Extension talk:Media Viewer/About

Good example image to perhaps test features like this before rolling out ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distributions#mediaviewer/File:Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg

For some reason the "view original image" link isn't working for me and I found no way on Win7 with Firefox 29 to actually get at that image at a usable size via the new viewer. Finally "Copy Link" on the actual thumbnail on the main wiki page and using that link directly got me the old approach where I can use my browser to zoom to my heart's content.

I agree with others this isn't necessarily a bad feature ... when you want it. But when you don't? Aiieeee.


 * Can you explain in more detail how "view original image" does not work for you? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 03:55, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

New features are live!
Hi everyone: To follow up on our earlier update on Media Viewer, I’m happy to report that we just deployed a range of new features today, based on community feedback.

1. New features These features are now live on English Wikipedia, German Wikipedia and other Media Viewer sites:
 * View original file: A prominent button to open the original image in your browser (#630)
 * Show Commons link to logged out users: now all users can quickly access the file description page (#429)
 * Scroll down for more info: Use either up or down arrows to open the metadata panel below the image (#697)

Try them out with and let us know what you think using the built-in feedback tool in Media Viewer — or in this discussion page. You can find these new buttons at the lower right corner of the Media Viewer tool. All three features address frequent community requests — especially the ‘View original file’ button, which lets you use your browser to zoom in, or download images for re-use.

2. Next features We're now working on these next features, to address other community requests:
 * Instant Opt-out (#703) (*)
 * Opt-out for anons (#704) (*)
 * View different image sizes (#664)
 * Add tooltips to Media Viewer (#546)
 * Make it easier to find image information (#706)
 * Disable MediaViewer for certain images (#511)
 * Show attribution credits in download tool (#598)

The first two opt-out features asterisked above (*) can now be tested here on MediaWiki.org, on this demo page — open the metadata panel and scroll down to the bottom, then click ‘Disable Media Viewer’. To learn more about these features, click on the relevant cards on the current sprint wall of our planning site.

We aim to deploy these next features on MediaWiki.org by next Thursday, then to all other sites the following week. To accelerate deployment, we may back-port the most important improvements to all Media Viewer sites next week, if they test well on production.

3. Next releases We are preparing to deploy Media Viewer on all wikis next Thursday, June 19, if all goes well with the testing of these new features. We’ll keep you posted as the release date approaches.

4. Metrics We are now logging about 24 million global image views per day for Media Viewer, doubling overall traffic since last week. The most active sites are the English Wikipedia (10M views/day), the German Wikipedia (3M views/day) and the Spanish Wikipedia (2M views/day), as shown on this global image view dashboard. Global network performance has remained stable, at about 2.5 seconds per image served for 90% of our users (~4 seconds for the 95th percentile).

5. Surveys We continue to see favorable global feedback across all surveys:
 * about 60% of 13,891 global respondents find the tool useful, on average.
 * approval breakdown by language: French 71%, Spanish 78%, Dutch 60%, Portuguese 81%, Hungarian 63%, English 29%, German 26%.
 * approval rates have stabilized for all languages that have used the tool for over a month (excluding English and German).
 * English and German approval rates are lower than other languages, partly because Media Viewer was only launched one week ago on their sites.
 * English daily approval rates have increased from 23% a day after launch — up to 35% a week after launch.

We expect approval rates on Enwiki and Dewiki to keep increasing over time, as new features get rolled out based on community feedback. For comparison purposes, approvals on the Hungarian Wikipedia started at 42% and grew to 63% in just a few weeks, once we addressed the most important community issues. To learn more, visit the survey results page.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We’ll keep you posted on the next major developments.

Thanks to everyone who gave us constructive feedback in recent days: we really appreciate your guidance and look further to improving Media Viewer further in coming days, with your help. :) Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I still believe that clicking the image should do something -- either show the original file or go to the traditional image page. 86.160.87.249 13:18, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Fabrice, this improves the tool and improves the experience. The anon issues are high priority and that is appreciated. Is there a mechanism to note this in a retrospective other teams can access? The dismissal of the anon user community's needs was (guessing from the flames erupting on this page and others) a major blow to the project and likely to the WikiWorld as a whole. I'd love to see this avoided for future projects. There are still a lot of critical objections (especially around copyright as discussed on this page and the archives), but this set of features certainly made great strides. One other note: the images selected on your demo page brilliantly showcase the power of this tool. Good job on that! 159.53.174.144 15:55, 13 June 2014 (UTC) (same Kevin)

Let go of coding the opt-out, this is very powerful fertilizer (a.k.a. a steaming bowl of crap) and should be opt-in only! It adds no useful functionality and makes Wikipedia harder to use. If I wanted useless and pretty, I'd look on Instagram, not Wikipedia.

This new viewer is obtrusive and poorly designed.
I use Wikipedia for personal and professional reasons more or less every day and I had no idea this feature was even in development until it suddenly popped up one day. The fact that this huge of a change appeared without any notice was already suspicious. After spending just a short time researching actual written feedback here and on other discussion sites, it's very clear that pretty much no one wants or enjoys this feature, and that its implementation is mostly annoying and disruptive. However, it is defended staunchly by a few dedicated people who are apparently involved with the project. I have seen incidental discussion about money and funding being wasted. It seems pretty obvious that someone needed a place to spend money, ended up with this terrible feature, and now needs to justify it with a couple poorly worded public surveys and by just pushing it into full implementation without any discussion about the possibility of scrapping the project. Hope I'm wrong and this disappears soon.

