Hi,
The latest technical newsletter is now available at <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2018/18>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/2018/18> are
available.
*Recent changes*
- The parameter for unpatrolled edits in recent changes filters changed
name. You might need to update saved filters and links. [1]
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T190408>
*Problems*
- [image: Advanced item] We are migrating wikis from Tidy to Remex
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsing/Replacing_Tidy>. Because of a
bug the 250 wikis which do not yet use Remex were switched on 23 April.
This is two months early. This meant that pages with broken wikitext showed
wrongly to readers. The bug was undone the next day. You can help fix
broken wikitext
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Parsing/Replacing_Tidy/FAQ#What_will_editors_need_to_do.3F>
to avoid this problem when your wiki switches. Tidy will be removed on
all wikis before July 2018. You can follow the process on Phabricator
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T175706>. [2]
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T192855>
*Changes later this week*
- You will be able use CodeMirror
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Extension:CodeMirror> in
the 2017 wikitext editor
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/2017_wikitext_editor> on
all wikis. CodeMirror helps with syntax highlighting
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Syntax_highlighting>. It has
previously been a beta feature
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Beta_Features> and
only available on wikis with scripts that are written from left to right.
[3] <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T191923>
- When an administrator blocks someone they will have a calendar they
can use to choose when the block ends. This is to make it easier to pick a
specific date. [4] <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T132220>
- [image: Advanced item] You can soon turn on the Performance Inspector
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Extension:PerformanceInspector>
in the Editing section in your preferences. It shows information about
the performance <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Computer_performance> of
pages. This could be the size of modules in the page, how many CSS
selectors are defined on the page and how many are used, or the size of the
images on the page. This tool is intended to help editors fix pages that
load slowly. [5] <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T117411>
- [image: Advanced item] There is a new abuse filter
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AbuseFilter> function called
equals_to_any. You can use it to check if its first argument is equal (
===) to any of the following ones. For example you can use it to check
if the page's namespace is amongst a given set of values in a more compact
way than you could earlier. You can read more on
mediawiki.org
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AbuseFilter/Rules_format#Functions>
.
- [image: Recurrent item] The new version
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.32/wmf.2> of MediaWiki will
be on test wikis and
MediaWiki.org from 1 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia
wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 May. It will be on all wikis from 3 May (
calendar <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.32/Roadmap>).
*Meetings*
- [image: Recurrent item] You can join the next meeting with the Editing
team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are
the most important. The meeting will be on 1 May at 18:30 (UTC)
<https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20180501T1830>.
See how to join
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Editing_team/Weekly_triage_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 2 May at 15:00 (UTC)
<https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20180502T15>.
See how to join
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_Advice_IRC_Meeting>.
*Future changes*
- The Wikimedia Cloud Services team
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Cloud_Services_team>
is working on a new project called Toolhub
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Toolhub>. The goal is to make it easier
for Wikimedians to discover software tools they can use. You can leave
feedback on the talk page <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Toolhub> or
email jhare[image: @]wikimedia.org to leave private feedback.
- [image: Advanced item] All wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority
linter errors in all namespaces will switch to use the Remex parsing
library <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/RemexHtml>.
This is to replace Tidy
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsing/Replacing_Tidy>. It will happen
on 2 May. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have
fixed the errors that must be fixed. Wikibooks wikis with fewer than 100
high-priority linter errors in the main namespace will switch on 9 May.
Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. [6]
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T192821>[7]
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T192299>[8]
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsing/Replacing_Tidy/FAQ#What_will_editors_need_to_do.3F>
*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>
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//Johan Jönsson
--