On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 18:27:31 -0400, Sj <2.718281828(a)gmail.com> wrote:
This has certainly been discussed before; it is a
much-needed
extension of the wiki concept beyond the realm of text. One might
start by incorporating simple image-editing, before moving on to
video, but to each his own.
Of course, the problem is, how do you "diff" a single-frame
(bitmapped, binary, probably compressed) image? At least with video
you can abstract to the set-of-frames level (given the ability to
uncompress things first), and treat the frames like you'd treat words
in a "normal" diff. I guess SVGs are pretty diff-able: not only do
they consist of vectors, but they're conveniently described with text;
so all you need is some way of visualising the resultant diff...
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 20:18:07 -0500, Andrew Davis
<andrewdavis(a)nicetry.net> wrote:
I realize that average internet access speeds are
not up to the task of
transferring such large files at this time, and I also realize that
coding such a system could take quite a long time, but perhaps the
system could be finished and integrated into MediaWiki by the time such
transfer speeds are commonly available.
I like this kind of long-term planning :-) A modification that makes
it easy to associate an item in the Mediawiki db with a browser plugin
that launches when it is 'edited', rather than the textarea used for
text, might be a start [...]
It might also be worth looking at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multimedia - it's mainly about how best
to include sounds and videos within Wikimedia projects, and some of it
is about policies and Help: pages which aren't necessarily relevant
here; but it also touches on some of the possible ways in which the
software should be made more "aware" of these media.
Perhaps the upload==Image structure could be completely replaced with
something more thoroughly planned, so that it could eventually provide
a framework for treating these files as "first-class citizens"
complete with history information and a built-in "knowledge" of "what
they are" (i.e. code that treats sounds different from bitmaps
different from vector images, far beyond just sending an appropriate
MIME-type)...
*/me dreams...*
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]