How do I disable Media Viewer on Commons?
There is no option to disable Media Viewer in the preferences on Wikimedia Commons. How can I do it? --Jonund (talk) 16:39, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
 * You should be able to find it here, untick the box in the "Files" section that says "Enable Media Viewer." Hope that helps. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Unticking does not disable this stupid, no damn good, value-subtracted feature. USNorseman (talk) 00:50, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Description
I have some issues concerning the description. Normally, the description in Media Viewer consists of two lines whereas the first line is the caption from the article in wikipedia and the second line is the description from the description page on wikimedia commons. is an example of an image used in the article de:Zervreilahorn, where everything works fine. But in the following cases, Media Viewer behaves different: --Capricorn4049 (talk) 18:04, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
 * if the image is used in the infobox, the caption from wikipedia is not shown (example)
 * if the image is not from wikimedia commons, even the caption from the description site is not shown (example)
 * if the image is used in a template, the caption from wikipedia is not shown (example)

This is being fixed, see (multimedia/#513) Caption not shown for images which do not have |thumb| in their wikitext. For the issue in your second bullet point, see commons:Commons:MRD about how to mark up description templates so that they are understood by Media Viewer. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 03:41, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Problem with Lage Images
Well, the only purpose why we have files like is because people would want to view parts of it by zooming in. Either I'm stupid, or it doenst work. Klicking on "View original file" ("Originaldatei anzeigen" in german) changes nothing. So good I understand URLs and can edit it to but that certainly can do only 1% of wikipedia readers. --Dan-yell (talk) 18:08, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

For me, "View original file" links to the same URL you have given. If that works differently for you, can you describe in more detail? --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 02:17, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, this file is running into a bug, that is causing this behavior. I have filed it in bugzilla and it is linked to the top right of this topic. TheDJ (talk) 09:25, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

"Derivative versions not eligible"
Elsewhere on this talk page, someone linked to. There it says "Derivative versions, GFDL, License migration not eligible". This sounds as if the image is ineligible for three things: licence migration, GFDL and derivative versions. In other words, it sounds as if I can't make derivative works and that I can't use the image under the GNU Free Document Licence, implying (because of the derivative works issue) that the image is unfree. Please improve the wording.

Also, users who are not logged in are usually not shown hidden categories, but for some reason, the media viewer shows all hidden categories. How does the category choice work? The file appears in five categories: four hidden and one visible. The media viewer shows three of the four hidden categories but not the last hidden category and not the visible category. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:17, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

These are categories, taken from the image page. Not sure what wording we could improve.

Categories are currently chosen in a rather dumb way, we just pick the first three returned by MediaWiki (I think these correspond to their order in the wikitext source, but I am not sure). Hidden/non-hidden is not taken into account since that information is not easy to access at the place where Media Viewer processes categories. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 04:15, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Tsunami of criticism
I can see tsunami of criticism of the whole idea of Media Viewer, but I can't see any reaction of authors of this idea. --Matrek (talk) 01:51, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it's horrible
This new way of forcing users to view images in a media player seriously detracts from the usabilitu of Wikipedia. I click on an image for more information ABOUT THAT IMAGE, is a larger view and some meta info, NOT so that I can be taken away from my current page into an all-consuming app.

Please, please, please, can we have a GLOBAL opt-out of this new imposition FORNON REGISTERED USERS. Despite being a subject matter expert I stopped logging in and editing Wikipedia some time ago when various policies changed and made Wikipedia a less useful place to support. I know I'm not just a voice in the wilderness - a LOT of people seem to find this new 'feature' a disaster.

Please, let us have the simple old image viewer system back. Doing whizzy stuff 'because you can' is NOT a justification.

Unfortunately there is no easy way to have global settings, not even for registered users, much less for anonymous visitors. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 03:48, 16 June 2014 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "no easy way"? With the Unified login, once users logs in one of the wikis, all other wikis also automatically recognize him/her. Is the addition of one more bit to that shared information exceptionally difficult? — 128.32.220.21 20:34, 16 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes. You can track the progress of global preferences at if you are interested. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 21:29, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I hate it
This "feature" adds nothing, but it does make Wikipedia harder to use, and MUCH more annoying.

Who asked for this garbage anyway? Certainly not I.

Useless when looking at magnified webpages
I always view webpages with a degree of magnification to avoid eyestrain (i.e. I use "Ctrl+"). With the old system, I would click on a picture and go to a page which showed a larger picture, plus other available resolutions, plus associated info. The new viewer takes me to a picture which is the SAME size or even SMALLER (because the page I left was already enlarged), and with associated info obscured. Because of the magnification, if I scroll down to try and find metadata, it is all in unreadably giant letters. Pic in the new new viewer cannot be enlarged by Ctrl+. The whole experience is a HORRIBLE step backwards for Wikipedia, which I had assumed was run too intelligently to fall for the modern fad of making websites less usable for reasons of being "trendy". Please disable the disaster as soon as possible and return to the old system, which was far more informative, professional, and befitting an encyclopaedia!
 * I would argue that by using additional tools that change the presentation of the page (your magnification tool), the weight is on you to disable the feature instead of require that it be disabled for everyone (surely if you're using magnification all the time, you've found that a great deal of sites don't handle it well). Bear in mind that you can always disable the feature for the old one if the tools you use don't play nicely with MV.


