Help talk:Image-Annotator/Archive01

Notes for future development

Some ideas:

• How to deal with large note rectangles covering already defined notes?

  Solution: implement a plane-sweep algorithm to detect all overlaps between rectangles. Before save, order rectangles in both the wikitext source and then in the DOM in ascending order by the < relation defined by "A < B iff there's an overlap between A and B and area (A) > area (B)". (This test for area would make contained rectangles B be sorted after the containing rectangle A without a need to annotate overlaps for full containment.) As a result, larger rectangles come before (and are thus "lower" than) smaller rectangles, and hence the smaller rectangles remain accessible if there are overlaps.

  Difficulty: not hard, but a lot of work (and potentially a lot of code), and care must be taken to properly implement data structures (balanced binary tree for scan line intersections) to ensure meeting the theoretical O(n*log(n)) runtime.

  Done using the simpler approach of simply sorting the rectangles (whether they overlap or not) by their size in descending order. See below. Lupo 21:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• How to avoid an XHR call for the full image size in all cases?

  Needs server support. Currently, we first try to extract the full image size by screenscraping and make that XHR call only if that fails. If the server included on file pages two JS variables (similar to wgTitle and so on) for wgFullImageWidth and wgFullImageHeight, we could just use those. The variables should be set to null or -1 if the value is unknown, but they should be defined in all cases, otherwise an extra test for "typeof (wgFullImageWidth) != 'undefined'" would be needed.

  Note: with version 2 (currently being developed), this doesn't matter much anymore since to display notes on thumbnails, we have to get the full size of the file being displayed as a thumbnail anyway through an XHR call. It would just be an optimization for the most common case (using ImageAnnotator on a file page that doesn't have any thumbs).

• How to avoid an XHR call for the localized interface messages?

  Needs server support. We could use an ImagePageFooter element similar to the Uploadfooter used on the upload form. If we had that, we could set up the MediaWiki message for that footer to contain the (hidden) interface texts already when the page is served, and thus we wouldn't need to make an XHR call.

Lupo 09:21, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

About the first point (overlaps): you are defining a partial order on notes. It seems to me that the total order "A < B iff area (A) > area (B)" (ignoring overlap) has the property you want and is much easier to implement. O(n*log(n)) runtime isn't an issue then. Pruneau^talk 10:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. Simply always place larger rectangles first... Both algorithms would anyway not handle the case where a large rectangle was completely covered by several smaller ones. How could that be detected and handled efficiently? Should we care at all? (Probably not; I suspect this case to be rare.) Further refinement: only order them in memory (and thus in the DOM), but don't re-order them in the wikitext. Wikitext order is actually not important. Hence: order once upon loading the page, and insert new rectangles at the right place. Lupo 12:49, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I can't think of a clean efficient way of dealing with large rectangles covered with smaller ones, but I don't think it matters. For the ordering, I think it would be more efficient to order the notes in the wikitext as they are created (i.e. insert each new note in its correct position, rather than append at the end). Then there's no sorting to do upon loading. Of course, this doesn't work for notes which are added by editing the page manually rather than by using the gadget, but I don't expect that to be frequent. Pruneau^talk 14:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Remember Postel's_law: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept. Wikitext can be garbled in any number of ways, and sorting an array is fast. (In particular since the array will be quite small in virtually all cases as most images won't have hundreds or thousands of notes.) Besides, only making sure the order is correct in memory is simpler. BTW, that's  Done now. See MediaWiki talk:Gadget-ImageAnnotator.js#Three (minor) changes. Thanks for the suggestion! Lupo 21:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Problem with gadget

I added the code to my monobook.js for this gadget, saved and purged the catch. The gadget doesn't appear on the image pages I view. AshLin (talk) 19:41, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

And then how did you make these edits? Looks to me that the gadget works. What exactly is the problem? Lupo 15:26, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

acceptable use

Does any aspect of the help explain what the intended use of image annotation is? Given the goals of Wikimedia I assume it's not there for fun and conversation? Any link to a related discussion is appreciated... Outriggr (talk) 01:49, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no policy yet, but I think it won't be long until we have one :-) Lupo 06:26, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Sandbox?

Is there a sandbox for this thing? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 08:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

There wasn't until now, but now there is. See Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator#Trying it out. :-) Lupo 09:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 13:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

A wonderful side effect

I love the side effect of being able to see the image in pixel-by-pixel detail when adding an annotation. Has anyone thought of adding a feature to let someone do this as sort of a "magnifying glass" tool when they are not adding an annotation? - Jmabel ! talk 00:18, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not actually pixel-by-pixel on all images. If the original is more than four times larger than the preview, the zoom is still only ×4.

Yes, it has been thought of. But this little zoom is not a general zoom utility, and if one is developed now, it would have to be done carefully so that it doesn't interfere with ImageAnnotator (and vice versa). Lupo 06:38, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Good Work. I agree with Jmabel and plead for the full implementation of the zoom-tool, as it allows to use the ImageAnnotator with maximum efficiency. I tried to to work with image-notes on one of my drawings [1] but the result is just to irritating to be user-friendly. Alexpl (talk) 12:27, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

new section in help file

I just added Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator#How_to_add_informative_notes. Comments, suggestions, corrections welcomed. --Jarekt (talk) 14:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. If this develops into a full policy, the section should be moved to a policy page in the Commons namespace and only a few general guidelines plus a pointer to that policy should be left here. But for the time being, it's OK to have it here. Lupo 15:19, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is a useful section. I have also extended the examples in the documentation for Template:LangSwitch, which the Help mentions could be used inside a Note. I now have a question. Where a Commons category exists I have been adding a simple piped link (like this: [[:Category:Stowaways|]]), but where an article page only exists on a language wikipedia I find myself writing a complicated combination like this:

{{de|1=[[:de:August von Parseval|]]|inline=yes}}

{{LangSwitch|
|cs={{cs|1=[[:cs:August von Parseval|]]}}
|en={{en|1=[[:en:August von Parseval|]]}}
|ja={{ja|1=[[:ja:アウグスト・フォン・パーセヴァル|]]}}
}}

What the above looks like in your browser (or, for example, append "?uselang=cs" to the URL to see how it appears in Czech, or this for Japanese):

Deutsch: August von Parseval

English: August von Parseval

I did this in this photo (Parseval is second from right) because I wanted the Note to always link to the German article and to also link to a an article in the user's preferred language. Is there a better way to produce the same result? 84user (talk) 22:19, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I like this approach and as far as I know, this is the only way to produce it. --Jarekt (talk) 13:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions

• Add a link repport a bug
• Bug with template:mld (example) you could not choose the langage of...

Thank you for this tool. Regards, Otourly (talk) 12:38, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

{{Mld}} doesn't work because the contents of a note get cloned for display within the note. The event handlers in the form that is added by MediaWiki:Common.js/LangSelect.js somehow do net get copied when that happens (the node is cloned). Now I could avoid that cloning, but even then {{Mld}} would not work as expected in two cases:

• The file is viewed on the local file page on a wiki that doesn't have the LangSelect.js script installed. On such wikis, the note would just display all language variants, which may lead to excessively large note displays if there are many language variants.
• After creating a note containing the {{Mld}} template, because the LangSelect script runs only once when the page is loaded, but doesn't account for dynamically added instances of {{Mld}}.

