When people upload files to commons it would be nice if they would consider that not everyone out there has the latest PC hardware.
My pc is a pentium IV, 2 ghz, with 1gb of RAM and a 64 mb graphics card. Not the worst system out there I would think. I found a new map added to the India article on the nl.wikipedia. Which looked quite nice so I wanted to see the original version of it. I clicked on it and crash there went firefox. Now I have managed to open the file but it completely eats all of my computer resources! It eats 100% of my CPU capacity and 500 mb of RAM for just this file (add to this the 250 mb of RAM that gets eaten by the usual programs on my pc and I get very close to my max). So when people upload files please see to it that people with lower configurations can use it! Most people simply do not work with the latest hardware available!
It is this file btw: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/India_roadway_map.svg Waerth
I know it sounds tempting, but the "Crash my computer" button on Commons will just have to not be clicked. :)
In other words, if you know an image is large, as in very very large, don't click on the full-size version link.
Where is the image description page for this map, by the way?
On 12/18/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
When people upload files to commons it would be nice if they would consider that not everyone out there has the latest PC hardware.
My pc is a pentium IV, 2 ghz, with 1gb of RAM and a 64 mb graphics card. Not the worst system out there I would think. I found a new map added to the India article on the nl.wikipedia. Which looked quite nice so I wanted to see the original version of it. I clicked on it and crash there went firefox. Now I have managed to open the file but it completely eats all of my computer resources! It eats 100% of my CPU capacity and 500 mb of RAM for just this file (add to this the 250 mb of RAM that gets eaten by the usual programs on my pc and I get very close to my max). So when people upload files please see to it that people with lower configurations can use it! Most people simply do not work with the latest hardware available!
It is this file btw: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/India_roadway_map.svg Waerth _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 12/18/06, James Hare messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
I know it sounds tempting, but the "Crash my computer" button on Commons will just have to not be clicked. :)
In other words, if you know an image is large, as in very very large, don't click on the full-size version link.
Size is not a problem: the png version is about 4000x4000 and I can view it fine with an Athlon 900Mhz with 2gb of ram, while I gave up on the .svg after two minutes at 100% cpu. Seems rather a problem with Firefox's svg handling.
Where is the image description page for this map, by the way?
It's here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:India_roadway_map.svg
Alfio
James Hare wrote:
I know it sounds tempting, but the "Crash my computer" button on Commons will just have to not be clicked. :)
In other words, if you know an image is large, as in very very large, don't click on the full-size version link.
Where is the image description page for this map, by the way?
Ok for me. But how many of our XXXXXXX visitors know this? This is the xxth case of yes we as wikimedia editors are computersavvy and work our way around. But 99% of the general population is not. Their Firefox crashes (or other browser) and they just recon something is wrong with the site. This is very unfriendly for endusers. The map is worth nothing when viewed as a thumbnail! So if this is the case, the .png version should be used by default and not the .svg version as it seems unstable. It is not just this map. By looking around on commons I found many many maps that gave me this same problem.
So we are busy becoming very unfriendly very fast for the average enduser. Let alone for our targetaudience which is people who will view this on older machines. There goes our "access to knowledge for everyone" slogan. As these maps again are worth "nothing" when viewed as a thumbnail!
Waerth
fyi, i have a computer from the flinstones-age, 250 mb RAM on a pentium III, and the rest is probably bas as well, and i can view the image without big problems, and without firefox craching. I have to note however that i was unable to see the text in the image when i enlarged it, i was only able to see the background.
Lodewijk
2006/12/18, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net:
James Hare wrote:
I know it sounds tempting, but the "Crash my computer" button on Commons will just have to not be clicked. :)
In other words, if you know an image is large, as in very very large,
don't
click on the full-size version link.
Where is the image description page for this map, by the way?