 * The image in the MV should also definitely not be smaller. I believe that you're confusing physical size and resolution. The higher resolution image that MV displays should show a great deal of quality that is not in the thumbnails (even with magnification).


 * Regarding the metadata being large, I'm not sure exactly what you're expecting. I attempted to zoom in several times and while the text got bigger (as expected), it was always readable. With that said, you have a good point that the image cannot be zoomed in on (in fact, zooming makes the image smaller). In my opinion, a one-click "show real size" feature needs to be implemented, and this full-sized image should play nicely with magnification tools.


 * As a workaround, you can click the "view original file" icon in the bottom (the thing that looks like an icon for a Windows photo viewer), and that plain image should be supported by browser zooming features. Hofmic (talk) 18:22, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Media Viewer Sucks
How do I turn it off? Wee Curry Monster (talk) 21:34, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * You can disable it in your preferences. Unfortunately MediaWiki does not currently support global preferences, so it depends on which wiki you would like to turn it off. Click on the "Preferences" link you see at the top of the site, go to Appearance, and untick "Enable Media Viewer"  in the "Files" section. This is a quick link for the English Wikipedia, for example. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:57, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Why we have to disable feature on our side? Just because group of few MV authors want to force that idea to be default feature? You guys should disable whole idea of MV --Matrek (talk) 04:39, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * For the same reasons that you'd have to disable any feature if you don't like it. Software change happens. At least MW provided the ability to disable the feature natively (more than can be said about, say, how Microsoft handled the changes to the start menu, which still require third party software to revert). And to be fair, I wouldn't say that MV is all bad (although I do think it was rushed without enough acceptance testing). Hofmic (talk) 18:05, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explanation :)--Shanghainese.ua (talk) 09:10, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Pointless Change and a Distraction
This is a case of a change of feature for the sake of changing a feature. The supposed benefits of this "media viewer" are "it looks different."

I specified in the survey the points why I feel the media viewer fails in doing anything useful, and I won't go into all of them here, but I feel so strongly about this that I actually made an account so I could add my objection to this discussion. I apologize in advance if I am not doing this right since I haven't done this before.

Just like so many websites have in the past 4 years, some person in charge of web design says "Hey nobody has changed anything with how this part of the website is done in ages... people will get bored!" So they come up with a completely superficial idea to change things around, make it look "new" and "exciting." The only problem is that it almost always reduces functionality and adds no real benefit, because it's all about how it 'looks' not what it does. This is exactly the same problem, now afflicting Wikipedia.

To the web designer whose smartypants idea this is: I don't want an "immersive" experience with the images, I am looking at an image in context with the article it's attached to. All I want is perhaps a slightly larger image, or to view the details such as copyright. An "Immersive" image is a distraction and a complication in my trying to absorb the information in the article. I'm not viewing a gallery of images like on Flickr, I am looking at an image that's connected to an article.

So no, I want nothing to do with this. I want to disable this "Media Viewer" nonsense permanently and return to the simple but efficient layout that I enjoyed before.

I would welcome any new layout that adds means of accessing more information about something. I welcome change that adds more to the content without removing features, or needlessly complicating the experience. This adds nothing except superficial scripting, removes features, and makes it more complicated to use.

Since it's clear that there is a bias towards accepting this new "Media Viewer" by the administration of Wikipedia, and as such this entire thread of objections is likely to be ignored, and this foolish idea adopted anyway... I will now proceed to find a way to disable this feature on my end of things. Ikaruseijin 23:12, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

It's a big shit
Sorry, but it's a big shit ! Rgds user:Tonton Bernardo

Author not clear
I like to use images from wikimedia resorces. But in this new viewer I often do not find the author of an image. Therefore this new viewer it's a step back. I do not like it. Please take it away and let it as it was before. Thank you.

Bogus survey
The people who are pushing this unusable new "feature" onto wikipedia users are hiding behind the results of a worthless survey. The survey results would only be meaningful if they could be compared to a survey conducted before rollout of the new viewer, asking people if they were satisfied with the results of clicking on a picture. I strongly suspect that most users were satisfied with the old system, or more tellingly, likely very few users were dissatisfied. After all, clicking on a picture under the old system did everything any user would require, whether a casual user or advanced. I very much doubt that there was any dissatisfaction amongst the user base, and so there was no problem which needed to be addressed. Reducing functionality for the sake of being "cool" is pretty lame for a encyclopaedia, and hiding behind the survey is reprehensible. Listen to the frequent and advanced users and permanently remove the new picture viewer.
 * I still dont know who was asked to participate in that survey. Maybe mobile users, whos preferences and taste were formed by Instagram or something, feel more comfortable with that new lack of usefulness. Alexpl (talk) 12:11, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