In short: using {{Mld}} in image notes is maybe not a good idea. Perhaps {{LangSwitch}} could be used instead? Lupo 12:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Use in Wikipedias?

I think this gadget is pretty cool, but also pretty useless until it's possible to see the annotations on pics in Wikipedia articles themselves. As far as I can see, the only way to actually see the annotations is to click through to the Commons page of an image, right? --93.86.148.233 15:29, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Please be patient. We've only enabled this a week ago. Let us test it here first. I'm in the process of developing Version 2, which will address a number of minor issues and also include support for viewing notes on images directly in the articles. Once we've deployed version 2, we can then think about how to deploy this on other projects. I'll first install it on a smaller project (a volunteer has already stepped up), and if it works there, I'll make sure the installation instructions are up-to-date and will then formally announce that it is ready to be installed elsewhere. Note that I did not do any compatibility testing with tools like Lupin's popups, Twinkle, or wikiEd. (The last one, at least, should be no problem because ImageAnnotator is inactive on edit pages.) Lupo 06:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I added this to Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator#Frequently asked questions. --Jarekt (talk) 13:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Category links

By the way, I started annotating some cityscapes and panoramic views putting wikilinks to Commons categories for the specific subjects, in the form [[:Category:foo|text]], and that's fine as long annotations are viewed on Commons. But I'm wondering if using that syntax, they'll render as interkiwi links to Commons when viewed from Wikipedia, and if not, what's the proper syntax (I went through MediaWiki's documentation and tried using [[:commons:Category:foo|text]] with no result). Sorry if that's a trivial question, or if it's stil too soon for a proper answer. --Ianezz (talk) 15:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

[[:Category:foo|foo]] should work. If you go to wikipedia and look at the html source of a wikipedia image description page you should already see them. -- User:Docu at 15:22, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. --Ianezz (talk) 08:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Policy questions

I've expanded the corresponding section at Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator#How to add informative notes a little with text about clearly inappropriate notes. Please review. In writing this, I was unsure about some things:

1. Do we have a policy somewhere that says that file descriptions must follow NPOV? What about BLP?
2. What about using a note to re-state authorship, copyright, and licensing? I've seen such uses already. At first I thought this was clearly inappropriate, but then it occurred to me that if version 2 displays image notes also on images in articles, this could actually offer a solution to the perennial controversial question of whether and how to attribute images in articles... Should we outlaw this? Or allow it, but only with small rectangles? (But then, how to enforce this?) Allow it generally?
3. Which leads to a related issue: if version 2 displays image notes also if the image is used in an article, that would mean that any vandalism that occurs here in an image note affected any other project that used the image. And the vandalism would be visible not only on the other projects' local file pages, but directly in the articles where the image is used. In view of this, is it a good idea to allow viewing image notes on another project if the file resides here at the Commons?

What are your thoughts? Lupo 08:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Re point 3: I don't understand this at all. Isn't the point of WikiCommons to have a central repository where things are stored a single time and then displayed on various Wiki pages? If that's the point then it's appropriate that any content on the WikiCommons page be also displayed on the other pages that link to it. That's the whole point of linking to any page to begin with, to display the content contained on that page. It doesn't make any sense at all to suppress valuable information, even if there is a risk of displaying vandalism.

• For point 2 (re-state authorship, copyright, and licensing), I'd avoid do this. An exception might be the note on File:Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 105.jpg, but the note just transcribes what is already in the image.
• For point 3. I think it would be helpful if the notes were at least visible in on the file description pages in Wikipedia. As normal descriptions, these are already determined by the content here at Commons without much that can be from Wikipedia.
  I haven't thought too much about the way the notes would be displayed in Wikipedia articles directly. As images are frequently used as thumbnails or in infoboxes, this might generate a lot of very small elements. Maybe just an icon that a given image has more than 3 notes would do?
  -- User:Docu at 08:26, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

1. We have COM:NPOV, which states that "neutrality of description should be aimed at wherever possible".

2. I dislike annotations which just repeat stuff from the description, including those with authorship information (there are of course exceptions), and I@ve already deleted a couple of notes with only authorship information covering the whole image. Using small rectangles to display authorship information in articles might be a good idea, but it requires quite a bit of thought and feedback from the other projects.

3. Wikipedias have always been affected by vandalism on Commons. I don't think fear of vandalism is reason enough to not activate annotations on articles. Another potential issue is that edit-wars might spill over from Wikipedias onto annotations at Commons.

If you do allow notes to be displayed on articles in version 2, I think it should be possible to disable the annotations of an image on a specific article (e.g. [[Image:Foo.jpg|thumb|annotations=no|Description]]). Pruneau^talk 10:11, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

On 3: well, I can't change wiki syntax. But Docu's suggestion to display only an indication icon instead of the notes themselves can be implemented in a configurable manner (depending on whether the image is local or not, it's size, how many notes it has). Additionally one could think about a switch that could be added to the image description page (here or at the local wiki) to switch off note display on a per-image basis. Per-article basis is possible, of course, too; that could be done with a global blacklist of article names stored on-wiki, but then the script would have to get that list from the server. (For once, though, this would not be an extra call to the server, it can be wrapped into the call to get the user interface. If a user disables Ajax, this blacklist would not be taken into account, but then he can't edit notes anyway and can't view notes on images in articles either.) Another approach to have per-article switching off of note display is again a special template included in the article. Lupo 10:46, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

About point 2: I do not like annotations not related to the highlighter region. This applies to authorship information notes. Notes related to a signature on a painting are OK. Notes about watermark (which should be removed) or not related to the highlighted region are not OK.

About point 3: Vandalism issues are the same as always, this just opens new possibilities for vandals and need to prevent them. We eventually might need vandalism detection bots. Showing notes in the articles will be challenging due to language used unless some sort of {{LangSwitch}} mechanism is used. Also commons rules on NPOV and BLP are much weaker than on en.wiki and possibly other wikis. That was not a problem in the past since Commons descriptions were hidden and each wiki provided its own description (sometimes conflicting with Commons description) in its own language and following its own rules. --Jarekt (talk) 14:51, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Image re-uploaded with different size

The image with the name ZB Interregio mit HGe 101 bei Niederried.jpg was re-uploaded with a different size. The notes prior to the upload disappeared. New ones can be added. I suppose this is intended to be that way. If yes, maybe we should note it on the help page. -- User:Docu at 19:34, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

It says so, under "limitations". Lupo 20:35, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

(silence). Thanks for your response. -- User:Docu at 13:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

{{ImageWithNotes}}

To simplify discussion of images on talk pages, maybe we should add a link to paste the above into talk pages. The link could be on the edit tools bar. This might avoid annotations like the ones on File:Preparation for schooner race 222.jpg. -- User:Docu at 13:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Geocoding with annotations