Ok for me. But how many of our XXXXXXX visitors know this? This is the xxth case of yes we as wikimedia editors are computersavvy and work our way around. But 99% of the general population is not. Their Firefox crashes (or other browser) and they just recon something is wrong with the site. This is very unfriendly for endusers. The map is worth nothing when viewed as a thumbnail! So if this is the case, the .png version should be used by default and not the .svg version as it seems unstable. It is not just this map. By looking around on commons I found many many maps that gave me this same problem.
So we are busy becoming very unfriendly very fast for the average enduser. Let alone for our targetaudience which is people who will view this on older machines. There goes our "access to knowledge for everyone" slogan. As these maps again are worth "nothing" when viewed as a thumbnail!
Waerth _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Geez, that is one hugely impressive map. what a labour of love!
How do you make a "low res" version of an SVG?? the only way is to actually take things out of the image, isn't it?
SVG support is going to improve dramatically over the next few years, I imagine. It doesn't seem sound to recommend that people upload inferior works when this soon shouldn't be an issue.
On 18/12/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote: By looking around on commons I found many many
maps that gave me this same problem.
If you can give me a list of the images that caused you problems, I'll put a small template on the image pages warning that they might cause browser crashes.
cheers, Brianna user:pfctdayelise
That is not the point.
IS there nobody here who understands that we make this project for all the people out there! Not to satisfy our own geekly lust to pursue the latest fashion in computerelectronics and programming.
*It is not about me being able to view this or not*. It is about the many many people out there who do not have the latest gear installed on their computer, nor will they install the latest gear on their computers. But it seems that plea is falling on deaf (wo)mens ears here. And it seems with these kind of answers to me that we are just making this project for the computersavvy 1% of this world population.
Do we really need to be the trendsetter like with .svg?????? And with that exclude the majority of the internetters, including those in the countries that we say we set out to help in the first place? Or should we follow the herd so we can have a product that the fast majority of the people can use? I thought the wikimediaprojects were about the last one. We should not be the trendsetters in these areas. Because that means nobody can use it.
You are talking about being better supported in a couple of years Briana. Ask yourself the question do you want people to be able to use this graphics *NOW *or in a couple of years?
Also putting warnings up is strange. Why put them up. Like I said in my initial mail. These graphics are *USELESS *when viewed as a thumbnail. They might just as well not be there.
Waerth
Geez, that is one hugely impressive map. what a labour of love!
How do you make a "low res" version of an SVG?? the only way is to actually take things out of the image, isn't it?
SVG support is going to improve dramatically over the next few years, I imagine. It doesn't seem sound to recommend that people upload inferior works when this soon shouldn't be an issue.
On 18/12/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote: By looking around on commons I found many many
maps that gave me this same problem.
If you can give me a list of the images that caused you problems, I'll put a small template on the image pages warning that they might cause browser crashes.
cheers, Brianna user:pfctdayelise _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 19/12/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
That is not the point.
IS there nobody here who understands that we make this project for all the people out there! Not to satisfy our own geekly lust to pursue the latest fashion in computerelectronics and programming.
I am not in favour of bleeding edge technology for its own sake, but the reason this file is so large is because of the detail in it. I don't see how that can be reduced without reducing quality.
There are links on that page to a PNG and a simpler SVG. These are ways to make it accessible for all without sacrificing quality.
Do we really need to be the trendsetter like with .svg??????
OK, my point is that as far as I can tell, we are not doing anything trendsetting with this image that is causing it to be huge and complex. It is just intricately detailed. I presume that has a Featured Picture, it has had a number of people looking at it and has been checked to have valid SVG code (actually I am not sure this is a criterion... I will go suggest it now).
You are talking about being better supported in a couple of years Briana. Ask yourself the question do you want people to be able to use this graphics *NOW *or in a couple of years?
I want them to be able to use it now and then, but I don't want us to be kicking ourselves for insisting on inferior quality in the future when it becomes a non-issue.
cheers, Brianna
Brianna Laugher wrote:
On 19/12/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
That is not the point.
