Media Viewer aims to improve the viewing experience for readers and casual editors on Wikipedia and Wikimedia sites.
This multimedia browser displays images in larger size, with useful information about their contents, authors and related metadata. It also offers a number of features to enlarge, share, download or embed media files, as described below.
Learn more about Media Viewer inthis help page. Feedback is welcome inthis discussion.
Media Viewer aims to:
Media Viewer was created for readers and casual editors, the primary target users for this tool. Over time, these features can encourage them to contribute more to Wikipedia and Wikimedia sister projects.
To open an image in Media Viewer, click on its thumbnail on any article, gallery or category page. This will display a larger image in Media Viewer, right over the page where you clicked.
Media Viewer offers a number of useful features:
These features are available every time you click on a thumbnail to open Media Viewer, as long as the tool is enabled. Media Viewer is now enabled by default on all Wikimedia sites, but can be disabled by registered users, as described below. From a file description page, click on "Open in Media Viewer" below the image to view it with this tool.
To learn more,read this help file.
If you are a registered user, you can disable Media Viewer in yourPreferences: select theAppearance section, and uncheck this option underFile:[ ] EnableMedia Viewer.Once you clickSave, images will no longer open in Media Viewer for your account on that site.For global preferences, a similar process applies.
Note that you can also bypass Media Viewer anytime, without disabling the tool. To quickly access the file description page, simply press one of these keys when clicking on a thumbnail:
If you are a registered user, you can also re-enable Media Viewer in yourPreferences: select theAppearance section, and check this option under "Files":[ ] EnableMedia Viewer.Once you click "Save", images will open in Media Viewer again for your account on that site.For global preferences, a similar process applies.
If you find a technical issue, pleasefile a bug here on Phabricator.
You can also post your report onExtension talk:Media Viewer/About, with a screenshot and information on your browser and operating system :).
Before reporting a bug, check first that this issue is not already onthis list of known bugs.In case it’s already been fixed, you may also want to test it onLightbox demo on MediaWiki.org -- where new features are released a week before the rest of the wikis.
Note: Media Viewer only supports the most widely used image file formats on Wikimedia sites (e.g.: JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, SVG). In future releases, we plan to add support for more file formats, such as PDF, audio and video files.
For more information about Media Viewer, visit theproduct overview page on MediaWiki.org.
Media Viewer was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation'smultimedia team from July 2013 to November 2014.It was designed in collaboration with community members, in a series of discussions held overvideo conferences,IRC, andface-to-face meetings.This tool was then developed and tested as a Beta Feature through April 2014, when it wasgradually released worldwide, over a three-month period.
Media Viewer was tested extensively with millions of readers and casual editors, the primary target users for this tool.User feedback was collected throughusability studies,community consultations andonline surveys.Based on this feedback, a wide range ofimprovements were developed to make Media Viewer easier to use, such as:an easier way to enlarge images,image captions,a prominent link to the File: page and aneasier way to disable the tool for personal use.
Many thanks to all the community and team members who contributed to this project.Special acknowledgements to the project team:Fabrice Florin,Gilles Dubuc,Mark Holmquist,Gergő Tisza,Pau Giner,Keegan Peterzell,Rob Lanphier,Howie Fung andErik Moeller, to name but a few.
To learn more about other multimedia projects, visit thisMultimedia project hub.