Hi everyone,
We’d like to give you a quick update on Media Viewer and get your feedback on next steps,
as we get ready to release it more widely.
1. Overview
We have been making good progress with beta version v0.2 of Media Viewer (1), with a focus
on a better user interface, faster image load, more file info and attributions -- as well
as improved 'Use this file' tools (e.g.: share, embed, download).
2. Release Plan
In coming weeks, we plan to release this version v0.2 gradually out of beta, starting with
limited tests on a few pilot sites at the end of this quarter. Based on pilot test
results, we plan a wider release of Media Viewer v0.2 next quarter. We’d appreciate your
comments on our proposed release plan (2). Is there anything we could do to improve it?
Anything missing? Note that this version only supports the most widely used image file
formats — other media types such such as audio, video or PDF slides will be supported in
future releases.
3. Testing
We would be grateful if you could help us test the latest beta version, by following our
simple testing tips (3). Note the latest features can be found on our beta site, but it is
very slow. For better performance, you can test last week’s features on
MediaWiki.org. We
release every Thursday on
MediaWiki.org, then Monday on Commons and sister sites, then the
following Thursday on all wikis.
4. Feedback
After you’ve tried the latest version, we would love to hear your feedback on our Media
Viewer discussion page (4), so we can address the most critical issues before wider
deployment. Note that we still have a lot of work to do, so we may not be able to address
all your suggestions right away.
5. Pilot sites
We are now approaching a few pilot sites to test Media Viewer by default at the end of
March. Would you recommend pilot sites that you think would be open to experimenting with
this feature early? We are looking for small sites with tech-savvy communities that are
open to new features. So far, we’ve reached out to French, Hungarian, Korean, Polish,
Swedish and Vietnamese community members who expressed interest in this project. Anyone
else we should be contacting? (e.g. non-Wikipedia site)
6. Key features
Are there any key features you think are needed before we turn on Media Viewer by default
for all users? For example, do you think we need to offer an opt-out preference for people
who don't want this feature? (We’re not sure this preference is needed, because you
can already shift-click or control-click to bypass Media Viewer and open files directly on
Commons — but we would like to hear what you and others think.) Anything else that you
consider a must-have feature for wider deployment?
7. Thanks
We are grateful to all the community members who helped create this tool. This product was
developed in discussions held throughout 2013 (5) — and we then received invaluable
feedback (6) from some of the 12,000+ beta testers who enabled Media Viewer around the
world since November. The suggestions they kindly gave us have helped improve this tool
and many of them are now being implemented, as part of our current release plan (7).
We really appreciate your wonderful contributions and look forward to our next steps
together — so we can all bring a better multimedia experience to our users!
Fabrice, on behalf of the Multimedia Team
_______________________________
(1) About Media Viewer:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer
(2) Media Viewer Release Plan:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Media_Viewer/Release_Plan
(3) How to test Media Viewer
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer#How_can_I_help…
(4) Media Viewer Discussion Page:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer
(5) Multimedia Roundtables:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Roundtables
(6) Community Feedback:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Media_Viewer#Feedback
(7) Current Release Tasks (Mingle):
http://ur1.ca/gmfft
_______________________________
Fabrice Florin
Product Manager, Multimedia
Wikimedia Foundation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)
_______________________________
Fabrice Florin
Product Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)