I don't know why longer image filenames in categories is not a default setting in the Mediawiki software. At least a little bit longer. It is very short now. Please see this discussion at a Shoutwiki forum:
*http://www.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Forum:Long_image_names_in_categories
I'd also like this. You can probably start a discussion in Mailing lists and/or open a bugreport to add a new config setting to control the length of the image name in galleries.
I wish all bug reports, config setting discussions, and feature requests happened mainly on Mediawiki talk pages. Most people don't like remembering the intricacies of other systems such as mailing lists, Phabricator, Flow, etc..
If you don't mind maybe you can start a discussion on those forums. I just don't use them often enough to feel familiar with them.
This is User:Timeshifter. I am logged in, but my user name is not showing up automatically.
User:Ciencia Al Poder. I started a feature request on Bugzilla:
* https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T166989
Default MediaWiki setting for length of filenames in categories is 22 characters. Then the ellipsis (...) shows up.
You have to go outside Wikipedia and the Commons to see this. For example look at "File:Under contruction icon-yellow.svg" filename in this category on the Shoutwiki Hub user image category.
* http://www.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Category:User_images
It shows up as "Under contruction icon..."
That is a total of 22 characters and spaces before the ellipsis shows up. That is way too short. We need a longer default length, and/or a config setting to choose a longer length.
Wikipedia and Commons have much longer filenames in categories. See:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_non-free_files_with_valid_backlink
* https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Women%27s_March_on_Washington
Commons has a default gadget setting for longer filenames. I don't know how Wikipedia does it. It doesn't matter whether one is logged in or not. Both Wikipedia and the Commons have long filenames in categories.
See discussion here:
* https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Tricrswpl7rhv4o5
* http://www.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Forum:Long_image_names_in_categories
Ah, I haven't checked the details of how it was implemented. I though the text was being cut at a fixed character length, but it's not. It's automatically cut to fit one line with CSS. This is easily solvable with custom CSS and not worth another configuration variable.
In fact it was fixed to 25 characters in $wgGalleryOptions before 1.28 but now it can be overridden easily with CSS.
User:Ciencia Al Poder. I copied the Commons gadget CSS to a Shoutwiki wiki to fix the problem.
But that is not a good solution because it may not work longterm. The underlying CSS in the mediawiki software may change. This happened with a previous fix when the solution was in custom JS. The underlying software changed and the custom JS no longer worked in allowing longer image filenames to be visible in categories.
It may not merit a configuration variable if the default setting is long enough. For example; 100 characters as a default setting.
If you upgrade MediaWiki, there are many other changes to worry about, I don't think that a "not-so probable change" in this CSS code in the future would give you more headaches than a configuration variable that only sysadmins can change affecting the whole wiki.
User:Ciencia Al Poder. Why is this crappy talk system still being used on Mediawiki.org? :)
There are tens of thousands of wikis outside Wikimedia. It shouldn't be necessary for the admins on all these wikis to have to figure out this stuff.
The simpler solution is to have a default length of 100 characters. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_non-free_files_with_valid_backlink
