This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Please note that some bug fixes or new features described below have not yet gone live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.8 (f08e6b3), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.
The Wikipedia Usability Initiative project team has developed a new skin (Vector) based on the default Monobook skin, with improvements influenced by usability testing and research. Changes include moving the search box to the upper-right corner of the page. Monobook will remain the default skin, however users will be able to try out the new Vector skin by selecting it in user preferences. The skin will be available once r51094 goes live on Wikimedia servers.
The StringFunctions extension has been merged with the ParserFunctions extension, per bug 6455. These functions will be available once r50997 is pushed live to the Wikimedia servers.
The new functions include:
{{#len:string}}) - provides the number of characters in a string.{{#pos: string | needle | offset}}) - Finds first occurrence of "needle" in "string" starting at "offset".{{#rpos: string | needle}}) - Finds last occurrence of "needle" in "string".{{#sub: string | start | length }}) - Returns substring of "string" starting at "start" and having "length" characters.{{#count: string | substr }}) - Returns number of occurrences of "substr" in "string".{{#replace:string | from | to | limit }}) - Replaces each occurrence of "from" in "string" with "to", and "limit" replacements at most are performed.{{#explode:string | delimiter | position}}) - Breaks "string" into chunks separated by "delimiter" and returns the chunk identified by "position".The string parser functions will only work for strings up to a maximum length of 1000 characters.
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It should be noted that the code for StringFunctions has not yet been reviewed, and that it is still possible (perhaps probable) that it will be reverted before the next code update. — Werdna • talk 09:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]