sidebar will be on the side where it makes sense for the language of your preference. For languages like Urdu, Persian, Arabic and Hebrew, it will be on the right side. The content itself, in the text box will show as it should for the "content" language.

The Localisation team has been tasked to crush the rest of the RTL bugs. Guess, what we KNOW about the bugs is in bugzilla, so when there are more bugs for us to crush, this is the time to identify them to us .... and bugzilla is where we are looking for them.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#MediaWiki 1.18; stating a gender is a drag

With all the #Wikimedia wikis moving over to MediaWiki release 1.18, name spaces support gender. In Dutch there can be a male and a female user.

Addressing our users properly is the polite thing to do. For some languages we expect that women will be more then pleasantly surprised. When this translates in them getting more involved, it will be a good thing.

Things improve and as always, there is always something more to wish for. Dear Wikimedia Foundation, it is quite a drag that I have to state my gender on all your wikis. There is only one me, and I am not confused what gender appeals to me and what gender defines me.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#StatusNet is getting ready for the big 1.0

Brion posted a heads-up: "StatusNet main development will be moving from 0.9.x to 1.0.x branch soon". A 1.0 release is the holy grail when software is considered feature complete.

At translatewiki.net, we have amassed a huge amount of StatusNet extensions and these 83 extensions contain together with the core StatusNet software 2319 messages. Surely at a time like this, when a release is in sight, it is a great moment to help out with the localisation.

The great thing of the StatusNet software for a localiser is that everything is in one place. It is just a matter of getting your teeth in and you are helping to make micro blogging software ready for your language. This software is great at connecting with other StatusNet servers and, you can even reach out to a Twitter.

A start with the localisation has been made for many languages; this is where you can check how your language is doing.
Thanks,
      GerardM

A message from the #MediaWiki #bugmeister; HELP is welcome

The role of bugmeister has been filled at the Wikimedia Foundation and, he certainly means business. There have been mails with suggestions and discussions on improving the process and now there is a call for all you MediaWiki developers to get involved in the sprint to make release 1.17 ready for release.

The impression this gives is wonderful. Wonderful because it invites people to get involved and stay involved. It gives the impression that contributions are welcome and that there is even someone ready to leverage the power of the many developers who do not yet have commit access as well.

What is also shiny is that by using terminology like "sprint" notions of agile project development come into focus. I am not advocating a new MediaWiki release every four weeks, but having four or more releases a year will be less stressful then the current waterfall of functionality that is in release 1.17.

So check out the list of open bugs and help us get properly ready for the next release. There is one fringe benefit for a good relation with the bugmeister... your JavaScript has to be upgraded next. You might as well get your feet wet now.
Thanks,
       GerardM

The #MediaWiki 1.17 shake down has started

All #Wikipedias and all other #Wikimedia projects have been upgraded to the new 1.17 release. We are now at the stage where the release does not kill the Wikimedia clusters any more.

Now that we are in the 1.17 shake down phase, it is time to find more bugs, improve performance, get the last localisations in and help people to fix the many JavaScript issues.

Roan reported on a change in one line that  cut the load on four Apache servers. This is just one example of the work that goes into making release 1.17 stable and ready for general release. This is the moment for a final push to get as many localisations in as possible because most MediaWiki installations out there do not run the LocalisationUpdate extension and manage with the localisations they get with the release.

Last but not least, when you notice anything that used to work and does not work any more, this is the time when the MediaWiki developers give extra attention to help you get it right. This is the time when MediaWiki 1.17 gets its shake down.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Do you need #JavaScript support for the #MediaWiki 1.17 release ?

Much JavaScript work has gone on in many of the #Wikimedia projects and with the imminent release of the 1.17 release several JavaScript programs are going to fail. The new ResourceLoader introduces alternatives, improvements and modernised functions.

Many JavaScript applications use deprecated functions which may break with the release of 1.17. Although legacy functions will still work for now, check out the list of deprecated functions and their modern replacements.

There are hints and tips, and when you have questions, its talk page is where you can drop your questions. Alternatively there are the IRC channels #mediawiki and #wikimedia-dev where among others Krinkle will be available to help you out.

As time goes on, issues with MediaWiki 1.17 and its performance are solved so the moment where your project will be upgraded is getting nearer. Please help yourself and prepare yourself. Another resource is the log of the office hours with Roan and Trevor that can be found here.

