Hi,

The latest tech newsletter is now available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2014/24 . 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.

Other languages: العربية https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/ar [image: 100%] • ‎čeština https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/cs [image: 100%] • ‎English [image: 100%] • ‎español https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/es [image: 100%] • ‎ suomi https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/fi [image: 84%] • ‎français https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/fr [image: 100%] • ‎ગુજરાતી https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/gu [image: 100%] • ‎עברית https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/he [image: 100%] • ‎日本語 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/ja [image: 16%] • ‎polski https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/pl [image: 100%] • ‎português https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/pt [image: 11%] • ‎українська https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/uk [image: 89%] • ‎中文 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/24/zh [image: 100%]

Latest *tech news https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News* from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2014/24 are available.

*Recent software changes*

- The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf8 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.24/wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 5. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 10, and to all Wikipedias on June 12 (calendar https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.24/Roadmap). - You can now use guided tours https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Guided_tours on the Arabic (ar), Bengali (bn) and Norwegian (no) Wikipedias. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to translate it https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:Translate&group=ext-guidedtour&filter=&action=translate and ask in Bugzilla https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/. [1] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/137533/ [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2014-June/000723.html

*VisualEditor news*

- You should no longer be able to add empty references with VisualEditor. [3] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64715 [4] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/136436/ - The "use an existing reference" button in the reference tool is now shown as disabled, rather than hidden, when the reference has content. [5] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=65689 [6] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/136443/ [7] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/136599/ - You will now see category contents again after saving an edit to a category page with VisualEditor. [8] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64239 [9] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/136311/

*Future software changes*

- MediaViewer https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Extension:MultimediaViewer will be enabled by default on all wikis on June 12. Feedback https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer is welcome. [10] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2014-June/000728.html - You will be able to use information from Wikidata https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/d: directly in Wikiquote pages starting on June 10. [11] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2014-June/000728.html - On wikis with the Translate https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Extension:Translate extension enabled, translation administrators will soon be able to use the page migration https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Translate/Mass_migration_tools tool to import existing translations to the new system. [12] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/137571/ [13] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2014-June/002598.html - You will soon see metadata on file description pages for Ogg files (example video https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/testwiki:File:Traffic-Experiment-Reveals-the-Nature-of-Car-Following-pone.0094351.s001.ogv#metadata , example audio https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/testwiki:File:Ar-%D8%A3%D9%87%D8%AF%D9%89.ogg#metadata). Some metadata with non-English characters may need to be purged or transcoded to UTF-8 before they show correctly. [14] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/108203 [15] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/137535 - Templates containing <ref> or <references> tags will no longer need dummy parameters to prevent caching. [16] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31834 [17] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/99792/ [18] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/99793/ - You will no longer be able to use Special:Thanks https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Thanks directly. The page will soon show an error message when you visit it. [19] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=63509 [20] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/125941/ - Hovercards https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_Features/Hovercards will no longer flicker. [21] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=65433

*Tech news https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News prepared by tech ambassadors https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/Ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery 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/2014/24 • 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.*