One way annotations can be used is to geocode maps, satelite images and aerial images. For example in File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-S53511, Warschau, Weichsel, Brände.jpg I added 3 tiny annotations with coordinates using {{Coor d}} template. May be such annotations can be formalized as a special type and shown as some sort of pushpins instead of rectangles. I imagine that gadgets can be written which would be able to automatically create Geocoding overlays or Panoramas based on few such anchors (is 3 the magic number?). --Jarekt (talk) 19:36, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Diaa abdelmoneim had a similar suggestion earlier. The graphics would need to be constructed carefully, though, because IE has problems with normal PNGs with transparency. (One can use 8-bit indexed PNGs, though. These work fine even on IE6, and don't need any special transparency hacks that don't work half of the time anyway.) Maybe it's not even difficult to do: just add a drop-down menu to the note editor if the rectangle is very small. In that drop-down, one could select the type of annotation display: rectangle, or a variety of "pins" (graphic icons). The problem is, though, that the note would need to store the full path to the graphics in the {{ImageNote}} template (otherwise you'd run into troubles if the configuration changed and the nth pin changed meaning, or if the notes were displayed on another wiki that had a different pin configuration). Storing this full URL in the template adds again "clutter" to the image description page... Lupo 06:30, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I was imagining that ImageAnnotator would either recognize the pattern (small note with geotag inside) or be explicitly told somehow that this is a geotagging note and would mark it accordingly with a single hardwired image, but I see there is more options here:

1. single hardwired image - my original idea image path would be stored in the gadget code
2. any image - full path needed and some types of images might not work
3. choice of many hardwired images - this might be the middle ground. May be we can store the paths in some type of template with the switch used to choose different icons. This would hide the full paths to cut down on clutter. I for the moment do not see a need for too much variety in the icons, maybe few different pushpin colors, but others might find it useful. Also we might be able to limit ourselves to only single MIME type of graphics (Lupo mentioned 8-bit PNG's) --Jarekt (talk) 13:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

It would have to be 8-bit PNG or GIF, with transparent background. Anything else is just asking for troubles when you place an image on top of another image. IE doesn't handle normal PNGs with transparency correctly, and JPEG doesn't even have transparency.

Your third way (storing the full image paths in some template or MediaWiki-message, like we do for other messages) is certainly possible, but it has the same indexing problem. You could just store some identifier or index in the {{ImageNote}}, but it might display wrongly if the configuration is changed or the image is viewed on another wiki with a different setup. Lupo 18:19, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Well if this is applied, there should just be an installation instruction containing how to fix this for another wiki. Maybe a disable/enable icons? Lupo, this is a great feature that would really make the ImageAnnotator more helpful.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 01:17, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Don't hold your breath. This needs to be thought through carefully. Besides the indexing problem, there's also the question of where exactly to place the icon. The user specified a small rectangle, so a good guess might be to center the icon over the center of that rectangle. But that may be wrong: think of a classic "pin" icon (like , but nicer and graphically cleaner). Such an icon has a its "hot spot" near the lower left corner of the graphics. You'd want the icon to be placed with its hot spot at the center of the small rectangle the user drew. So you would need to be able to specify—in the configuration, not in the interface—for each graphics its hotspot, so that ImageAnnotator could position it correctly. And don't forget that lots of little graphic icons slow down things because browsers need to fetch the graphics. So there'd need to be a way for a user to switch off icon rendering, falling back to showing small rectangles. Finally, implementing this is not exactly easy because of event handling (that part of the code that decides what to display/hide depending on where the mouse cursor is). Right now, the event handling can be sure that any note rectangle is completely inside the image on which it is placed. But if you place such a pin icon in the top right corner of an image, its display (the graphic icon) might extend beyond the image. Event handling code would need to account for that, and it'd give us a display problem if the image was enclosed in a <div style="overflow:hidden;">. So this is something for version 2.1 (or version 3, or whatever I'll call it.) Lupo 10:18, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Installation notes for wikia.com (applicable to other wikis)

For Firefox users, this gadget does work without problems on Wikia wikis. Image annotations are compatible with Semantic Mediawiki wikitext. I'll be fiddling with this to get the other browsers happening. To get started, add the following steps to the installation directions.

1. If you are an admin on your wikia wiki, use Contact staff to request the Gadgets extension be enabled for your wiki

2. You will need to add the following code to Mediawiki:Common.js:

function addLoadEvent(fn) {
	if (window.addEventListener) addEventListener("load", fn, false);
	else if (window.attachEvent) attachEvent("onload", fn);
}

3. MediaWiki:LAPI.js assumes commons' image server. Change the following line for Wikia:

From

      if (src.search (new RegExp ('^http://upload.wikimedia.org/.*' + title.replace (/ /g, '_').replace (/(\.svg)$/i, '$1.png').escapeRE () + '$')) == 0)

To

     if (src.search (new RegExp ('^http://images\\d.wikia.nocookie.net.*' + title.replace (/ /g, '_').replace (/(\.svg)$/i, '$1.png').escapeRE () + '$')) == 0)

For non wikia users, step 2 may not be necessary if your wiki already has this function. For step 3, note that regex backslashes must be escaped in literal strings. (\\d to get a \d).

Browsers: FireFox 3.5.2 operates ok. IE 8: IE has a problem with Wikia ImageAnnotator with the stated setup. I don't use IE much but it's not the configuration since it work fine with Commons's ImageAnnotator. I'll be fiddling with it and may have something later.

-~ Phlox 08:14, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. I guess I'll have to make the central repository location easier to configure in LAPI, then. Thanks for trying! (With version 2, you'll be in for some work to re-deploy it, though. While I admire anybody who is courageous enough to try to port all this already, I wish people would wait longer. Besides functional improvements, I'm also hammering out a few minor bugs in version 2.) Lupo 10:13, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• Ok. I presume version 2 will maintain compatibility with generated ImageNote wikitext. Any ballpark estimated drop date for v2? (No pressure, just curious when I should look back in).
• Yours is the master version- I doubt if many wikia folks will use this in the interim. Any Wikia porting/ installation info for this gadget will be found at Wikia developers wiki.) As far as generalizing vs. optimizing- my two cents: It's not rocket science to figure out porting breakages, so I encourage you to plow on ahead and implement whatever is optimal for Commons. Plenty of other professional soldiers around to follow along in your wake and cajole the thing into a more portable configuration...
• Thank you for your service. Nice tool. ~ Phlox 21:58, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm currently testing version 2. If all goes well, I'll deploy it here at the Commons in the second half of October. And of course it'll maintain compatibility with existing notes. Lupo 10:55, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Sample for "show another angle of view" (How to add informative notes)

• 
  Perimorphose Calcite-Sphalerite-Siderite - Aggeneys, Orange River Area, Southafrica.jpg
• 
  Perimorphose Calcit-Sphalerit-Siderit inside - Aggeneys, Orange River Area, Southafrica.jpg
• 
  Spelterini Blüemlisalp.jpg
• 
  Spelterini Gspaltenhorn East.jpg
• 
  Kurangun central panel, 2009-05-08.jpg
• 
  Kurangun female divinity, 2009-05-08.jpg
• 
  Kurangun male divinity, 2009-05-08.jpg

File:Perimorphose Calcite-Sphalerite-Siderite - Aggeneys, Orange River Area, Southafrica.jpg has currently a box that switches from the current view to another side (File:Perimorphose Calcit-Sphalerit-Siderit inside - Aggeneys, Orange River Area, Southafrica.jpg). There is no relation between the highlighted area and the annotation. Personally, I think this other image should be used in {{Information}} as another view rather than as an annotation or, at least, we might not want to list it as a sample here.

