On 6 November 2014 01:05, Brian Wolff <bawolff@gmail.com> wrote:

On 11/5/14, James Forrester <jforrester@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 4 November 2014 23:12, quiddity <pandiculation@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think the ideas in the onwiki thread were more along the lines of:
>> * Putting a control-bar along the bottom of the thumbnail, with video
>> controls, like the audio files have. e.g.
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:My_Bloody_Valentine_-_Last_Supper.ogg
>>
>
> No. Adding yet more gunk to the page is a really terrible idea, violating
> the fundamental principles of only showing more stuff on the page when
> strictly needed. Good point though, the bad display does need to be fixed
> for audio files.
>

There's already a control bar on some video files if you hover your
mouse over them (It depends which code path is triggered. It happens
on videos with big enough thumbnails that they aren't opened in a new
window. This is true for most image pages).

I'm unclear on what specifically you are objecting to on audio files.
Are you not liking the "Menu" button?

No, the menu button is fine; indeed,

it's pretty much everything else that's wrong with it. :-)

Each audio file transclusion has in its "rest" non-hover state the entire set of playback controls, which isn't what we do for videos (even, as you say, the ones where the preview is "big enough", where we only show these controls on hover).

Per https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MediaWiki_audio_file_transclusion_%E2%80%93_on-load_screenshot.png which I just took, the interface:

shows a time offset from the start, which provides no value before it starts playing;
shows a "CC" button for closed captions which shows in the exact same state even when there aren't any;
shows a compound volume/mute button which adds more complexity; and yet
doesn't tell you (except implicitly by not showing a picture) that it's an audio.

See e.g. the BBC for how audio excerpts can be shown with a simple audio play icon to activate the toolbar and everything else instead, with must less visual noise and clutter (most viewers of the article aren't here to listen to the audio/video files, etc.):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30016007

James D. Forrester
Product Manager, Editing
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

jforrester@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester