Hi,

The latest tech newsletter is now available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2013/50 . 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 .

More information on how to contribute is available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News#contribute . You can also contact me directly.

As always, feedback (on- or off-list) is appreciated and encouraged.

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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

New features

• You can now see a legend on Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlist that explains the symbols used. [1]
• If your wiki is testing the new search tool ("CirrusSearch"), you can now test it by adding "New search" in your Beta features preferences. [2]

VisualEditor

• The toolbar is now simpler; all text styles (bold, italics, underline, subscript, etc.) are in the same menu, and the "More" menu is called "Insert". [3]
• You can now use a basic tool to add special characters to your text. You can add more characters (useful in your language) by editing the MediaWiki interface on translatewiki.net.
• The tool to add and edit mathematical text is now called "formula". [4]

Problems

• There was a problem with the "Create a book" tool (Collection); books could only be exported to PDF format. The change has been undone. [5]
• The log-in system for external tools ("OAuth") was broken on wikis that tested the new search tool. It was fixed last week. [6] [7]
• Because of a bug, this newsletter is delivered to users using the new MediaWiki message delivery, and to community pages using the old EdwardsBot. [8]

Future

• MediaWiki 1.23wmf7 was added to test wikis on December 12. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on December 17 and all Wikipedia wikis on December 19 (calendar).
• You will soon be able to select the language of SVG images that have translations using a drop-down menu on the image page. (see example) [9]
• GLAMToolset, a tool to help GLAM groups (like museums) upload many pictures to Commons, will be added to Commons on December 17. [10]
• A Draft namespace will be added to the English Wikipedia to make it easier to create new pages. You will be able to use VisualEditor for drafts if you have enabled it. [11] [12]

Other

• You can read the summary of the technical report for November 2013 to learn more about VisualEditor, Mobile and other features. [13]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

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Guillaume Paumier
Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation
https://donate.wikimedia.org