IS there nobody here who understands that we make this project for all the people out there! Not to satisfy our own geekly lust to pursue the latest fashion in computerelectronics and programming.
I am not in favour of bleeding edge technology for its own sake, but the reason this file is so large is because of the detail in it. I don't see how that can be reduced without reducing quality.
There are links on that page to a PNG and a simpler SVG. These are ways to make it accessible for all without sacrificing quality.
Yes and now here is the catch. The graphic is all over wikipedia already. Like in nl.wikipedia on the India page as a thumbnail. Now someone clicks on it and is immediately taken to the original huge .svg file which crashes firefox 2 about 50% of the times and IE doesn't seem to be able to open it at all.
You see Briana they are not taken to that page on commons with the description file. Which might mean they wouldn't get in any kind of trouble. But they are taken, after clicking, to that monster file immediately.
And like I said before, the thumb is useless if you cannot view the original. Now there is a .png which is just as detailed it seems. But since there is an effort going on wikimediawide to replace all .png's with .svg's this means trouble for most internetusers!
Why don't we do it the other way around. Put the .png versions on the pages in the projects, with a link to the .svg versions. You see ,png any browser can open without problems. Why must we always be the first?
Waerth
On 12/18/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Yes and now here is the catch. The graphic is all over wikipedia already. Like in nl.wikipedia on the India page as a thumbnail. Now someone clicks on it and is immediately taken to the original huge .svg file which crashes firefox 2 about 50% of the times and IE doesn't seem to be able to open it at all.
That shouldn't be what happens. When the user clicks on the thumbnail they should be brought to a larger image on the image page.
If the image on nlwikipedia is doing that, we have a copyright related problem and some rendering warts should be the least of our worries.
Can you give me a URL on nlwikipedia where this is happening to you?
Pic is about halfway on:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/India
if I click on it it brings me directly to the upload.xxx.xxx file instead of to the commonspage.
Waerth
On 12/18/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Yes and now here is the catch. The graphic is all over wikipedia already. Like in nl.wikipedia on the India page as a thumbnail. Now someone clicks on it and is immediately taken to the original huge .svg file which crashes firefox 2 about 50% of the times and IE doesn't seem to be able to open it at all.
That shouldn't be what happens. When the user clicks on the thumbnail they should be brought to a larger image on the image page.
If the image on nlwikipedia is doing that, we have a copyright related problem and some rendering warts should be the least of our worries.
Can you give me a URL on nlwikipedia where this is happening to you? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 18/12/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Pic is about halfway on: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/India if I click on it it brings me directly to the upload.xxx.xxx file instead of to the commonspage.
Do you mean http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afbeelding:India_roadway_map.svg ? That's the only complicated SVG on that page.
It works for me, going to the image page (with server-rendered image) rather than directly to the svg. In fact, I just clicked every image on that page and it went to the SVG properly.
- d.
On 12/18/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/18/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Yes and now here is the catch. The graphic is all over wikipedia already. Like in nl.wikipedia on the India page as a thumbnail. Now someone clicks on it and is immediately taken to the original huge .svg file which crashes firefox 2 about 50% of the times and IE doesn't seem to be able to open it at all.
That shouldn't be what happens. When the user clicks on the thumbnail they should be brought to a larger image on the image page.
If the image on nlwikipedia is doing that, we have a copyright related problem and some rendering warts should be the least of our worries.
Can you give me a URL on nlwikipedia where this is happening to you?
Just to make sure, when I tried to get to the image from [[nl:India]] I was taken straight to the image page, not the image itself. If you still try to see the complete one after that it's your decision, not our fault.
henna
On 12/18/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
That is not the point.
IS there nobody here who understands that we make this project for all the people out there! Not to satisfy our own geekly lust to pursue the latest fashion in computerelectronics and programming.
We don't otherwise the site would be built rather differently.
