RELEASE-NOTES-1.44

= MediaWiki 1.44 =

== MediaWiki 1.44.0-PRERELEASE ==

THIS IS NOT A RELEASE YET

MediaWiki 1.44 is an alpha-quality development branch, and is not recommended
for use in production.

== Upgrading notes for 1.44 ==
Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!

See the file UPGRADE for more detailed per-version upgrade instructions from the
oldest supported upgrading version, MediaWiki 1.35.

Some specific notes for MediaWiki 1.44 upgrades are below:

* …

For notes on 1.43.x and older releases, see HISTORY.

=== Configuration changes for system administrators in 1.44 ===

* …

==== New configuration ====

* (T377829) $wgAutopromoteOnceRCExcludedGroups - Defaults to an empty list, can
  be used to define a denylist of user group names. One-shot autopromotions
  into these groups will never result in an RC entry, even if
  $wgAutopromoteOnceLogInRC is true, as long as they were the only new groups
  the user was autopromoted into.
* …

==== Changed configuration ====

* (T13555) $wgParserEnableLegacyHeadingDOM now defaults to `false`.
  You can set it to `true` to temporarily restore the legacy HTML markup
  for wikitext headings in the output from the Parser, in case you find
  that your wiki's content or an extension is incompatible with the new markup.
  More information: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Heading_HTML_changes
  This option will be removed in a future release.

==== Removed configuration ====

* wgResourceLoaderUseObjectCacheForDeps, deprecated in 1.43, has been removed.
  It is now always enabled (T343492).
* wgBaseDirectory, unused, has been removed in favour of MW_INSTALL_PATH.
  If a variable value is needed, inject an optional parameter instead.
* …

=== New user-facing features in 1.44 ===

* (T363538, T204792) New parser functions {{#interlanguagelink:prefix|title}}
  and {{#interwikilink:prefix|title|caption}} to unambiguously create
  interlanguage and interwiki links, respectively, even when the "prefix"
  might conflict with a namespace on the local wiki.
* (T326057) Attempting to create a redirect to a nonexistent page will now
  result in a warning.
* (T33951) The Interwiki extension has been moved to MediaWiki core. It is now
  possible to view and edit the interwiki table without installing an extension.
  $wgInterwikiCentralDB and $wgInterwikiCentralInterlanguageDB have been
  removed, use $wgVirtualDomainsMapping['virtual-interwiki'] and
  $wgVirtualDomainsMapping['virtual-interwiki-interlanguage'] instead.
  $wgInterwikiViewOnly has been removed, (un)assign "interwiki" right instead.
* …

=== New features for sysadmins in 1.44 ===

* (T267477) Users with rename userright can now rename themselves through
  [[Special:RenameUser]].
* …

=== New developer features in 1.44 ===

* The AuthenticationAttemptThrottled hook was added.
* The CodexTablePager class was added.
* UserFactory now has newFromNameOrIp() method to quickly create User object
  for either an IP a named user.
* The ApiQueryCheckCanExecute hook was added.
* …

=== External library changes in 1.44 ===

==== New external libraries ====

* …

===== New development-only external libraries =====

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==== Changed external libraries ====

* Updated codex, codex-design-tokens and codex-icons
  from v1.14.0 to v1.18.0.
* Updated wikimedia/bcp-47-code from 2.0.0 to 2.0.1.
* Updated wikimedia/timestamp from 4.1.1 to 4.2.0.
* Updated OOUI from v0.51.2 to v0.51.4.
* …

===== Changed development-only external libraries =====
* Updated nikic/php-parser from ^4.10.2 to ^5.3.1.
* Updated phpunit/phpunit from 9.6.19 to 9.6.21.
* Updated stylelint-config-wikimedia from v0.17.2 to v0.18.0.
* …

==== Removed external libraries ====

* …

=== Bug fixes in 1.44 ===

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=== Action API changes in 1.44 ===

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=== Action API internal changes in 1.44 ===

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=== Languages updated in 1.44 ===
MediaWiki supports over 350 languages. Many localisations are updated regularly.
Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as changes to languages
because of Phabricator reports.

* (T379137) Added language support for Hunde (hke).
* (T381463) Added language support for Coptic (cop).
* (T381894) Added language support for Fur (fvr).
* (T379137) Added language support for Mindong (Traditional Han script)
  (cdo-hant).
* (T379137) Added language support for Mindong (Latin script) (cdo-latn).
* …