The image File:Spelterini Blüemlisalp.jpg (with a link to File:Spelterini Gspaltenhorn East.jpg) could illustrate how to "show another angle of view". -- User:Docu at 09:09, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe an even better example of this is File:Kurangun central panel, 2009-05-08.jpg. Lupo 10:08, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the images are even more useful when viewed together. -- User:Docu at 04:17, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes a cute idea, could be useful. Of course it would be even better if it was recursive, with image notes on the image note ad-infinitum :-) --Tony Wills (talk)

Recent server-side changes

If you experience any strange errors with ImageAnnotator, please reload your browser's cache and try again. We've had recently changes in the server-side MediaWiki software, and one of them broke ImageAnnotator. I have adapted the scripts to deal with it. Please only report errors that persist after you have cleared your cache. (See MediaWiki talk:Gadget-ImageAnnotator.js#Exception Error for the problem that has now been fixed.) Lupo 13:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

An interesting use of this

File:USCG Museum NW - WWII 01.jpg: individual items in a display case at a museum. I only did a few here, but I think it is a potentially very interesting use of this feature, maybe interesting enough to merit prominent mention on this help page. - Jmabel ! talk 06:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

It is an example of already mentioned "zoom into more detailed images or show another angle of view" and I agree it is very interesting use of this feature. --Jarekt (talk) 12:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Disable per-image

How about a Show notes / Hide notes button too?

It is clear that some Commons users do not want to see notes appearing on the images, or only want to see notes of a particular kind. To avoid conflict, I was wondering if there will be a technical way to toggle the visibility of the rectangles themselves?

User:Docu appears to describe this idea at Policy questions under point 3, but for Wikipedia rather than Commons. Will such a system be possible for Commons too?

How would this appear to the Commons user? Instead of the text "This file has annotations. Move the mouse pointer over the image to see them." appearing above the "Add a Note" button, how about an option to have something like "Make annotations visible", or "Show notes"?

Normally images with notes will display "This file has annotations. ...", but an editor can choose to change this to "Show notes" and this would disable the rectangles appearing when the mouse pointer moves over the image. But if a user clicks on the Show notes, the rectangles appear. How could this be implemented at the editor level? (1) A special template {{Notes off}}? (2) A Magic word __NOTESOFF__?

Now, I like image notes, but I can see a valid reason others could have for not liking them: some people like to hover their mouse over an image to better examine it, and notes popping up would annoy them. This suggestion might alleviate this annoyance. I am also posting another notes-enhancement idea in the next section. -84user (talk) 22:11, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

The first thing that comes to mind is to replace the text "This file has annotations..." with "Show annotations" and a checkbutton, enabled by default (or according to a user preference), leaving the choice entirely to the viewer. I'd avoid implementing it with special templates/keywords in the file description, because I believe that would result in another source of edit wars. --  IANEZZ  (talk) 22:32, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I don't like images with [static] annotations either, but the possibility to move the mouse pointer off the image is sufficient for me.

The problem you mention is indeed not limited to thumbnails at Wikipedia, but can be problematic at commons too. Some images are quite large and depending on one's screen size and/or the "image size limit (for file description pages)" in Special:Preferences, this may lead to a high density of notes. The same amount of notes could helpful if one had an larger screen, an enlarged view of part of an image, or a different way of visualizing them (e.g. a list of thumbnails of the highlighted area). -- User:Docu at 22:47, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Inserted "static" in previous comment. -- User:Docu at 23:11, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

In support of your argument, see for example File:Trento panorama.jpg (I chose that specific image only because I know it well, being me both the author and the annotator). I agree that's perhaps a corner case (honestly, the only one I know of), and the proper answer could be "well, just Don't Annotate That Much". People to which I showed that image were happily surprised in seeing more detailed images hovering on annotations (via mini-galleries in the notes), but somewhat perplexed in seeing that they couldn't see any note when viewing at full resolution. Having (let's say) also a button to open the image in a new window/tab at full resolution (with scrollbars, of course) and displaying annotations in it would be nice, IMHO. -- IANEZZ  (talk) 23:29, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a good sample. A workaround is going to special:Preferences and setting it to 10000x10000px, but later one has to set it back (or get a larger screen). I don't think it's a corner case, many panoramas in Category:Images with 10+ annotations will have the same issue, try File:Port Vell, Barcelona, Spain - Jan 2007.jpg - random selection ;) It seems to me that some commons participants might not even think about the various possible resolutions. -- User:Docu at 00:13, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Choice of Note-sets

This idea is not as important as the "Disable per-image" idea I posted above, but it could be an extension of it. This idea may be "too much to ask", but here it is anyway.

Google Earth gives the user a choice of "layers" to display over a map. A user can choose no layers, one layer, or any combination of layers.

In the same way, could Image notes also offer "layers" of notes? Where the user selects a group of notes from a drop-down menu, maybe, or a set of radio buttons. For example, a map of a French region could have a note-set for cities (each city would have a note), a note-set for mountains, or a note-set for rivers. -84user (talk) 22:11, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Nice idea, but looking at Category:Images with 10+ annotations I'd say there's no urgent need of this (or, on the opposite, there is a really strong need for this because that'd be the real reason why, as of now, there are just 191 files on Commons having 10 annotations or more). --  IANEZZ  (talk) 22:44, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

There is already an annotation style setting. Maybe it just needs to be used differently. -- User:Docu at 23:11, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Myskin Firefox strangeness

Additionally, the script has been tested in the standard (classic), nostalgia, chick, cologneblue, modern, and vector skins using Firefox. It should work in all skins.

The gadget does not work for me when I have created an empty myskin.css on Firefox on Windows Vista.

I am not sure my analysis (what there is of it) is 100% correct though:

1. As User:84user on Firefox (add-ons: QuickJava 0.4.2.1; Adblock Plus 1.1.1; and others):

From Preferences Appearance select MySkin.

I create this version of MySkin, and Ctrl-Shift-R to bypass the cache.

I look at any image file, File:Yield.png for example, see right.

Yield.png - a small test image

There is no Add a note button.

On files with annotations there is also no "This file has annotations. ..."

I now empty User:84user/myskin.css with this edit, Ctrl-Shift-R to bypass the cache.

Image files still have no Add a note button and no "This file has annotations. ..."

I start disabling Firefox add-ons: QuickJava 0.4.2.1; Adblock Plus 1.1.1;

Still no Add a note functionality.

2. [OK] On Opera (Image notes work all the time; Javascript advanced: Allow resizing; allow moving, disallow otherwise): as User:Test84user (a user account I created for testing)

First I checked Image notes were working, they were. At this point User:Test84user/myskin.css did not exist.

Then I selected Myskin. [OK] Image notes still work.

Then I made these three revisions, and confirmed Image notes worked after each:

1. [OK] empty myskin.css with just a comment

2. [OK] try User:84user/myskin.css (I copied and pasted the CSS from 84user)

now I decided to move from Opera to Firefox, logging out of 84user and logging in as Test84user:

3. ([OK] on Opera but on Firefox) edit summary is "revert because ImageAnnotator is disabled in Firefox but not Opera"

-84user (talk) 20:18, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

3. I try Myskin with other browsers:

an obsolete Netscape version 9.0.0.6 => [OK] Image notes work as an IP address, but not when logged in as 84user nor as Test84user.