One more person who hates Media Viewer
I only found out about Media Viewer when I clicked on an image and was surprised by this obtrusive and annoying full-screen popup that appeared. I use wikipedia all the time, and I only do edits on rare occasions. This "improved" feature is just a piece of garbage. The regular File: page was perfect and simple, and it provided everything that any user, casual or what ever, would need. Blacking out the rest of the screen and article is just dumb. If the Media Viewer is just going to cover up the entire page and take over everything, I'd rather just go to the File: page. And I'd rather go to the File: page even if the Media Viewer gets a change to its black background and full screen popup, because it's not necessary and just ruins the flow of the wiki. It also just looks horrible, so if you were trying to make something that looks cool and new, you failed. And besides, why are you trying to do that? This is a wiki encyclopedia, plain and simple functionality should be it's main goal. Get rid of this horrible downgrade and fire the moron(s) who implemented it.

-- Someone Who Hates Media Viewer

I speak only a few English, so I'll make it as short as possible: BULLSHIT!
Country roads, take me home!

And another...
Yes, I've turned it off - for myself anyway. I don't have the power to turn it off generally. As I commented at en-wiki, utter crap. A solution without a problem to justify it. Presumably a similarity to something found in social media, where I find the image viewing to be usually appalling anyway.Interesting that the 'survey' was so much in favour, but the proportion of happy little bunnies on this page seems vastly different. When I click on an image, I want to see the image and possibly magnify it, and sometimes to read the data. With this, magnifying becomes complicated and not obvious, and the data on its silly little sliding thing has become almost unreadable - except perhaps for those who sit nine inches from the screen and are short-sighted anyway. You asked for feedback. You're getting feedback. Will notice be taken of it? Doubtful. Peridon (talk) 13:50, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Major flaws still exist
After all that's been said and done about improvements to media viewer, it still has its major flaws:
 * MV doesn't allow the user to readily see an image in its max resolution by simply clicking a second time. Instead, users have to click on an icon in the lower right, and you have to hover over it to see what its for, where the little pop-up message says "More details on a Wikimedia Commons", which doesn't even hint that there is access to an image's max resolution. This will be ignored by most viewers, so I think it's safe to assume that the quality of all the hi-res images (e.g.'Today's featured picture', 'Picture of the Day', etc) will be denied to the casual users we were told are the first priority by the few individuals who have pushed MV into its default existence.
 * There is no readily available way to disable the viewer, still, and in fact there is not even a hint of how to do so for the average reader and users with limited experience. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:12, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Contrary to the approval rating we were told about MV, that it's "a useful tool" (a "tool"?), it's rather clear that it is not wanted here at English Wikipedia. Had there been a list of features (and lack thereof) presented in the original approval survey compared to those of the standard viewing system, I think we can assume most rational adults would have said, 'don't bother'. Instead they were presented a gallery of images and told to view them with MV where the naive user was mesmerized by the slide show feature as they skipped along from one image to the next. No doubt the "approval" is based on this feature alone, simply because it was (and still is) its only feature. Disappointed. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:12, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * You can one-click the mountain icon in the bottom left right sips morning coffee corner to go straight to the full resolution of the image; you don't need to go to Commons. I'm not sure it's 100% how you would have it implemented but I hope it'll work for you. As for one-click disable, that is now live right here on MediaWiki and is going out to Wikimedia Commons tomorrow, then it will be backported to all the other wikis.  This fix took an extra bit of testing to make sure it worked properly. Hope that helps :/ Keegan (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * . Ahhgg!! ... yes, you're right. Please accept my apologies on that note. However, it might be helpful to give the viewers something more than an ambiguous icon (whatever happened to labels? e.g.'Max-Res') After all, I missed it, no doubt others will, esp if they don't know about max resolutions in the first place. I would recommend 'something' that indicates that there's a provision for viewing an image's max resolution besides the cryptic icon in the lower right. Also, an indication of the image's resolution would be nice. (e.g. 1024 x 2036) -- One last bit of feed back: When I first encountered media viewer it was almost like running into a wall. A very abrupt visual change. It looked as if I had left Wikipedia altogether. Can you make the viewer look like we're still in the world of Wikipedia? I would recommend a Wiki' view first before going to 'the dark zone' with the black background and the completely different look. Hopefully the instant disable feature you say is coming along will not be equally as fuzzy to discern. -- 107.215.12.158 19:48, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * @ Keegan - why you guys are forcing this commonly unwanted format? Can't you really see, that no-one wants it? That the only people wanting MV are it's authors? --Matrek (talk) 04:34, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Please show the image annotations
Hi!

I have to say that, contrary to most commenters, I actually like this media viewer. Browsing through an article's images is now really fast and enjoyable.

However, for annotated images, it would be really nice if the viewer displayed the annotations. Right now, the annotations are two clicks away from the page (open the viewer, then click on "More details on Wikimedia Commons"). Not really worse than before on English Wikipedia, however, in the French Wikipedia it is worse, as the commons page used to be at only one click distance from the Wikipedia page.

