Hi,
The latest technical newsletter is now available at <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2019/15>gt;.
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>gt;.
More information on how to contribute is available at <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News#contribute>gt;. 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>
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<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tech/News> • Subscribe or unsubscribe
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/Tech_ambassadors>.*
//Johan Jönsson