Safari 3.2.1 (525.27.1) => [OK] Yes, Image notes work as IP address or as any user

4. I enable Javascript Deobfuscator 1.5.4 and restart Firefox, and see importScript("MediaWiki:Gadget-ImageAnnotator.js") and calls to ImageAnnotator during the reload of File:Yield.png, no obvious errors, but I don't have the expertise to understand much of this in any case. -84user (talk) 20:03, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It appears to me that this bug is fixed in version 2, to be enabled soon. The strange behavior is caused by the border around the preview image. The currently active version of ImageAnnotator cannot deal with this. The preview image has a size of 281×281 pixels, but Firefox inexplicably reports it as having an offsetWidth and offsetHeight of 285. As a safety measure, ImageAnnotator does not handle images where the values do not agree, because this usually indicates that the server for some reason failed to send an image at all (can happen sporadically when our servers are overloaded). Firefox appears to add the blue border (2px solid blue) of the hyperlink around the image to the image's offset-size. I think it shouldn't do that, these border widths should be part of the <a> element around the <img> element. Firefox does report the clientWidth and clientHeight of the preview image correctly as 281, and since version 2 uses that instead of the "offset" values for its check, version 2 works also with this mySkin setup. (I've verified this; I'm privately running version 2 already since I had to test it.)

I will not fix this limitation in the currently active version. The problem should go away when version 2 is deployed (which is scheduled for October 18). Lupo 14:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: I've never even tried it on Netscape. How does it behave in Netscape with the monobbok/vector/modern skins? Lupo 14:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. It behaves fine under Netscape 9.0.0.6 for all skins except MySkin. I sometimes test with the obsolete Netscape version because it has similar bugs to Firefox version 2, which some people still use. -84user (talk) 00:39, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Categories for notes?

We use categories for every other praactical purpose it seems in order to grab a reader's attention or for organization, what about categories centered around image notes? 1) One general category could be used to keep track of images that currently contain notes (Category:Images with notes), which would be more paractical and effective if it could just be built into the script itself ("If ImageNote = True, include CatName; Else NoInclude", or whatever). 2) Or a set of or specific cats based on the notation types could be used (Category:Images with notes that identify people, Category:Images with notes that zoom to other images, etc. Obviously the category names would need some work to not be so wordy. — CobraWiki ^{( jabber | stuff )} 06:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The general category is already there, see Category:Images with annotations (also Category:Images with 10+ annotations). For the rest: I'm not entirely convinced of the pratical usefulness of categorizing images also by the kind of annotations they bear (I'm not opposing, just wondering what they would be useful for?) -- IANEZZ  (talk) 07:18, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

My bad. I missed them because I didn't have "Show hidden categories" enabled. Thanks for pointing them out to me. — CobraWiki ^{( jabber | stuff )} 02:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

ImageAnnotator vandalism

Hello, I was just curious with those involved with patrolling recent changes if there's been a serious issue with vandalism or nonsensical edits using ImageAnnotator or if it's mostly under control. mahanga (talk) 16:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

For a recent discussion, see Commons:AN#Remove image tagging/notes. -- User:Docu at 16:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Version 2 activated

See MediaWiki talk:Gadget-ImageAnnotator.js#Version 2 activated. In case of problems, holler! Lupo 11:58, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Image Annotator use Policy

I would like to propose to move Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator#How_to_add_informative_notes section to a separate commons policy page and add it to Category:Commons proposed policies and guidelines. --Jarekt (talk) 17:27, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

• Sure, please do. A "guideline" page would be good. -- User:Docu at 17:35, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

• I agree, too. Just leave a few general tips and hints and a link to that new policy or guideline in this help page. Lupo 21:45, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Spell out purpose and difference from adding normal descriptions or comments

One thing that is missing from the help page, is to make it clear that this tool is not for adding general notes about the picture (the stuff we usually call image "description"), but for noting points of interest or features on the picture. This may seem obvious but, from some test edits that I have seen, new users try to use it to add general captions to images, rather than trying to mark image features (probably because it is more obvious and easy to use than going through the edit tab which is not below the image where people expect to find links for adding comments etc as per other websites. --Tony Wills (talk) 01:01, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. We had that, but it got moved to Commons:Using ImageAnnotator‎. I've re-added this basic point. Lupo 10:09, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Edit filter

Would someone add one that monitors removals by IPs/new editors? Did it disappear with version 2? -- User:Docu at 04:52, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixed the filters. Edit summaries are configurable in version 2, and the configured texts didn't match the regexp anymore for removals. Lupo 07:06, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Activate notes for thumbs for not logged in users?

As there don't seem to be any problems with the new versions, shall we activate the display of notes on thumbnails for users that are not logged in? MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorConfig.js would need to be edited. -- User:Docu at 13:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Done. Lupo 17:14, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Activate notes for thumbs on namespace 14

To update MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorConfig.js:

    generalImagesEnabled : function ()
    {
      return wgNamespaceNumber != 14; // Not on category pages
    },

As they are rare, I don't think it would matter that much if the are activated on Category namespace. This way, there would be links on West Wing and it wouldn't need to be made into an image map like on Provinces of the Netherlands. -- User:Docu at 19:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Switched on. It was actually switched off only because a development version had displayed notes also within galleries, which became slow on categories. The current version expressly does not show notes on images in galleries, so that's no longer a problem. (If you don't see the notes on the top image at Category:West Wing, reload your browser's cache or wait four hours.) However, I like the image map even better in this case. Lupo 21:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather use annotations, it's easier to use (and most rooms aren't oval anyways). Anyways, it works fine, thanks. -- User:Docu at 22:20, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I meant: "I think an image map is a better solution at Category:Provinces of the Netherlands. I wouldn't change that image to use annotations for this kind of linking." Lupo 22:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that one would be hard to do with annotations. Nice pic btw, it even shows which planet it's on ;) -- User:Docu at 00:36, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Procedure to install gadget to other Wikis is a joke.

I'm just a regular guy, a Wikipedia user. I added annotations to an image on WikiCommons and liked that feature and wanted to make those notes easily visible from the main page on Wikipedia. After much struggling, I finally got to this help page. I found the 10 step procedure for adding the ImageAnnotator gadget to "other wikis" (whatever those are) way down in bullet point 12 of the help page. Even though I am a degreed computer programmer with 25 years experience in all sorts of technologies including UNIX, VAX/VMS, and many programming languages, that procedure might as well be written in Greek. The procedure says cryptic stuff like: "Copy these files over to your wiki..." but doesn't say how to do that. I have no clue. I don't even know what "my wiki" is. I'm not some type of Wikipedia guru, I just want to add a note about a chord organ onto a photo. Wikipedia is supposed to be user driven, not guru driven. That help page needs to consist of a single bullet point that says "To add the gadget to any Wiki page, simply click the "add ImageAnnotator" icon and then click the "add note" button to get started." Anything more complicated than that is useless. Can you see grandma adding a note on her old sewing machine by following that 10 step procedure? This help page is typical of so much computer documentation, written by programmers for programmers and only comprehensible to programmers. But Wiki is designed to allow contributions from regular people, not just programmers, so this type of documentation is inappropriate.

At the very least the procedure should be fleshed out to give details on how to do the steps listed, in enough detail that a normal person actually has a chance of getting it done.— Preceding unsigned comment added by TheLarryBrown (talk • contribs) 08:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Regular users are not supposed to (and in fact, cannot) install this functionality. If it is installed at a wiki, they can use it. Only sysops can install this functionality.

The bottom line is that the installation instructions need to be moved out of the general help page.

Lupo 08:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done Lupo 08:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Then there needs to be a way to request that the sysop install the gadget onto a page to which a user wants to add image annotations and a procedure for the sysops to do so in a timely manner and notify the user that the gadget is ready.— Preceding unsigned comment added by TheLarryBrown (talk • contribs) 09:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

No. There needs to be a process by which a community at a wiki can demonstrate consensus to have the gadget installed before any sysop should do anything. The gadget is not installed "onto a page", it's installed on a wiki and is active globally on that whole wiki, affecting all users of that wiki.

