Extension:Media Viewer/About



Media Viewer aims to improve the viewing experience for readers and casual editors on Wikipedia and Wikimedia sites.

This multimedia browser displays images in larger size, with useful information about their contents, authors and related metadata. It also offers a number of features to enlarge, share, download or embed media files, as described below.

Learn more about Media Viewer in this help page. Feedback is welcome in this discussion.

Why Media Viewer?
Media Viewer aims to:


 * improve the viewing experience for readers


 * make it easier to preview and browse images


 * provide a quick summary, with easy access to details


 * offer more features such as enlarge, download, share and embed

Media Viewer was created for readers and casual editors, the primary target users for this tool. Over time, these features can encourage them to contribute more to Wikipedia and Wikimedia sister projects.

How does Media Viewer work?


To open an image in Media Viewer, click on its thumbnail on any article, gallery or category page. This will display a larger image in Media Viewer, right over the page where you clicked.

Media Viewer offers a number of useful features:




 * get more details or edit information on the file page


 * share, embed or download an image


 * disable (or enable) Media Viewer

These features are available every time you click on a thumbnail to open Media Viewer, as long as the tool is enabled. Media Viewer is now enabled by default on all Wikimedia sites, but can be disabled by any user, as described below. From a file description page, click on "Open in Media Viewer" below the image to view it with this tool.

To learn more, read this help file.

How can I turn off this feature?


To disable Media Viewer, click on the 'cogs' icon at the top right corner of Media Viewer (see screenshot). Then click on "Disable Media Viewer." From now on, images will no longer open in Media Viewer: clicking on thumbnails will take you to the file description page on Wikimedia Commons or other file repository.

This Disable feature works for registered users (using a site preference), as well as unregistered or 'anonymous' users (using a file stored locally on your computer). Note that this Disable feature only works on the site where you activate it: disabling Media Viewer on Wikimedia Commons will not disable it on your home Wikipedia or other sister projects.

If you are a registered user, you can also disable Media Viewer in your "Preferences": select the "Appearance" section, and uncheck this option under "Files":  ' [  ]  ’. Once you click "Save", images will no longer open in Media Viewer for your account on that site.

Note that you can also bypass Media Viewer anytime, without disabling the tool. To quickly access the file description page, simply press one of these keys when clicking on a thumbnail:
 * shift-click: open the file page in a new window
 * command-click: open the file page in a new tab
 * control-click: show a menu of options

How can I re-enable this feature?
If you change your mind and wish to re-enable Media Viewer, visit any file description page on the site where you wish to use this tool. Then click on the 'cogs' icon next to the "Open in Media Viewer" button below that image: this will open it in Media Viewer, with the Enable panel open (see screenshot). Now click on "Enable Media Viewer". This Enable feature works for registered users (using a site preference), as well as unregistered or 'anonymous' users (using a file stored locally on your computer).

Note that this Enable feature only works on the site where you activate it: enabling Media Viewer on Wikimedia Commons will not enable it on your home Wikipedia or other sister projects.

How can I report an issue?
If you find a technical issue, please file a bug here on Phabricator.

You can also post your report on this discussion page, with a screenshot and information on your browser and operating system :).

Before reporting a bug, check first that this issue is not already on this list of known bugs. In case it’s already been fixed, you may also want to test it on this test page on MediaWiki.org -- where new features are released a week before the rest of the wikis.

Note: Media Viewer only supports the most widely used image file formats on Wikimedia sites (e.g.: JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, SVG). In future releases, we plan to add support for more file formats, such as PDF, audio and video files.

More Info
For more information about Media Viewer, visit the product overview page on MediaWiki.org.

Media Viewer was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation's multimedia team from July 2013 to November 2014. It was designed in collaboration with community members, in a series of discussions held over video conferences, IRC, and face-to-face meetings. This tool was then developed and tested as a Beta Feature through April 2014, when it was gradually released worldwide, over a three-month period.

Media Viewer was tested extensively with millions of readers and casual editors, the primary target users for this tool. User feedback was collected through usability studies, community consultations and online surveys. Based on this feedback, a wide range of improvements were developed to make Media Viewer easier to use, such as: [ https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/831 an easier way to enlarge images], [ https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/589 image captions], and an [ https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/836 easier way to disable the tool for personal use].

Many thanks to all the community and team members who contributed to this project. Special acknowledgements to the project team: Fabrice Florin, Gilles Dubuc, Mark Holmquist, Gergő Tisza, Pau Giner, Keegan Peterzell, Rob Lanphier, Howie Fung and Erik Moeller, to name but a few.

To learn more about other multimedia projects, visit this Multimedia project hub.