Example: in an "encyclopedic" context, the image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_FE#mediaviewer/File:Nikon_FE_top_view.jpg would really be more useful with the annotations seen in

Regards,

Edit: a bonus suggestion: If an annotation is available in several languages, and the current Wikipedia language is among them, then only display the annotation in that language. E.g., when I click on the example image above from en.wikipedia.org, I would like to see the annotations in English. When I click on the same image from fr.wikipedia.org, I would like to see them in French.

— Edgar.bonet (talk) 16:31, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback, Edgar.bonet. Annotations have been pointed out by others as well, and Media Viewer should be able to support them in the future. There's interface interaction complexities in making annotations work across platforms. I too look forward to the support. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:40, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Please, please don't force this "feature" on us!
All the other criticisms people have mentioned on this page are valid. Additionally, the media viewer is highly buggy and literally unusable on mobile devices running the desktop version of Wikipedia. Please restore the older, highly functional image pages as the default way to view images because not everybody has a Wikipedia account and access to a preferences menu! 2601:8:9100:7B1:4CF8:961F:C99C:5099 17:59, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Candid question: who is in charge on this?
I have a candid (albeit not malicious) question: who is in charge on this? Who decides if, yes, or no, the new Media Viewer becomes the new standard? I'm used at Commons and English Wikipedia to reaching decisions by consensus. Doesn't seem to be the case on this matter, as this particular decison is being taken against a strong opposition of the users! -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 19:34, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Nobody knows or cares? Hard to believe! -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 19:57, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Mr. Florin from Wikimedia is in charge as can be noted from his profile. It's part of the 'Multimedia Vision 2016'. Note: The opposition comes mainly from intermediate users like you and not from the 'silent majority' of potential Wikipedia beginners. Therefore, the decision in favor of the Viewer is 'consensus'. More precise: A consensus between prospective customers of the Wikimedia Foundation and its fleet of technical staff to create tons of annoying, but immersive scripts (like the keyboard that keeps popping up in the editor window at every keystroke) rather than keeping the technical side of Wikipedia understandable as it used to be. That's not profitable. But that's the way it goes, Alvesgaspar. Seems like you and your knowledge become obsolete here. Make room for beginners and professionals.
 * This kind of arrogance is not acceptable, especially when addressed to a volunteer editor, and makes me re-evaluate my long collaboration in the project. Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:49, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Alvesgaspar: For the sake of clarity, the above message was posted by the anon . Whatever the merits of their (obviously negative) opinion of MediaViewer, this is not a message from the WMF team. As much as one can disagree with them, to my knowledge neither Fabrice nor anyone on his team has ever displayed such arrogance towards community members (in which case I would also be outraged of course :). Hope this clarifies the situation. Jean-Fred (talk) 13:26, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It does, thank you. I was fooled by the scarcastic tone of the anonymous user and wrongly assumed that he was part of the WMF team. My fault, sorry. However, my initial doubts about the legitimacy of the process still hold. Alvesgaspar (talk) 13:32, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hello Alvesgaspar, and thanks for your question. The ultimate decision-maker on whether or not to keep Media Viewer enabled by default is Lila Tretikov, Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director. On a day-to-day basis, I am in charge of this project as its product manager, in consultation with the multimedia team, and taking into account quantitative measures and feedback from our users. Note that we strive to take all viewpoints in consideration when making these types of feature decisions: the editor community, the readers we all serve and the developers who are most familiar with these features. All those perspectives are considered regularly, through a variety of channels, such as this one. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 15:30, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Why does this still exist?!
Last time I was polite. This time I won't be. You're still attacking all wiki users with this crap's continued existence, and now I'm sick of being polite with this garbage shoved in my face on a daily basis.

I'm doing something SIMPLE. I'm reading an article, and want to look at the pictures, sometimes accessing information on them. Somehow you've managed to make this a problem! How the hell do you make something simple into a problem?! Why the bloody hell is this garbage still live? Doing basic tasks now takes twenty-thirty times as long - twice-thrice as many steps, and each takes ten times as long to load!

This garbage DOES NOT OFFER EVEN A SINGLE ADVANTAGE OVER THE OLD INTERFACE IN ANY WAY. None, at all, whatsoever. There is absolutely NO REASON FOR IT TO EXIST.

Old interface:
 * Pros:
 * Quick to load.
 * Easy selection of image size.
 * Lets me choose the tradeoff between detail and download time.
 * Easy access to image information, such as uploader and pages containing, loaded instantly with the rest of the page.
 * Image loading status, pan, zoom, etc provided by the browser, working quickly and correctly.
 * Properly separates content and presentation.
 * Integrates perfectly with browser's navigation, because the browser WORKS.
 * Lets me see both a small-size image and the description at once.
 * Had clear text links, works well for everyone.
 * Cons:

