Hi,
The latest technical newsletter is now available at < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2019/15%3E. Below is the English version.
You can help write the next newsletter: whenever you see information about Wikimedia technology that you think should be distributed more broadly, you can add it to the next newsletter at < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/Next%3E.
More information on how to contribute is available at < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News#contribute%3E. You can also contact me directly.
As always, feedback (on- or off-list) is appreciated and encouraged.
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Latest *tech news https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News* from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2019/15 are available.
*Recent changes*
- More wikis are now testing visual editor section editing for mobile users. You can read more https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/VisualEditor_on_mobile/Section_editing . - Admins on French and Polish Wikipedia can block someone from editing a page or a namespace https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_health_initiative/Partial_blocks. If your wiki wants to get these blocks before they are available to all wikis, you can tell the developers https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_health_initiative/Partial_blocks . [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T219327[2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T219218
*Problems*
- You will be able read but not edit most wikis for 30 minutes on 11 April at 05:00 (UTC) https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20190411T05. This is because of a hardware problem. You can see a list of the affected wikis https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T220080. [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2019-April/091900.html - A map update caused some problems on 29 March and 30 March. It was rolled back. [4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T217087 - Pages on some Wikivoyages had problems with the top headline. This has been fixed. [5] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T97891#5079408
*Changes later this week*
- When you add an edit summary the VisualEditor will search your recent edit summaries in case you want to re-use one. This works in both the visual https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:VisualEditor/User_guide and wikitext https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/2017_wikitext_editor modes on desktop. It also works on the mobile site https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor_on_mobile. [6] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T50274 - The Wikimedia wikis will get a URL shortener https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:URL_shortening. This will work from 11 April. You can read more https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_URL_Shortener . [7] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata/2019-April/012893.html - [image: Advanced item] The {{REVISIONID}} magic word will no longer work. This is for performance reasons. When you preview a page it will return "" (empty string). When you read a page it will return "-" (dash). For now this will only affect content namespaces. [8] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T137900 - [image: Recurrent item] The new version https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.33/wmf.25 of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 April. It will be on all wikis from 11 April (calendar https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.33/Roadmap).
*Meetings*
- [image: Recurrent item] [image: Advanced item] You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 April at 15:00 (UTC) https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20190410T15. See how to join https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_Advice_IRC_Meeting.
*Future changes*
- You will be able to preview references. This means that when you hover over the link you will get a popup that shows you a preview of the reference. It will work much like page previews https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Page_Previews. This is so you don't have to go to the bottom of the page to see a reference. This will now be available as a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia. [9] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/ReferencePreviews [10] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T67114 - [image: Advanced item] The Wikidata JSON https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:JSON output will change. Empty containers will be serialised as empty objects. This is a breaking change that will affect tools that use JSON outputs and APIs. It will happen on 30 April. You can read more and see how to test your code https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata/2019-April/012891.html.
*Tech news https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News prepared by Tech News writers https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/Writers and posted by bot https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/User:MediaWiki_message_delivery • Contribute https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News#contribute • Translate https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2019/15 • Get help https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech • Give feedback https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tech/News • Subscribe or unsubscribe https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/Tech_ambassadors.*
//Johan Jönsson