I think the current image handling is slightly messed up, for the
following reasons:
1) There are too many different ways to link small/large versions.
a) There are usability problems with Brion's suggested approach of
including the larger version of an image on the image page:
- The headline may say something like image_small.jpg whereas
the actual image displayed is large
- Clicking through a second time leads to another (usually
empty) page
- Captions effectively have to be entered up to three times
2) Users have to go to too much effort in order to create small versions
of images. This is not something that researchers and authors should
have to waste time with. It also impedes uploading of high resolution
images, which can really hurt us when we start thinking about a printed
edition of Wikipedia.
3) Content of image pages is neglected because it is "hidden" most of
the time. Many people treat image descriptions like changelog entries
(relatively carelessly).
The fact that it even took me a while to understand the current handling
of images doesn't bode well for the usability of the concept.
I propose the following changes:
--------------------------------
1) As suggested earlier, an image page should always display the image
it refers to.
2) Smaller versions of images should be auto-generated in a separate
directory similar to the math/ directory used for texvc's images. The
small versions would be viewed on the article where the [[Image]] tag is
included, whereas the image would link to the original size version.
We could use the GD library functions for creating thumbnails. See, for
example:
http://www.onlinetools.org/articles/creating_thumbnails_all.php
However, auto-determining thumbnail sizes is problematic because a
useful size often depends on context. A proper way to handle this may be
to support the following variants of the [[Image]] tag:
[[Image:foo.jpg width=100 height=100]]
[[Image:foo.jpg width=100]]
[[Image:foo.jpg height=100]]
-> height or width autocalculated as per aspect ratio
[[Image:foo.jpg size=10%]]
The smaller versions would be generated as necessary and stored in a
temporary directory. The matching original image information (date,
size) would be stored in a table so that they can be updated on demand.
3) The image page content should be included by default below the image
(preceded by a <BR>). That way when you type
[[Image:foo.jpg]]
You get
<img src="http://../foo.jpg"><BR>
<I>This is an ugly photo!</I>
To suppress this and type a manual caption, you would have to do
something like:
[[Image:foo.jpg notext]]
That way, you can have
- the standard case: image with a simple caption; no need to update
twice
- the extended case: image with a short caption on the page where it is
embedded and a longer discussion on its image page.
Discussion
----------
The approach discussed above has almost no obvious disadvantages. The
following problems may ensue, though:
- Existing image pages will have to be re-edited to remove now redundant
image content. Existing thumbnail images can be deleted.
- It is somewhat counter-intuitive to have the caption rendered
implicitly on a page that includes an [[Image:foo.jpg]] tag. The
alternative would be to do away with image pages as regular
content-pages altogether. (Realistically, having a separate image
namespace may have been a bad idea in the first place.)
However, having lots of redundant (and often neglected) content is
clearly the least preferable choice.
There would, in my opinion, be massive advantages to having
auto-generated small versions of images. This would greatly increase the
usability on many pages, and make the traditional "click to view larger
version" approach be usable almost anywhere.
Is the GD library installed on Wikipedia's server?
I would appreciate feedback on this proposal. I'd be willing to give the
autogeneration a try, if no one else volunteers.
Regards,
Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de
following reasons:
1) There are too many different ways to link small/large versions.
a) There are usability problems with Brion's suggested approach of
including the larger version of an image on the image page:
- The headline may say something like image_small.jpg whereas
the actual image displayed is large
- Clicking through a second time leads to another (usually
empty) page
- Captions effectively have to be entered up to three times
2) Users have to go to too much effort in order to create small versions
of images. This is not something that researchers and authors should
have to waste time with. It also impedes uploading of high resolution
images, which can really hurt us when we start thinking about a printed
edition of Wikipedia.
3) Content of image pages is neglected because it is "hidden" most of
the time. Many people treat image descriptions like changelog entries
(relatively carelessly).
The fact that it even took me a while to understand the current handling
of images doesn't bode well for the usability of the concept.
I propose the following changes:
--------------------------------
1) As suggested earlier, an image page should always display the image
it refers to.
2) Smaller versions of images should be auto-generated in a separate
directory similar to the math/ directory used for texvc's images. The
small versions would be viewed on the article where the [[Image]] tag is
included, whereas the image would link to the original size version.
We could use the GD library functions for creating thumbnails. See, for
example:
http://www.onlinetools.org/articles/creating_thumbnails_all.php
However, auto-determining thumbnail sizes is problematic because a
useful size often depends on context. A proper way to handle this may be
to support the following variants of the [[Image]] tag:
[[Image:foo.jpg width=100 height=100]]
[[Image:foo.jpg width=100]]
[[Image:foo.jpg height=100]]
-> height or width autocalculated as per aspect ratio
[[Image:foo.jpg size=10%]]
The smaller versions would be generated as necessary and stored in a
temporary directory. The matching original image information (date,
size) would be stored in a table so that they can be updated on demand.
3) The image page content should be included by default below the image
(preceded by a <BR>). That way when you type
[[Image:foo.jpg]]
You get
<img src="http://../foo.jpg"><BR>
<I>This is an ugly photo!</I>
To suppress this and type a manual caption, you would have to do
something like:
[[Image:foo.jpg notext]]
That way, you can have
- the standard case: image with a simple caption; no need to update
twice
- the extended case: image with a short caption on the page where it is
embedded and a longer discussion on its image page.
Discussion
----------
The approach discussed above has almost no obvious disadvantages. The
following problems may ensue, though:
- Existing image pages will have to be re-edited to remove now redundant
image content. Existing thumbnail images can be deleted.
- It is somewhat counter-intuitive to have the caption rendered
implicitly on a page that includes an [[Image:foo.jpg]] tag. The
alternative would be to do away with image pages as regular
content-pages altogether. (Realistically, having a separate image
namespace may have been a bad idea in the first place.)
However, having lots of redundant (and often neglected) content is
clearly the least preferable choice.
There would, in my opinion, be massive advantages to having
auto-generated small versions of images. This would greatly increase the
usability on many pages, and make the traditional "click to view larger
version" approach be usable almost anywhere.
Is the GD library installed on Wikipedia's server?
I would appreciate feedback on this proposal. I'd be willing to give the
autogeneration a try, if no one else volunteers.
Regards,
Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de