For a more complete list of changes in RC 3, please see the changelog here.
Where to Focus
RC 3 contains a lot and it can be a bit daunting to decide what to look at. Of particular interest are the following items (and trying to break them):- Disambiguation pages (more below)
- Creating and testing areas with various template rules; also, determining whether the expected behavior is followed if you also require specific content-types or custom fields in the same area (more below)
- Using the editor button to insert TEMPLATE content
- Ensuring wiki uploads still work as expected
- Using the Infobox custom-field type, and testing new infobox styles and groupings
- Using the new Duration custom-field type
- Trying various option combinations for Date custom-fields
- Assigning microdata properties to various custom fields
Disambiguation Pages
RC 3 introduces the new Disambiguation page type. These are intended to be groupings of other similarly-named, similarly-themed, or often-confused wiki pages. For example, you might have multiple pages in your wiki that are named "Blue" or some variation:- Blue (color)
- Blue (cheese)
- Blue (parrot)
- Blue (a fish in pegasus's aquarium)
- Blue (character from the TV show Blue's Clues)
- Blue (character from the movie Rio)
- Blues (music)
A disambiguation page will help uninformed users make sense of these options, reducing frustration if they end up on the wrong page. Each page that is disambiguated shows a notice at the top that describes the topic of the page, and links back to the Disambiguation page in case the user wanted a different topic.
Listings on disambiguation pages allow for full-sentence descriptions to explain how each is different from the other.
Template Rules
RC 3 now allows the institution of a template rule in each area. Using such a rule, you can:- Suggest that editors use certain templates
- Allow editors to easily copy the contents of suggested templates, like they were drafts
- Require that editors use certain templates
- Force pages to match a template exactly, only allowing editors to fill in template parameters.
A more indepth discussion of these rules can be found here.