If there is one lesson to learn, then it probably is that standards evolve.
Thanks,
       GerardM

IRC office hours about upgrading #Wikipedia

Some Wikis have been upgraded to the new MediaWiki release. There are at the moment two kinds of problems;

• problems with the MediaWiki software
• problems with templates and other local issues

The local issues are unpredictable and their effect can be that pages will just not show any content. This is not good. Many of the choices made do break when the MediaWiki software is upgraded. As the releases do not happen that regularly, a lot of problems have had time to grow.

To give you an heads-up, there will be an IRC meeting on Monday at 18:00-19:00 (UTC) (See all timezones). Roan and Trevor will be available to help out by answering questions and informing you about what will break and why.

It is your opportunity to help ensure that the upgrade of your wiki will go smoothly.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#MediaWiki 1.17 - II

The new MediaWiki release was briefly installed on the Dutch #Wikipedia. There were several things that made it necessary to roll back to the previous release.

The biggest issue was that the Wikipedia that is number 10 in size and typically uses 1% of the performance, needed considerable more performance. There was a visible spike and there is a need for further analysis to learn what is at the heart of this.

Another issue was that all the parser functions broke. This was because the magic words had been given Dutch translations and the original magic words no longer worked. Tim Starling came up with a solution that ensures that the magic words will always work.

More time will be needed to prepare the roll out for this eagerly awaited release.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#MediaWiki 1.17 (continued)

Yesterday the installation of the latest version of MediaWiki on the Wikimedia projects failed twice. Performance problems caused the Apache servers to fail. There were several issues recognised and many of these have already been fixed.

The problem has everything to do that the fact that the projects are so big that it is hard to predict in advance how it will work out. The fact that a new release is not regularly implemented does not help either.

The situation is now similar to a Chinese juggling act; when will there be a good moment to try the 1.17 installation for a third time, who will be needed and what procedure will be used. The plan seems to be that a decision will be made tonight and tomorrow there it will be show time again.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#MediaWiki 1.17

Finally, after a long period of gestation, the Wikimedia Foundation is moving its projects to the next release of MediaWiki. As this process is on its way as I write it, the system may be a bit sluggish, maybe a bit broken for now.

If you care to be a help do not start shouting that the end for Wikipedia is nigh. It is not. Lurk on IRC if you want to know what is going on and watch the work in progress that will get us all many of the improvements we are waiting for.

When you find things that are a problem, wait until you notice that the real issues have died down. That is the moment to check if your problem has gone away and, if it is urgent is the moment to see if your problem can be addressed now or if it is better to write a bug in bugzilla.
Thanks,
     GerardM

PS I learned at FOSDEM what hours some people have been making to get to this far.. Thank you guys !!

#MediaWiki security and maintenance release

MediaWiki is versatile software; it not only runs on Linux but also on Microsoft servers. Today a security release was published and it is particularly important for those people who run on Microsoft servers to upgrade to the latest version.

For everyone else, this maintenance upgrade is recommended as well. A whole host of fixes and improvements becomes available to you when you upgrade. For those people for whom language support is important, a new localisation caching system was introduced, which will make MediaWiki faster for almost everyone, especially when lots of extensions are enabled.

With this release many many new localisations will become available and, if this is not enough, you can always run the LocalisationUpdate extension.

Finally, a big thank you to all the developers and localisers that make MediaWiki 1.16.2 the stable release you should run.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Numbers, statistics and appreciation

When Tim Starling announced the release of MediaWiki version 1.13.0, he mentioned for the first time our localisation efforts: "59,000 new localised text messages have been added, taking the total to 266,000, spread across 281 languages". This is important because it is indicative of the importance that internationalisation and localisation has for the Wikimedia Foundation.

Having 29% more messages localised relative to what was localised at the 1.12.0 release is an impressive number. However, when you look at the "group statistics", you will see that there is a lot more work that needs to be done. There were 172 new core messages since the previous release, Betawiki actually supports 317 languages so on average each language gained 14,2 messages or 0,73%. Obviously some languages did well and others did not.

Tim's announcement is about the MediaWiki core software. Most MediaWiki installations use several of the more then 800 extensions. With the release of MediaWiki the extensions, the 300 that reside in the WMF subversion have also had their code branched. Several of these extensions are under active development and consequently it is not a given that these will function as designed. It is for this reason that an initiative is formed to provide an environment where extensions can be tested in a "plain vanilla" environment.

The Wikimedia Foundation always uses the "bleeding edge" software and consequently the releases provide an environment that is stable for the core. The localisation is ongoing and we can and do release language packs after the release. The extensions are not guaranteed to work on the new release, so we are getting this environment where we can test this and publish the results.

The whole idea is that MediaWiki is easy to use. We want to remove nasty surprises and, we want to create an environment where extensions are supported for the stable releases.
Thanks,
      GerardM