Extension talk:Media Viewer/About

Least astonishment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#mediaviewer/File:World_War_II_Casualties2.svg

This breaks that principle very badly. Going from a graph in a click or two to full size images of people digging their own graves, or bodies from a concentration camp is not a good thing.

Rich Farmbrough 19:04, 17 July 2014 (UTC).


 * If I open en:World_War_II I can see all of the pics in plain sight anyway. Am I missing something? --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:13, 21 July 2014 (UTC) PS: to make myself clear, in that paragraph I can see the graph and then the pictures you mention right below it. I don't really need to see them full-screen to know what they're about, etc. A bug could be filed requesting that some system is implemented to exclude some pictures from slideshow in MV (which ones? how should this be done? anyway, if this was your request, please let me know!). My point here is merely that this is not how it currently works for slideshows on Commons, for example, and that a similar request would not meet some communities' consensus. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:24, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * PPS, I also checked but couldn't find anything related, so we'd file a new bug. Thanks for your feedback, Rich. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:40, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Make Media Viewer image clickable
Normally, I could open the description in new tab with middle-click, and/or open image in new tab with middle-click from the description.

Now, I can open description in new tab, but after opening Media Viewer in the single tab, I can no longer open image in new tab at all. The "open image" icon cannot be middle-clicked and is far too small compared with normal behavior.

--50.136.155.136 23:14, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

The real solution is to restore the clickability of the image, instead of relying on the hard-to-reach icon when trying to view full-size. Extra effort, more of the "modern" "flat" fad.

--50.136.155.136 04:28, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Show categories
Media view is ok, but it would be great if it couls show in the image page the categories link, to surf quickly in case you opened it for mistake. Would be very appreciated by advancer users (like me, uh) --Sailko (talk) 10:54, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Sailko, it already does that. Open an image, scroll down and look to the right: there's a grey tag icon, and some categories are listed there. See also bug 62277. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:29, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Update: Quick access to enable/disable, opt-in/opt-out metrics




Hi everyone. We appreciate the ongoing conversation about Media Viewer, and we’ve been discussing practical ways to address concerns and improve metrics used to establish the default configuration for this tool.

With that in mind, we would like to propose a new feature which we think can address many of the issues you reported here: the Viewing Options Panel would make it much easier to disable (or enable) Media Viewer. This feature would prominently display a ‘cog’ icon at the top right corner of the screen, as shown in the thumbnails to the right — and in this rough prototype. Clicking on that icon would display a settings panel with two viewing options:
 * 'View quickly’ — enable Media Viewer (or keep it enabled)
 * 'View all the details’ — disable Media Viewer and show the file page instead

The Viewing Options Panel would let users quickly select the mode that works best for them, switching back and forth to compare them. (Note that Media Viewer already includes a “Disable/Enable’ link, but it is located below the fold and can be hard to find; this new feature would bring it above the fold, where everyone can see it.)

This would make it easier for users to decide for themselves if they want Media Viewer enabled or not. It would also enable us to collect better user data on whether or not this tool is useful -- which can inform our discussions about default state for different user groups. To that end, we plan to track the number of enable and disable events by user group on this existing opt-in/out dashboard (this dashboard now tracks clicks on the “Disable/Enable’ links, which would be replaced by the Viewing Options Panel).

What do you think of this new feature? Does it seem worth developing at this time? Any suggestions for improvement?

We are also considering a controlled experiment on the English Wikipedia. We invite you to comment on that separate proposal on its research page.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts and feedback on Media Viewer. Your comments are really helpful to us, and we look forward to working with you in coming days to find a resolution to your concerns. To be continued, Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 16:31, 18 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Formally, there is consensus on English Wikipedia that this tool should not be enabled by default. Informally, there appears to be strong consensus on Wikimedia Commons to that effect, and similar sentiments expressed strongly on this discussion page. There is also relevant discussion emerging on the German Wikipedia. Until there is some action on the part of WMF to reduce the intrusion of this inadequate software into the daily experience of many millions of readers, I have no interest in discussing small tweaks to the software. If and when it is changed to "opt-in," I will be happy to discuss improvements. -Pete F (talk) 17:41, 18 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with Peter F. The consensus for "opt-in" is strong. I used to send links to Wikipedia pages to people who are not very computer literate. Now they are confused by the Media Viewer intrusion and are not able to read the page and look at full size images as they normally did in their browser. You guys at WMF are living in an ivory tower and are not aware of the real Internet world. Users and contributors will thank you when you make this thing opt-in and you will not lose face in doing that.--Michel le tigre (talk) 18:57, 18 July 2014 (UTC)