BTW, please sign your posts to talk pages. See en:Wikipedia:Signatures#How to sign your posts to learn how to do that. Lupo 19:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

IPs

For a while IPs like me got to use this, and then it disappeared. Why? 76.117.247.55 06:46, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

We couldn't find a way to speedily select and revert the daily 50-100 useless edits around good contributions by IPs. -- User:Docu at 08:30, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Like Docu wrote above, we got excessive amounts of useless test edits, vandalism, or generally inappropriate notes from IPs and newly registered users. Between 70-90% of all image annotation edits from these users needed to be undone. This extra workload on admnistrators was deemed too much and out of relation with the few good annotation edits from IPs or newly registered users. As a result, the feature has been restricted such that only autoconfirmed users (i.e., people logged in to accounts older than four days) can add, modify, or delete image anntations. Image annotations should still be visible to anybody, though.

If you'd like to add image annotations, create an account, log in, read Commons:Image annotations, and after four days, you'll be able to add, delete, or modify image annotations.

Lupo 10:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think 50-100 is excessive (compare to en.wp). It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to revert them. The problem is that there wasn't really a way to figure out which ones had been checked by others before. So everybody looked at the full log .. -- User:Docu at 11:14, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Is there any possibility of technically improving the system to remedy that (The checked state)? 76.117.247.55 19:36, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Revert them just like you would any other edit. Stop scraping away at Wikimedia's fundamental openness just because you're too lazy to patrol vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.61.79 (talk • contribs) 02:20, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

That is certainly one view. But do you think that someone too lazy to log in and even too lazy to sign his post but accusing other volunteers to be too lazy will be taken seriously here? Somehow I doubt it. Don't forget that we're all volunteers here. Lupo 07:22, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Self-portrait_with_Cigar.JPG

Please see Template_talk:Creator#Self-portrait_with_Cigar.JPG_in_image_field. -- User:Docu at 08:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

See response there. Lupo 10:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Marking, template, choose reference files

Hi there
There a so many detail images that it would be helpful to get a small bunch of reference images with annotations, other than scattered ones all around the topic. Unless all versions get image annotations (I will die before that happens) we need to have a scheme to administer the files which have image annotations. For it saves a lot of work and effort and it helps improve usability.

Problem

(a) Having several versions and details of a photograph or an artwork like The Garden of Earthly Delights or Last Judgment (Bosch) which file(s) should be used for image annotations? Example: The File:The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch High Resolution 2.jpg (overview of the inside panel) or the left panel separately, the central panel separately, the right panel separately?
(b) There is no simple way to see which of a set of versions of an artwork or photograph is to be a master image annotation file.
(c) A specific template is missing (see below)

Proposal

I would like to have some simple solution, like
(a) The most hi res file is to be fitted with image annotations. If there are sub-versions (like The Garden of Earthly Delights which are panels) each file which covers the detail entity best and the overall image are reference files.
(b) a note in a gallery page below/above a hi res file "Image annotation reference file" or similar
(c) place a note (a template would be great) in the specific/chosen file and to the file in a gallery (if existent).
(d) A categorization would be cool for those images which serve as annotation reference files.

What do you think? Best regards, --Mattes (talk) 21:51, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

At Commons:Image annotations, we tried to outline samples of good and inappropriate annotations. We should probably reference this discussion on its talk page and, if we agree on one point or the other, amend it.

Similarly to the sample you quoted above, I made a series of similar annotations on File:Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights tryptich, centre panel.JPG. This is quite a long time ago though and I'm currently not entirely convinced of this type of annotation. One could argue that, if one has a high resolution image comparable to, e.g. File:Potter, Paulus - Punishment of a Hunter.jpg, one might not need the detail images, as a viewer could generate them based on a simple text annotation. We still don't have such a viewer and it will probably take some time till we get that.

Your proposal suggests to pick File:Potter, Paulus - Punishment of a Hunter.jpg (57.49 MB) over File:Paulus Potter - Punishment of a Hunter.jpg (404 KB) for annotations. Personally, I think this is problematic as long as we don't decide to delete one version.

If a user decides to annotate the painting with detailed views, he/she will probably pick one version over the other, but I wouldn't want to require him/her to pick one over the other. Both could in fact be helpful (and annotations should probably be kept in sync. There isn't an easy way to this yet though).

Category:The Garden of Earthly Delights, center panel has currently five versions showing the entire panel, but I'm not sure which one I would start annotating today. If one was marked with {{Superseded}}, it's unlikely I'd pick that one though.

On a side note: for panoramas, I tend to annotate the same features on most, if not all images, even if one is clearly superior. The images rarely show the same levels of detail/light conditions for all features. (Sample category: Category:Views from Parc Güell; of the versions available when I made them, File:Barcelona panorama from Parc Guell - Jan 2007.jpg seemed superior to others). I'm aware that panoramas are different from the "center panel" discussed before.  Docu  at 08:23, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I think for a start, there should be a "master" image which is used for annotations. Of course, all other images may have annotations, too. But for providing an overview, one should be chosen to have all or most of image annotations within a set (example: File:The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch High Resolution 2.jpg, check out how many details there are). Let's assume that such reference files are just the ones with the best qualtity and size and are not nominated for deletion,

should that qualify any user to choose that one and, in doubt, start a discussion on the file discussion? We gotta get organized here before the Chaos theory comes in / into effect :-) --Mattes (talk) 15:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Preview is useless

The Preview mode is useless, as the Annotator Gadget dialog box stays on top of the rectangle one has drawn, and when the cursor is hovered over the part of the box that is visible, nothing happens. Quicksilver^@ 19:49, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

What preview mode do you mean? The "preview" button in the note editor works for me; it displays a preview of the note above the edit box. Can you describe in more detail what exactly happens for you? Also, I'd need to know what OS, browser, and skin (monobook, vector,...) you use, and also, what other gadgets you have enabled. Lupo 06:21, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

The help page is useless, it tells you everything except the most important piece of information: How to add the gadget to an image! --IdLoveOne (talk) 04:36, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

You don't "add the gadget to an image". What exactly do you mean? Lupo 07:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

How, for instance, do you add it to an alternate image on FPC? --IdLoveOne (talk) 18:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

See Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator#Local_annotations. Lupo 08:04, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I typically use the Mozilla SeaMonkey 1.1.18 browser on Ubuntu 8.10, although sometimes I use Firefox 3 or Opera 9.6. I also use SeaMonkey 1.1.18 on Windows 98SE and Windows XP when the mood strikes me. I rarely use Microsoft Internet Explorer for anything, and never use it for editing on Wikipedia. My preferred skin is MonoBook. The only other Gadgets I have enabled are adding an edit link for the lead section and UTCLiveClock. Quicksilver^@ 20:15, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Image Annotator has been disabled on Commons

Sadly, the Image Annotator has been disabled on Commons, see Commons:Administrators' noticeboard#Disable Image Annotator for further information. --Jarekt (talk) 13:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Has been re-enabled now per Tim Starling's comment. Lupo 08:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Annotation notes disabled past file reuploading

