Tech/News/2014/45

The Tech News weekly summaries help you monitor recent software changes likely to impact you and your fellow Wikimedians. Subscribe, contribute and give feedback.

Recent software changes

The "Special:Cite" page is now called "Special:CiteThisPage". That way, you know it's to cite the page, not to add a reference. [1]
You can no longer use the insource: keyword for text searches. It caused issues with the new search tool. It will come back later. [2] [3]

Problems

There was a bug in VisualEditor with Internet Explorer. It hid tools like the link editor when you opened them. The bug was fixed on Monday. [4]
Issues with the new search tool caused geo data code to show up on pages on Monday and Friday. The mobile "nearby" tool was also broken. The problem is now fixed. [5] [6] [7]
HHVM caused server issues on Thursday. They are now fixed.

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf6) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 29. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 4, and on all Wikipedias from November 5 (calendar).
Some wikis have icons at the top of a page to show if it is protected or featured. Icons show up using CSS. You can now use the <indicator> tag in these templates instead to add the icons. [8] [9]
VisualEditor now tells you if you're editing a re-used reference. This helps you avoid changing it if you just want to add a new one. [10]
The icons in VisualEditor's template editor tool for adding more fields are back, along with other fixes. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]
After November 6, all wikis will have the tool to edit TemplateData. [16] [17] [18]

Future changes

The new search tool will come to the last wikis in the coming weeks. This includes Wikipedia in French, Chinese, German and English. [19]

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