 * This would be more intuitive to visitors. Right now they possibly do not know what Media Viewer is. With the layout graphics, it more becomes obvious what MediaViewer is. I can't assess whether it's worth though; if it fits your development strategy, implement it. -- Rillke (talk) 22:05, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Bug - Out of place quotation box on topleft of page
After loading the Wikipedia main page's featured image in Media Viewer and then closing it by clicking the X button on the top-right, the v-shaped corner of a quotation box appears in the top-left corner of the page, near the Wikipedia logo. LokiClock (talk) 23:34, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi LokiClock, thanks for your feedback! I couldn't reproduce this issue with Chrome or Firefox, though. Can you please share info about your browser/skin/operating system? Thanks, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:38, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I think LokiClock refers to bug #67894. --Miss-Sophie (talk) 10:35, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Truly dreadful
Please nuke this feature from orbit, it is utterly dreadful and was not needed in the first place!--137.44.100.1

Upright formated image is shown in landscape format
rotates in Media Viewer and is then shown in wrong landscape format. --Miss-Sophie (talk) 10:43, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Added here. Also, thanks for the catch above! Best, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:08, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

How to exclude images within a template like infoboxes?
How can I use , to exclude a flag symbol in an infobox template from being displayed in Media Viewer? It doesn't work, since the flag is included via a template itself, not in the form. Would one have to change the template? Other images in this infobox are included as something like this:
 * parameter = image.jpg

--Miss-Sophie (talk) 13:14, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi, this was discussed at length in media-related mailing lists, and I believe it was also implemented as per this Mingle card. If the noviewer parameter shouldn't work (I haven't tested it yet), we can ping my colleague Keegan or someone else from the team to tell us more about this. Thanks! --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:26, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I tried to follow these instructions and according to them I should use in this case. --Miss-Sophie (talk) 13:43, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but the case is probably not covered there? I think infoboxes do not accept the syntax including square brackets. User:Tgr (WMF) surely knows :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:59, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * That was my point. The syntax is different, so I don't know, what to do. I suppose, one would have to change the template, would have to add the there? But I'm quite unexperienced with editing templates. --Miss-Sophie (talk) 14:22, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hard to tell without seeing the template. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing something like en:Template:Infobox_country, Tgr (WMF). I believe many of them work this way. Clearly this is not the correct syntax in this case :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:56, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't understand. What does the "class=metadata" piece accomplish? Is the code the "correct syntax" with or without it? Does the correctness have to do with how MV behaves, or something else? -Pete F (talk) 14:56, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why those would have to be hidden in the first place, they seem part of the content to me... But if you do hide them, they would need to be hidden with the noviewer strategy and NOT the metadata strategy, and it would have to be done by changing the implementation of Template:Infobox country. TheDJ (talk) 15:01, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi Pete. According to this page, it might be used in edge cases when you need to disable MV on some pics. However, this Mingle card says something slightly different. It seems to me that the user guide doesn't cover the case where the image is located in an infobox, but I might be wrong (I'm not in the MV team), so one of them will ASAP explain all of this :) TheDJ, it might be that Miss-Sophie is actually trying to hide non-SVG, low-quality icons which might look bad in MV? It's just a guess, she can tell us better. Best, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 15:05, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The syntax that works is probably  but dealing with this inside the parameter value is a really bad idea; the infobox should be changed. (Although personally I agree with TheDJ that these should not be hidden, esp. the coat of arms which is completely unreadable in the size used in the infobox.) Like this, for example (test). --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I would guess Miss Sophie might be talking about small icons/insignias, eg, at en:Winston Churchill, the image en:File:UK-Army-OF4.gif (in his infobox) shows up in the slideshow (it's part of en:Template:Infobox officeholder).
 * All of the separate flag icon templates should also be updated with the correct fix (which I believe is the  option). Eg. At enwiki, that'd be all the templates covered by WikiProject_Flag_Template. (but I'm not sure) –Quiddity (talk) 19:13, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, to stop all the guessing ;-) Quiddity's thoughts about what I might be thinking of go into the right direction. I don't think - and personally was very confused, when I stumbled over this image in the slideshow - the little England flag from the band infobox in this article should be displayed in MV. The help page doesn't give a hint about what to do in this case, where the synax is different (template), and suggested earlier explicitely for flags and small icons to use the metadata class to exclude those images from MV. --Miss-Sophie (talk) 20:06, 22 July 2014 (UTC)