A added 12 image notes into File:2007-KarlovyVary-053-wide.jpg. However, its uploader uploaded an a bit improved version of this panorama image. All image notes are thereby disabled. Even if I open the old version, those notes aren't displayed. That is a fatal error, that all image notes can be so easily disabled without any warning. --ŠJů (talk) 20:06, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Please don't post the same discussion in multiple places. See MediaWiki talk:Gadget-ImageAnnotator.js#Annotation notes disabled past file reuploading. Lupo 07:55, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Esperanta traduko

Por kontroli tion kio jam estas tradukita Arno Lagrange ✉ 14:15, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorCancelButtonLabel/eo (simple text only, no markup):Nuligi
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorEditButtonLabel/eo (simple text only, no markup):Redakti
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorDeleteButtonLabel/eo (simple text only, no markup):Forigi
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorPreviewButtonLabel/eo (simple text only, no markup):Antaŭrigardo
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorRevertButtonLabel/eo (simple text only, no markup):restarigi

• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorEditorLabel/eo (inline elements only, inside a <span>):
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorSaveError/eo (anything allowed, inside a <div>):
  Ne eblis savi vian noton (redakta konflikto aŭ alia problemo). Bonvolu kopii la tekston en la redaktokeston sube kaj enmetu ĝin permane per redakto de tiu-ĉi paĝo.
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorCopyright/eo (anything allowed, inside a <div>):
  Konservante la noton, ĝi publikiĝas plurlicence laŭ la kondiĉoj kaj de la licenco CC-BY-SA-3.0 kaj de GFDL, en la versioj 1.2, 1.3, aŭ iu pli posta versio. Vidu niajn rajtojn de uzado por detaloj.

• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorAddButtonText/eo (simple text only, no markup):Aldoni noton
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorDrawRectangleMsg/eo (inline elements only, inside a <span>):Desegnu rekangulon sur la supran bildon (premu la maldekstran muso-butonon, tiam movu kaj malpremu).
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorHasNotesMsg/eo (inline elements only, inside a <span>):La dosiero havas notojn. Movu la ekranomontrilon sur la dosieron por vidi ilin.
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorEditNotesMsg/eo (no markup except a single wikilink that will be replaced at runtime): Por redakti la notojn, vizitu la paĝon X.
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorDeleteReason/eo (simple text only, no markup, alert box):

• MediaWiki:Translate/eo (simple text only, only markup allowed is <span dir="rtl"></span>):
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorSave/eo (simple text only, no markup):Konservi
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorHelp/eo (inline elements only, see Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator):
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorIndicatorIcon/eo (image used as indicator icon):
• MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorCannotEditMsg/eo (anything allowed, inside a <div>):

Local annotations

At File talk:20101106 Galata Tower Istanbul Turkey Panorama.jpg, I tried to use "local annotations" with {{subst:ImageWithNotes|img=[[File:20101106 Galata Tower Istanbul Turkey Panorama.jpg|1000px]]}} It doesn't seem to work though.

The image itself is protected as it's tomorrow's POTD. It could use some annotations. --  Docu  at 07:35, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Just tried it now, and it seems to work. But first reload your browser's cache; see below. Don't know if that might have been the reason why it didn't work for you two days ago.

BTW, "didn't work" is not very helpful. Next time, try telling me what exactly happened. (No "add" button at all? Cannot draw rectangles? No zoom? No note preview? Strange exception after save? Or what?) Also, browser version and skin used are helpful information.

Lupo 13:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

There was no "add" button. BTW, I could reproduce the bug on today's POTD (File talk:Emblemariopsis carib (Caribbean Flagfin Blenny).jpg#Test). --  Docu  at 18:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Works for me there, too (FF 3.6.4 on WinXP, monobook & vector). All right, what browser, what skin? And did you reload your browser's cache? Lupo 20:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

In the meantime the POTD changed. Can you use annotations on File:Culasse canon 12 ca.1730 Invalides.jpg (edit currently limited to admins)? I can't and I can't use local annotations on File talk:Culasse canon 12 ca.1730 Invalides.jpg#Test either.

Maybe it didn't work for me on File talk:Emblemariopsis carib (Caribbean Flagfin Blenny).jpg yesterday as I couldn't write on File:Emblemariopsis carib (Caribbean Flagfin Blenny).jpg (you could). --  Docu  at 01:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC), edited 02:47, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

All right, that's the problem. The script somehow looks if you have edit rights for the image, even if local annotations are used. I'll take care of that. Lupo Test (talk) 07:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. Refresh your browser's cache, though. Lupo 19:10, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.17

If you get an error message after adding or deleting a note saying the was a "version inconsistency" or "revision ID not found", please refresh your browser's cache. Lupo 13:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

More than one annotation at one time?

Is there any way to add more than one annotation to a picture at one time? Creating more annotations per picture increases the file-history more than needed. --Quedel (talk) 16:57, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

No, the Gadget doesn't offer any way to modify several notes in one edit. Lupo 14:55, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

How to switch off image-note display on a page?

If I want to use an image carrying an image note on a wiki page, but I do not want the image note (or even the hidden square or the stupid note about the note: "Diese Datei ist annotiert. Bewege den Mauszeiger über das Bild oben, um die Notizen ...") to be displayed on that page, is that possible and how? --Túrelio (talk) 19:05, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Try Template:ImageNoteControl for a specific image or Template:InlineImageAnnotations for all images on a page. --  Docu  at 19:44, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. --Túrelio (talk) 20:20, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Some inaccuracies in description

• The phrase "if Ajax is enabled" is repeated several times and it sounds like something that user can switch off either in browser or in preferences. In reality all modern browsers simply support Ajax. In some extremely old browsers the script will probably fail anyway for other reasons. —AlexSm 21:21, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
  • In fact you can switch off or on JavaScript and therefore Ajax. Probably you can also switch off or on specific Ajax features in your browser although only via about:config (Firefox). Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 12:39, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
  • On IE < 7, XmlHttpRequest is available only as an ActiveX component. jQuery used to use that ActiveX component even for IE >= 7 last time I looked (which, admittedly, is some time ago). ActiveX can be disabled through a user preference in IE, which leaves you with an IE that may have JavaScript, but not XmlHttpRequest. Thus you can selectively disable Ajax on IE. Lupo 06:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I think this "possibility" is not worth mentioning even one time let alone 5 or 6. —AlexSm 17:35, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

• The "disable image annotations gadget" is followed by words "the script will not be loaded at all" which is not entirely true since MediaWiki:Gadget-ImageAnnotator.js is still loaded (i.e. no bandwith savings here). Even worse, it looks like it loads several other scripts before checking for ImageAnnotator_disable. —AlexSm 21:21, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Yes, true - the full script will be downloaded but it will not be executed fully - especially not the AFAIK computationally expensive DOM manipulations. Not sure why the check for "disabled" is not at top - maybe there is some reason. Cheers --Saibo (Δ) 12:39, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I fixed that and some other minor things. —AlexSm 17:35, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

New secure server

Just as a note. ImageAnnotator uses the api parser. On the api parser currently there is a hack in place to always return http:// link to images. This hack is in place to support all the iOS apps that use this function, and that were falling over in droves on the new protocol relative links. Because of this, Commons will always return mixed content, EVEN with the new server, as long as this hack is in place. Don't waste time looking for hardcoded links, you can't fix it without temporarily rewriting ImageAnnotator. The hack will be in place for approximately 2 weeks. TheDJ (talk) 19:20, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Problem with ImageNoteColors

I'm using the Image Annotator Gadget Tool on an external wiki. The template "ImageNoteColors" works fine on the file description page. However, this is not the case if the image is placed as a thumb on a normal wiki page as the annotation frames turn to the default yellow color again. Is there any chance to get the ImageNoteColors template (2010) to work on normal pages? Is it maybe due to an old version of the Image Annotator installed? I'm sorry I cannot provide more detailed information as I have no admin rights for our wiki, but I would appretiate any suggestions helping solve the problem. Thanks! --212.34.164.166 15:24, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Looks like you've found a bug. I'll investigate and check whether I can do something about this. Lupo 15:31, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I've found the cause. Is fixed in the next release of ImageAnnotator, which I'll publish at the end of the year. Lupo 22:54, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Should be fixed now with version 2.3a. If not, reload your browser's cache to make sure you have the newest version of the gadget. Lupo 20:38, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Multilingual support planned for the future?