New interface:
 * Pros:
 * Cons:
 * Slow as fuck. Seriously.  Garbage like this makes me want to turn off javascript permanently.
 * No access to select image size. Accessing the original image takes a half dozen clicks, every one of which is slow as fuck.  And none of the clicks even work until after the rest of the slow-as-fuck crap finishes loading.
 * No ability to pick whether I want to see lots of detail, or want to see it soon.
 * Slow access to image information. First you have to wait for it to load (which is slow as fuck), then you have to click to access it...  which is slow as fuck.  How the fuck do you make simply displaying more info slow?  Does your javascript run loops counting to a billion for the hell of it?
 * (EDIT: Gah!  It actually fucking DOES! (in effect, at least)  The god damn slow as fuck appearance of the info is INTENTIONAL!  Someone actually WROTE CODE TO MAKE IT FUCKING TAKE LONGER!  This goes beyond smoking crack and well into PCP territory!)
 * Ugly, huge, wasteful, slow as fuck image loading status bar, no pan or zoom. And, of course, no progressive loading - you have to sit there doing nothing until the entire image loads, rather than being able to see parts of it as it loads.
 * Combines content and presentation, doing a piss-poor job of it, duplicating built-in browser features, worse.
 * Viewing an image causes THREE (count them, THREE!) useless URLs to end up in the browser's history, for every single image you view. This means you might need to click "back" dozens of times to return to the last page you were reading - and the ability to quickly navigate pages is one of the things that makes wikis nice.
 * Can't see both the whole image, in any size, and the text at once
 * Uses ugly, large, cryptic icons for navigation, giving people no idea what they do, probably breaking it for people with poor vision - obviously they don't need access to images, right? (And it breaks if you use any zoom feature, too!)
 * Uses ugly, large, cryptic icons for navigation, giving people no idea what they do, probably breaking it for people with poor vision - obviously they don't need access to images, right? (And it breaks if you use any zoom feature, too!)

And, last but most definitely not least, even if all of the above were somehow magically fixed, this simply isn't how I (or, judging from the comments, just about anyone else) want to interact with images. Functionality issues aside, it's just not what anyone wants. There is no fixing this. People want to interact with images in a way they find pleasant, and this is not, never can be, and never will be it.

This "feature" NEEDS TO DIE. I'm sure someone spent a lot of effort on it (after all, duplicating existing browser functionality can't be easy!), but it is entirely ill-conceived and ill-executed, and should not exist. It provides no benefits, gets in the way, goes against every concept of good web design, and generally should be stuck firmly in the bit bucket where it belongs. 74.207.250.159 04:38, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Sucks
I just discovered this horrible feature. What a bad idea, and badly implemented. Seriously, just roll back the code-base. It sucks.

Could be a useful feature, but needs some work
Personally, I have mixed opinions. I can see how it would be useful (quick, appropriate sized preview of an image without having to go to the image page), but the UI is very weak. There's tons of ambiguous buttons that don't even have tooltips. I don't feel icons are always the best idea. Perhaps including labels on the icons (or using just labels) would be clearer. When an image is still loading, the navigation arrows are sometimes not shown.

It was difficult to find out how to get different sizes of the image. Not to mention they're hidden behind multiple clicks, now. When licensing details is large, it's partially hidden and you have to click to show it, and even then nest scrollbars.

A way to view large images easily is sorely needed. Some images need to be viewed in their full resolution and panned to be readable. Perhaps for sufficiently large images, we could click on the image to switch to a fullsized, pan-able version?

I'd also like to see a one-click button accessible on the media viewer and file pages for toggling the viewer on and off (presumably saving to the account if the user is logged in or local storage for anon users).

With that said, performance for loading an image of an optimal size for browsing is something I like. But at the moment (and more so when first released), it seems like a feature that is imperfect. Hofmic (talk) 17:54, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hello Hofmic: Most of your issues are being addressed in a release of Media Viewer that is now live here on MediaWiki and also on WIkimedia Commons. There is now a one-click disable/enable for registered users as well as anons found by pulling up the fold. You can access the large file size by clicking on the mountain icon in the bottom right corner. Tooltips will be available as well. You'll find most of these changes being released to the English Wikipedia tomorrow (Thursday). I hope that help you find Media Viewer a more complete product. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 16:55, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * As of the time signature shown, a disable feature for anons is not live on Commons. 159.53.174.143 22:58, 18 June 2014 (UTC)(Kevin)
 * We are storing the opt-out flag in localStorage. The option will only appear if your browser and your privacy settings allow for that. The feature was enabled on Commons a day ago. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 00:09, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Improvement
Thanks. Better now with "enlarge-button", but it could be more obvious.--Milseburg (talk) 17:56, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree, it could be more obvious. "Prominent" (like it is promoted) is something different. I also have very mixed feelings about this Media Viewer. --Miss-Sophie (talk) 14:36, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Clicking image
Why does clicking the image still not take you to the full resolution version? 86.179.5.128 02:17, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi there. The action that happens when you click on the image itself is being "reserved," so-to-speak, for future development. The next version of Media Viewer will have full zoom-and-pan options so there is an option there; Media Viewer should also eventually support annotations in files, and clicking on the image might be needed for that. Those are just two of several possible use cases. Sorry that clicking on the image is not as intuitive as it was based on the old way of getting to full resolution :/ Keegan (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

GREAT improvement! Almost a fifth as good as if this malware never existed.
Pictures like this need to be handled by the browser, with no layer hiding the page source in between.

