= MediaWiki release notes =

== MediaWiki 1.16.5 ==

2011-05-05

This is a security release of the MediaWiki 1.16 branch.

=== Summary of selected changes in 1.16 ===

Selected changes since MediaWiki 1.15 that may be of interest:

* A new skin called Vector was added

* Watchlists now have RSS/Atom feeds. RSS feeds generally are now hidden, 
  since Atom is a better protocol and is supported by virtually all clients.

* It's now possible to block users from sending email via Special:Emailuser.

* The maintenance script system was overhauled. Most maintenance scripts now 
  have a useful help page when you run them with --help.

* AdminSettings.php is no longer required in order to run maintenance scripts. 
  You can just set $wgDBadminuser and $wgDBadminpassword in your 
  LocalSettings.php instead.

* The preferences system was overhauled. Preferences are stored in a more 
  compact format. Changes to site default preferences will automatically 
  affect all users who have not chosen a different preference.

* Support for SQLite was improved. Some broken features were fixed, and it 
  now has an efficient full-text search.

* The user groups ACL system was improved by allowing rights to be revoked, 
  instead of just granted.

* A new localisation caching system was introduced, which will make MediaWiki 
  faster for almost everyone, especially when lots of extensions are enabled.

By default, this new system makes a lot of database queries. If your database 
is particularly slow, or if your system administrator limits your query count, 
or if you want to squeeze as much performance as possible out of Mediawiki, 
set $wgCacheDirectory to a writable path on the local filesystem. Make sure 
you have the DBA extension for PHP installed, this will improve performance 
further.

=== Languages updated in 1.16 ===

MediaWiki supports over 330 languages. Many localisations are updated
regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as
changes to languages because of MediaZilla reports.

* Capiznon (cps) (new)
* North Frisian (frr) (new)
* Kirmanjki (kiu) (new)
* Komi-Permyak (koi) (new)
* Karachay-Balkar (krc) (new)
* Latgalian (ltg) (new)
* Hill Mari (mrj) (new)
* Prussian (prg) (new)
* Romagnol (rgn) (new)
* Rusyn (rue) (new)
* Lower Silesian (sli) (new)
* Picard (pcd) (new)
* Uyghur (Arabic script) (ug-arab) (new)
* Upper Franconian (vmf) (new)
* Votic (vot) (new)
* Eastern Yiddish (ydd) (removed)
* Iriga Bicolano (bto) (removed)
* Ladin (lld) (removed)
* Palembang (plm) (removed)
* Megleno-Romanian (Greek script) (ruq-grek) (removed)
* Tamazight (tzm) (removed)

* (bug 18474) Sorani (ckb - Central Kurdish) (renamed from ku-arab)
* Add PLURAL function for Scots Gaelic (gd)
* Add Estonian letters äöõšüž to linktrail (et)
* (bug 18776) Native name of Burmese language (my)
* (bug 18806) Use correct unicode characters in spelling of native Chuvash
  (Чӑвашла)
* (bug 18864) Updated autonym for Zhuang language
* (bug 18308) Updated date formatting in Occitan (oc)
* (bug 19080) Added ăâîşţșțĂÂÎŞŢȘȚ to Romanion (ro) linktrail
* (bug 19286) Correct commafying function in Polish (pl)
* (bug 19441) Updated date formatting for Lithuanian
* (bug 19630) Added ÄäÇçĞğŇňÖöŞşÜüÝýŽž to Turkmen (tk) linktrail
* (bug 19949) New linktrail for Greek (el)
* (bug 19809) Korean (North Korea) (ko-kp) (new)
* (bug 19968) Fixed "Project talk" namespace name for Maltese (mt)
* (bug 21168) Added áâãàéêçíóôõúü to Portuguese (pt) linktrail
* (bug 21596) Change interwiki link for Kurdish (ku)

== Compatibility ==

MediaWiki 1.16 requires PHP 5.1 (5.2 recommended). PHP 4 is no longer supported.

MySQL 3.23.x is no 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.

=== 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 1.15.x and older releases, see HISTORY.

=== Online documentation ===

Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is currently being
built up 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) :

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


=== IRC help ===

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