=== Breaking changes in 1.44 ===

* In StatusValue::replaceMessage(), ::hasMessage() and ::hasMessagesExcept()
  passing MessageSpecifier or MessageValue as $source, deprecated in 1.43,
  is no longer allowed.
* StatusValue will no longer accept errors given as a MessageSpecifier
  combined with a parameters array. This was deprecated in 1.43.
* The methods MessageValue::objectParams(), Message::objectParams()
  and Message::objectParam(), deprecated in 1.43, have been removed.
* The UserGroupMembershipParam class, deprecated in 1.43, has been removed.
* The ParamType::OBJECT constant, deprecated in 1.43, has been removed.
* The MediaWiki\Message\Converter class, deprecated in 1.43, has been removed.
  Use MessageValue::newFromSpecifier or Message::newFromSpecifier
  instead (T358779).
* Return type declarations were added to methods in `includes/libs/Message`,
  specifically in the `MessageSpecifier`, `ITextFormatter`, and
  `IMessageFormatterFactory` interfaces. This update enhances type safety but
  may require updates in any classes implementing these interfaces, including
  external extensions. Extensions such as Translate, Flow, and ReadingLists
  require compatibility patches to support these changes.
* IDatabase::LB_TRX_ROUND_ID was removed and IDatabase::LB_READ_ONLY_REASON
  was marked as an internal constant.
* The ParsoidOutputAccess class marked @unstable from creation and
  deprecated with all of its methods in 1.43, has been removed.
* (T382030) MediaWiki core database schema and schema changes have been moved
  to a new top-level sql/ directory. This should only affect code directly
  referencing the old paths.
* The HtmlToContentTransform::setMetrics() and
  HtmlInputTransformHelper::setMetrics() methods now require a StatsFactory
  argument.  Passing a StatsdDataFactoryInterface was deprecated in 1.43.
* IDatabase::onAtomicSectionCancel() has been removed without deprecation
  as it's completely unused.
* The method ParserOptions::setupFakeRevision has been marked internal. It
  will remain backwards compatible in 1.44 but may change without notice in
  1.45 or later.
* ISQLPlatform::tableNames(), deprecated since 1.39, has been removed.
* The Less mixin .column-break-after-avoid(), deprecated in 1.43, has been
  removed. Use just the CSS rule `break-after: avoid-column;` instead now.
* ApiBase::errorArrayToStatus(), deprecated in 1.43, has been removed.
* The MediaWiki\Config\MutableConfig interface now extends
  MediaWiki\Config\Config. Implementing MutableConfig without implementing
  Config is no longer possible.
* …

=== Deprecations in 1.44 ===

* Various static methods on ChangeTags, deprecated since 1.41, each now emit
  deprecation warnings. Use service access to the ChangeTagsStore instead:
  addTags(), defineTag(), deleteTagEverywhere(), getDisplayTableName(),
  getSoftwareTags(), getTags(), getTagsWithData(), listDefinedTags(),
  listExplicitlyDefinedTags(), listSoftwareActivatedTags(),
  listSoftwareDefinedTags(), makeTagSummarySubquery(), modifyDisplayQuery(),
  purgeTagCacheAll(), tagUsageStatistics(), and updateTags().
* WikiPage::doEditUpdates(), deprecated since 1.32, is now emitting warnings.
  Use DerivedPageDataUpdater::doUpdates() instead.
* IDatabase::setTransactionListener() is now deprecated without replacement.
* ILBFactory::setWaitForReplicationListener() is now deprecated without
  replacement.
* Maintenance::beginTransaction(), Maintenance::commitTransaction(),
  Maintenance::rollbackTransaction(), and Maintenance::waitForReplication()
  are now deprecated. Use Maintenance::*TransactionRound() instead.
* The ReverseArrayIterator class, unused since 1.32, has been deprecated.
* LinksUpdate::getImages() has been deprecated, like ParserOutput::getImages().
  Instead, use ParserOutput::getLinkList( ParserOutputLinkTypes::MEDIA ).
* ResourceLoader::makeConfigSetScript() is now deprecated. Consider using
  package files instead. Or, you can return "mw.config.set()" combined with
  RL\Context::encodeJson, if available. If not, use FormatJson::encode.
* ...
* …

=== Other changes in 1.44 ===
* The ArticleProtect and ArticleProtectComplete hooks are now called when
  WikiPage::doUpdateRestrictions is called to protect a non-existing
  title.
* Introduce ISearchResultSet::isApproximateTotalHits() (defaults to false
  in BaseSearchResultSet) to let SearchEngine implementations run optimizations
  that might lead to innacurate computation of the exact number of pages
  matching the search query.
* …

== Compatibility ==

MediaWiki 1.44 requires PHP 8.1.0 or later and the following PHP extensions:

* ctype
* dom
* fileinfo
* iconv
* intl
* json
* mbstring
* xml

MariaDB is the recommended database software. MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite can
be used instead, but support for them is somewhat less mature.

The supported versions are:

* MariaDB 10.3 or higher
* MySQL 5.7.0 or higher
* PostgreSQL 10 or later
* SQLite 3.8.0 or later

== Online documentation ==
Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is available on
MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License (except
for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in the public domain):

  <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Documentation>

== Mailing list ==
A mailing list is available for MediaWiki user support and discussion:

  <https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-l.lists.wikimedia.org/>

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

  <https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/>

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.libera.chat.