*It is not about me being able to view this or not*. It is about the many many people out there who do not have the latest gear installed on their computer, nor will they install the latest gear on their computers. But it seems that plea is falling on deaf (wo)mens ears here. And it seems with these kind of answers to me that we are just making this project for the computersavvy 1% of this world population.
Do we really need to be the trendsetter like with .svg??????
There are times when vector graphics are the best option.
And with that exclude the majority of the internetters, including those in the countries that we say we set out to help in the first place? Or should we follow the herd so we can have a product that the fast majority of the people can use? I thought the wikimediaprojects were about the last one. We should not be the trendsetters in these areas. Because that means nobody can use it.
You only see the SVG if you chose to downlaod it.
You are talking about being better supported in a couple of years Briana. Ask yourself the question do you want people to be able to use this graphics *NOW *or in a couple of years?
People can use it now. If you need to see the full size file and have browser issues one method would be to download it and open it up in inkscape.
Also putting warnings up is strange. Why put them up. Like I said in my initial mail. These graphics are *USELESS *when viewed as a thumbnail. They might just as well not be there.
We have some very large raster images which also require warnings.
Walter van Kalken wrote:
Do we really need to be the trendsetter like with .svg??????
Come on now, Walter, we're already the trendsetters in using massive collaboration on the Internet to write an encyclopedia. There's no way we can try to be mainstream. We're radical. I think trailblazer (German: Bahnbrecher) is the word for it.
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Walter van Kalken wrote:
Do we really need to be the trendsetter like with .svg??????
Come on now, Walter, we're already the trendsetters in using massive collaboration on the Internet to write an encyclopedia. There's no way we can try to be mainstream. We're radical. I think trailblazer (German: Bahnbrecher) is the word for it.
Yes ok you got a point there. But like with graphics, if you are the trailblazer that means most people will not be able to gaze at the tail you are blazing like now with .svg which as I noticed from remarks in the answers on my mail has some clear problems.
When the majority of people will have problems opening these files we are doing something against our own mission statement.
Waerth
On 12/18/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote: [snip]
When the majority of people will have problems opening these files we are doing something against our own mission statement.
How about some perspective?
The majority of people on earth to not have a computer. Most probably do not have immediate access to a desktop computer.
Most people certainly aren't using firefox, which is the only browser that I'm aware of right now which will try to render SVGs and fall over in the process.
And like others who have already responded, for me clicking on the image in nlwikipedia takes me to the image page which displays correctly. Are you sure you are being taken directly to the SVG file?
On 12/18/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Yes ok you got a point there. But like with graphics, if you are the trailblazer that means most people will not be able to gaze at the tail you are blazing like now with .svg which as I noticed from remarks in the answers on my mail has some clear problems.
The key value of having SVGs is to allow long term _editability_ of the content. A vector graphics file is simply not equivalent to a bitmap: unlike a bitmap, it is arbitrarily scalable, easily modifiable, and translatable. Not so much of interest to the users (especially as Microsoft appears to have chosen to boycott the format), this is the equivalent of providing the source code of a computer program.
Accordingly, it might make sense to implement SVG differently than it is done today, i.e., as an "attachment" to a bitmap format of the "source code" (preferred modifiable version). The same could be done for 3D formats like Collada, MID files that relate to uploaded OGGs, etc.
Le Mon, 18 Dec 2006 18:40:07 +0700, Walter van Kalken a écrit:
So we are busy becoming very unfriendly very fast for the average enduser. Let alone for our targetaudience which is people who will view this on older machines. There goes our "access to knowledge for everyone" slogan. As these maps again are worth "nothing" when viewed as a thumbnail!
One of the possible solution is to import a PNG version at a higher resolution.
But I will strongly discourage you to ask to replace SVG maps by bitmap ones, only because your computer is slow. SVG gives additonal informations that are unvaluable.
James Hare wrote:
I know it sounds tempting, but the "Crash my computer" button on Commons will just have to not be clicked. :)
In other words, if you know an image is large, as in very very large, don't click on the full-size version link.
