(Apologies for not getting to this sooner)
On 8/10/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com> wrote:
1. Improved search.
Dumping Mayflower in there would be a great start:
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tangotango/mayflower/
I suggest replacing the current search box with a Mayflower search
box, and moving the current text search box below the toolbox.
I will try to write a JavaScript-based search as a stop-gap measure
once the API actually returns search results:-) I have some ideas for
improving search results, and for mixed text/image search results.
5. Rating system
I would like a simple youtube-style 5star rating thing for image
pages, for logged-in users. More importantly it should be possible to
sort search results (and maybe categories?) according to rating. This
is important because, if you think about Wikipedia, any search query
likely has only half a dozen highly relevant results at most. Most I
would wager only have one. But on Commons, querying over individual
images, a reasonable search query can and often does have dozens or
even hundreds of results. The best way to sift through them would be
by ratings.
There is only so much manual rating we can do (and we are doing it).
As Commons grows this is only going to get worse. This may not seem
like a priority simply because we don't have the functionality now,
but I have a strong feeling this is the right direction.
I could invest some time in this.
6. Improved category handling
If the search was improved enough, it might make categories (and
galleries) more or less irrelevant. I can only pray. However for the
moment categories are often used for navigation. The bug of not
putting all subcats on the first page is a frequent problem. The
problem of not seeing the total number of items in the category is a
problem. The lack of ability to sort a category by, e.g. date item was
added to it, or date item was uploaded, is a problem. The lack of
ability to 'auto-flatten' a category is a problem.
If by "auto-flatten" you mean display images in subcategories in the
parent category, this might be doable with JavaScript. If you mean
moving iamges to a parent category, there's my semi-automatic
[[MediaWiki:Cat-a-lot.js]].
10. Global native MW Checkusage, CommonsTicker
functionality.
Checkusage is an utterly vital tool for us.
There is my JavaScript-based
Check-usage:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Valeriana_officinalis_…
which works through query.php (yay multi-site query capability!), but
it can be quite slow.
13. User upload gallery function
I think I wrote
this some time ago (last year?). It was deactivated or
reverted because there was (is?) no index on the upload user.
14. Bulk upload function
This and image moving from another MediaWiki site could be eased by
external tools quite easily, except that there are heavy restrictions
on the file upload field. I once wrote an "upload from http site"
function, but it is, of course, deactivated...
This will have to stay JavaScript, I guess; even if you can see the
window size of the user when requesting the page, returning a
different page for each request would mess up caching. Also, to resize
the gallery when the window is resized after loading the page requires
JavaScript anyway.
I could try to have it execute sooner that it currently does, so you
won't see the "jump" when resizing.
16. Category and gallery 'previews'
Example:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:SWB9470_Puetzstrasse.jpg?withJS=Med…
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Gallerypreview.js
This has improved usability so much even for me, an experienced user.
It just makes you so much more likely to explore. And that is
fantastic for how people should ideally use our site.
I rewrote my JavaScript as an extension some month ago, as
"MiniPreview". As there is, as usual, no interest to get it working on
the live site by the people who *could* make it live, I have not
wasted^W spent as much time on it that on the JavaScript one.
17. "Fotonotes".
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:ImageBoxes.js (a start,
but I think not totally user friendly yet)
Ability to put user annotations directly on an image. Another one of
those things that once we start using I'm sure we won't be able to do
without.
I have updated this a few days ago to actually show the box you draw
while drawing. I can add "auto-edit" to this. However, parts of this
will always stay JavaScript, and unless we get some new tagging mode,
using edits/templates/categories for this seems as good a way as any.
Cheers,
Magnus