Ceterum censeo: Media Viewer esse delendam. Tatzelbrumm (talk) 06:42, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Where's quickie for the old image page?
I would have stuck it out if the help page had explained how to easily click through to what I had before, the plain old image upload page. I couldn't find that explained in under a minute or two, so I switched it off in my user preferences. As a general rule, I hardly ever like improvements that pretend that the ugly under-the-hood predecessor doesn't exist (or confine it's mention to an obscure footnote). Nor am I willing to wade through the documentation carefully until it's proven the feature and I can successfully co-exist. This Catch 22 scenario often makes me a late adopter. 154.20.45.238 07:09, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

What is the green hammer thing for?
What is the green hammer thing for that you get to by clicking on "use this image"? Also why doesn't the "preview in browser" link underneath it work. This pimple on Wikipedia just seems to get worse. Please cut your losses and just get rid of it!
 * Can you give a link to the case for which it is not working ? Because this option always works for me. Also please detail you browser and it's version, perhaps it is a browser specific problem. TheDJ (talk) 14:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Cut your losses, guys
It must be pretty obvious to you all that this project has been a miserable failure. I have disabled it wherever I find it popping up. It does nothing for me, but it irritates me greatly. Why not just abandon it? If there is some problem you think it solves, design a solution from scratch. LynwoodF (talk) 16:25, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Rename link "expanded view" as "show in Media Viewer" and add logo or title
I write the following under the pre-condition, that the reader (imagine an IP-user) is on the Wikimedia Commons page of a file, looking around for the various options, links etc.:

The link description on the button, which says "expanded view", is misleading. It gives the impression of either getting more information about the image than already are on the Commons page or - more likely - of immediately getting a larger version/the original resolution of this picture. Both isn't true (you only get the original file after a seond click within the Viewer, something that can much more easily be achieved by simply once clicking on the image on the Commons page, where the user is at this moment anyway).

I would prefer to call it by its name and write on the button "Show in/with Media Viewer". In additon I would like a little logo/title (if you partly copy Flickr, why not this element, too?) reading "Media Viewer" in the left upper corner, that tells the reader which tool he is using and enables him to draw a connection to the suggested button inscription and every Wiki (help) text that mentions Media Viewer. The small impressum at the end of the page ("About Media Viewer") escapes notice too easily. --Miss-Sophie (talk) 09:49, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Lessons Unlearned
The latest version released to MediaWiki addresses many of the most critical concerns about the tool itself. I think the tool is nearing the point that it is a viable, shippable product. My question remains: How and when did you reach consensus to make the late-May version the universal default for all Wikis?

Did you, as Sven Manguard strongly recommended on 23 Nov 2013, consult any substantial portion of the Commons community? Why were the warnings of Vive la Rosière (22 Nov 2013) dismissed or deferred? When Pete F warned on 16 Feb that "enabling the Media Viewer by default will [likely] be rejected by the Wikimedia community," his narrow and immediate concerns were addressed but why was the larger point, that different workflow and usage patterns made MV a dangerous change that might be (and proved to be) incredibly disruptive and unpopular?

I don't hate the tool. I think the team did phenomenal work with the best interest of the WikiWorld at heart. I don't oppose change on first principle (far from it; I am an agile transformation specialist and change is both my life and my career). I just think that this implementation event is a massive red flag (a) that our consensus process is seriously broken, (b) that repeated, often-strident warnings from highly-respected editors were ignored and (c) that we have forgotten the lessons of history (Wikipedia Main Page Transformation, for instance) which taught us never, ever, ever to make fundamental changes to the user experience without exhaustive testing with the widest possible range of users.

I applaud the team and their work. It is an impressive tool for a certain type of user, showcasing first-rate code quality and a clean and highly-professional interface. I am terrified, however, that this is a sign of a sea change in our attitudes toward the user community. Editorship, collaboration and trust have eroded steadily since over the past six years. Is it inappropriate for us to request expect demand that project teams "first do not harm"? 159.53.110.143 01:04, 19 June 2014 (UTC) (Kevin)

Bug: when full screen mode is shut down, my browser window goes out of full screen mode, too
I use my Firefox browser on a Mac and usually in full screen mode. Now I find, that when I end the full screen mode for an image in Media Viewer, my browser window goes from full screen mode to a smaller window. The browser window should stay full screen sized, only Media Viewer should return to normal size. --Miss-Sophie (talk) 10:28, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Reproduced and confirmed. I'll file the bug. Good catch, Miss-Sophie. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 17:08, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Add a link in Wikipedia articles that leads directly to the file description page (avoiding Media Viewer)
There are many users (probably many with an account but also IPs without), that want to go directly to the file description page (on Commons or a local Wikipedia) for an image they see within a Wikipedia article. They don't want to go to Media Viewer first to then click on the Wikimedia Commons link there. So please give them the opportunity to do so, without the need to have an account and to be looged in, which is the only way at the moment to avoid Media Viwer by deactivating it in one's user settings.