Sounds like blaming the victim. Those who have less sophisticated systems are often also the ones who have less sophisticated knowledge about such things.
Ec
On 12/22/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Sounds like blaming the victim. Those who have less sophisticated systems are often also the ones who have less sophisticated knowledge about such things.
Ignoring firefox bugs with SVGs for a moment (which really aren't related to image size so much)... is there *actually* an issue with low end systems *crashing* when they view large images?
In order to test these complaints, I opened a 6000x7000 jpeg image on an old win95 box with 64 megs of ram without crashing.. although it was slow.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 12/22/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Sounds like blaming the victim. Those who have less sophisticated systems are often also the ones who have less sophisticated knowledge about such things.
Ignoring firefox bugs with SVGs for a moment (which really aren't related to image size so much)... is there *actually* an issue with low end systems *crashing* when they view large images?
In order to test these complaints, I opened a 6000x7000 jpeg image on an old win95 box with 64 megs of ram without crashing.. although it was slow.
There are times when being slow is as good as crashing. If after a full minute of my old computer trying to download that image it remains completely unresponsive it's quacking like a crash. Things might have improved if I had waited another minute, but I don't know that.
Ec
On 26/12/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Ignoring firefox bugs with SVGs for a moment (which really aren't related to image size so much)... is there *actually* an issue with low end systems *crashing* when they view large images? In order to test these complaints, I opened a 6000x7000 jpeg image on an old win95 box with 64 megs of ram without crashing.. although it was slow.
There are times when being slow is as good as crashing. If after a full minute of my old computer trying to download that image it remains completely unresponsive it's quacking like a crash. Things might have improved if I had waited another minute, but I don't know that.
I gotta say "don't do that then." The SVG is rendered on the media description page, you don't *have* to click through.
- d.
On 12/22/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
James Hare wrote:
I know it sounds tempting, but the "Crash my computer" button on Commons will just have to not be clicked. :)
In other words, if you know an image is large, as in very very large, don't click on the full-size version link.
Sounds like blaming the victim.
Sometimes the victim is also the one at fault.
Anthony
On 12/23/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 12/22/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
James Hare wrote:
I know it sounds tempting, but the "Crash my computer" button on Commons will just have to not be clicked. :)
In other words, if you know an image is large, as in very very large, don't click on the full-size version link.
Sounds like blaming the victim.
Sometimes the victim is also the one at fault.
Remember that the problem is *not* the size of the image: I can open with no problem 10000x10000 pixel images. But a complicated .svg file can freeze Firefox for a long time even if it is smaller. And the only information one can gather from the image description page is the image size, which is useless in this case.
The actual fault is in Firefox's plugin. Neither the user (who shouldn't be concerned with these kind of things) nor the image author (which is trying to do the best possible image, and should be praised for doing so) are to blame. That no browser, to my knowledge, is able to open complicated .svg files without bringing even good computers to their knees is unfurtunate, but I see no easy solution.
Alfio
On 12/18/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote: [snip]
It is this file btw: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/India_roadway_map.svg Waerth
This is somewhat offtopic for foundation-l.
Some versions of firefox have a more buggy SVG renderer than others. Unfortunately, it seems that the Mozilla folks rushed it out... and as you've observed, broken SVG support is worse than none.
In any case we don't intentionally make use of the browsers SVG rendering. The SVG link is not provided so you can view the SVG but rather so you can save it and edit it. We're not trendsetters at all: we're using SVGs for our 'source' format, but what we hand readers is PNGs like almost everyone else.
The ideal way to view an image like this is probably via something that provides zoom and navigation control like the djvu plugins or an ajax based segmented image approach like Google maps. Unfortunately both of these options are not great for accessibility. So again, we're not trendsetting on this front either.
You can probably relax about this subject: The vast majority of users are using a browser which doesn't try to render SVGs inline.
I suppose if browser based SVG support doesn't improve soon, we can adjust the mime-type we hand out with these files to something the browser won't try to render.
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