My suggestion: There is this little button in the right lower corner of images within a Wikipedia article (an exception are images in infoboxes, maybe other forms I'm not aware of right now, too), the one that says "enlarge" when you go over it with a mouse. This button does the same like clicking on the image itself and is, I assume, hardly used, because clicking on the image is a much more direct way. Clicking on the image and clicking on the button both lead you to Media Viewer now. Why not give this button a new function and let it take the user to the description page (Commons page)? Give the button a new layout/symbol for clarification and invent something to also add this button to images within info boxes. --Miss-Sophie (talk) 11:18, 19 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I now have read, that one can also disable Media Viewer as an IP, by clicking a link in Media Viewer at the bottom, which leads to a file being saved on the IP's computer. I suppose this is a cookie? In the user settings of my browser I made Firefox always delete all cookies, once I have ended the application, because of security reasons. Since deleting cookies from time to time makes the Media Viewer cookie useless, so you would have to repeatedly disable Media Viewer (annoying), I still suggest the direct link to the description page. --Miss-Sophie (talk) 00:24, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually the "file" that gets saved is an entry in the browser's localStorage object, which is not necessarily supported on all browsers. We don't track this at all, in fact, the value doesn't get sent to the server at all. You can turn off the viewer, as an IP, without any record on the server. Deleting your local tracking information may or may not delete the localStorage - check your settings for that :) --MarkTraceur (talk) 04:10, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * One reason more to think about my suggestion, if this file storage is not supported by every browser and might or might not work after deleting of local tracking information. Give people, depending on the role they are using Wikipedia in at a certain time (learner, photo viewer, editor, ...), the possibility to chose, if they need Media Viewer right now or the original file description page. From case to case, picture to picture, right there at the roots of chosing an image within a Wikipedia article for closer examination, not in general by deactivating and undeactivating the application. Some interesting thoughts also by others below, like the sidebar thing, though I would prefer to have the option for every single image. --Miss-Sophie (talk) 09:01, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I would like the button/toggle functionality to view the file description with a one-click, so that I can enjoy Media Viewer as a general reader, then with one click convert the page disabling Media Viewer to check sourcing as an editor. In this way it would be a default feature, as I check through subsidiary/related articles for additional information as a reader and consistency as an editor. Then each time I returned to a page, I could easily go to any image and disable Media View to source check or better view charts or maps, especially those with great detail.


 * That's my "druthers", I don't think it should be either-or, I'd like it to be both available at a click on an image at each image, my choice. Otherwise, maybe a disabling opt out for the entire article in the "Tools" list on the sidebar. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:27, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Media Viewer is now live on all wikis
Hi folks, we're happy to announce that Media Viewer is now live on all wikis hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation!

Media Viewer is testing well on all remaining Wikipedias (e.g.: Chinese, Arabic, Hindu, Indonesian, etc.) and sister sites (e.g.: MetaWiki, Wikibooks, Wikiquotes, Wikiversity, Wiktionary). And the multimedia team worked hard in the last few weeks to develop a range of new improvements, in response to frequent community requests on this page and elsewhere. We hope you will try them out and let us know what you think.

1. Features on All Wikis These features are now available on all wikis as of today:
 * View original file (#630)
 * Scroll down to see more info (#697)
 * Show Commons link to logged out users (#429)
 * Easy opt-out for registered users (#703)
 * Opt-out for anons (#704)
 * Add more tooltips to Media Viewer (#546)

You can test these features on this on the English Wikipedia.

2. Features on MediaWiki.org only These features are now available on MediaWiki.org and will be deployed to all wikis by next Thursday:
 * Make it easier to find image information (#706)
 * Prominent links to different image sizes (#664)
 * Disable MediaViewer for certain images (#511)
 * Track 'View original file’ and ‘Commons link' clicks (#715, #726)
 * Track Media Viewer Opt-outs (/#558, #675)

You can test these features on this demo page on MediaWiki.org, as well as on this metrics dashboard — and learn more on this updated help page.

3. Features in development Other tasks in development or analysis include:
 * Show attribution credits in download tool (#598)
 * Make 'Commons link' and 'Use this file' more discoverable (#732)
 * Click on image in Media Viewer to help view original file (#712)
 * Improve Media Viewer UI on tablets (zoom/scroll) (#716)
 * Remember the last selection for ‘Use this file' (#660)

You can view more details about these features on this planning site.

4. Feedback Overall, we keep getting generally positive feedback worldwide, with these latest results:
 * A majority of global respondents find the tool useful (~60% average across surveys)
 * Cumulative approval by language: English 29%, French 70%, Spanish 78%, Dutch 59%, Portuguese 81%, German 28%, Hungarian 62%, Catalan 71% as of yesterday
 * Daily approval rates have increased on English Wikipedia from about 23% a day after launch to 39% two weeks after launch (and German approval has also increased from 23% to 56% in the same period).
 * We anticipate further approval increases on these sites, as more new features get rolled out in coming days, based on community feedback.

We are also starting to track opt-out rates to see how many people turn off Media Viewer in their preferences. As of June 16, about 875 users had disabled this feature on the English Wikipedia, two weeks after launch: this represents about 0.34% of all registered users who touched the site since launch. We are sorry that this small minority of users doesn’t like the tool, but we are glad that so many other users are finding it useful. :)

Please let us know what you think of these new features. Which do you like most? least? Are there other must-have features that need to be developed right away, before we move on to other projects?

Thanks to all the community and team members for all you’ve done to make Media Viewer possible. :) Onward! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 18:14, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

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