Stop!

Hello,
I've added multilingual text to my Demo-Image -- after some testing about this issue.

At last I tested the <div>-ml-code (see edit-text of this paragraph) in the Image-Annotator text.
But I always see the text for all languages displayed (hover mouse over mouth of Mr. Shout ;-), not only the one regarding to the selected language (with the "Language select" drop-down box at top of page) as shown in this example:

English: The Englisch text

Deutsch: Der deutsche Text

Is there something planned to support ml in the Image-Annotator text in the future?
Jaybear (talk) 17:51, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Multilingual description.js explicitly switches off language selection inside image annotations. The popups used by ImageAnnotator to display the notes are an old homegrown variant. IIRC, dynamically changing the contents might screw up their layout.

I don't think I'll improve that anytime soon; I don't have the time for it. Lupo 22:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok + thanks for the hint at ML-desc.js; looks as if I ran over this code too quick yesterday.

Jaybear (talk) 09:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Image annotations for digital images

Hello, I was wondering if there's software out there that has similar features for this tool, but only for digital photos. This would be very useful for some images, especially group pictures. If best, the software would be available on Ubuntu. Thanks, --The Evil IP address (talk) 10:43, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Not helpful

Gosh! Were you trying to make this a Featured Article or what? Where is the simple answer to the simple question "How?" in this huge essay? §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 09:41, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe you are looking for Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator#Adding_a_new_annotation? --Jarekt (talk) 12:38, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I somehow reached MediaWiki:Gadget-ImageAnnotator.js and wondered if i have to copypaste this stuff in my scripts or what. This is very easy to use. Only had its Help Guide been similar. Such an huge essay. Did they employ Shakespeare to write it or what? §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 10:19, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Great Job

Im make it work on my site like:http://see.sl088.com/wiki/File:For_boat.jpg

im write a how to install it: http://see.sl088.com/wiki/扩展:Gadget-ImageAnnotator

thank for u great work!mediawiki is the best

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Theslboat (talk • contribs) 11:42, 9 August 2012‎ (UTC)

Glad to see you liked it. Lupo 06:00, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

multilanguage annotate

I miss the mention of what it looks like notes with multilanguage, that would be the real meaning here on Commons?!? -- Perhelion (talk) 12:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

You can use {{LangSwitch}} in annotations. Lupo 05:57, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Not buggy

Without login (I'm testing my browser zoo) I get the "this image has annotations" blurb, but they are not shown. –Be..anyone (talk) 02:12, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Cannot reproduce. Which browser/OS? Which skin? What's your language setting? All files, or only specific files? On file pages, or on thumbnails? (I usually use File:Spelterini Blüemlisalp.jpg and User:Lupo/File:Vista panorámica de Peñíscola desde el castillo.jpg for testing.) Are there any Javascript errors in your browser's error console, and if so, what do they say? Lupo 05:55, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Testing the Bluemlisalp I figured that it can take really long to get those annotations. After that I tested File:Windows_7_Command_Prompt.JPG again with IE9 "in private" (hoping that this ignores the cache), and it worked immediately. Of course I didn't believe that, and deleted the cache (CCleaner) for a 3rd opinion. Worked again. Maybe using "mobile broadband" (UMTS) now vs. voluntary GPRS (EDGE) earlier after UMTS issues makes a difference. –Be..anyone (talk) 06:17, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Accessibility of image notes

Hello everyone, i really like the idea of image notes. However, i wounder how devices such as Smartphones which do not have a mouseover by nature can access these important information. For me image notes are metadata about the image which should be displayed in any case. So i would propose to let all notes additionally appear in Description section of the file. What do you think? --Arnd (talk) 10:24, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Media Viewer compatibility

Is there a way to make this compatible with the new Media Viewer image display on wikipedia? Currently, the annotations don't show up (example). Evolution and evolvability (talk) 00:52, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Edit: Additioanlly, the mobile version of the site doesn't seem to recognise the links at all. would there be a simple fix to make all boxes appear after the first tap, then for links to become active upon the second tap? Evolution and evolvability (talk) 11:37, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Accessibility of image notes

Hello everyone, i really like the idea of image notes. However, i wounder how devices such as Smartphones which do not have a mouseover by nature can access these important information. For me image notes are metadata about the image which should be displayed in any case. So i would propose to let all notes additionally appear in Description section of the file. Lupo, what do you think? I am even thinking about to change the code myself if you would give me a starting point. --Arnd (talk) 20:33, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

This gadget was written before touch devices became so widespread as they are today. Originally, the gadget was motivated and inspired by the way Flickr handles image notes. If we'd want to make this gadget work reasonably on touch devices, I would:

• Look at how Flickr image notes work on touch devices.
• Turn the gadget into a MediaWiki extension; add server-side support to reduce the amount of data fetched. (May be critical for mobile connections.)
• Then add touch device support.

Personally, I have no experience with programming for touch devices, and I have no time to take on such a large rewrite myself. Lupo 17:28, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Lupo, can u tell me where to find the code? Just want to take a look into it. --Arnd (talk) 21:34, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

See Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator/Installation. It's slightly outdated (the gadget doesn't depend on the old wikibits.js anymore) but still gives the basic procedure and does list all the JS files needed. The gadget is loaded via MediaWiki:Common.js. Lupo 05:34, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Metadata

Do the EXIF tags allow embedding these notes as metadata in the image itself? I made a similar query at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T77281 ~★ nmaia ^{[[mia diskuto]]} 11:25, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

• I’m sure it doesn’t and I think it shouldn’t. The content of files should not be altered by editing their filepage in any way. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 11:35, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

So did someone kill this?

Why can I suddenly not access image annotation any more? — LlywelynII 08:58, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• Have been like this for a few weeks now. Asked in VP. -- Tuválkin ✉ ✇ 05:44, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Integration with Structured Data?

Could this gadget work together with Structured Data? I started the discussion in Commons talk and wanted to mention it here as well. As an example, take a look at the image File:Glucocorticoid_Mineralocorticoid_Metabolism.png. It depicts the gene CYP11A1 at a specific location. We can express this information as both an annotation and structured data.

Annotation

 
{{ImageNote|id=2|x=270|y=137|w=55|h=18|dimx=1000|dimy=895|style=2}}
[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14905666 Wikidata]
{{ImageNoteEnd|id=2}}

Structured Data

 depicts https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14905666 at the relative position within image of pct:25.736,14.297,5.046,1.650

Note that the structured data uses percentages as units where the annotation uses pixels.

--Ariutta (talk) 00:40, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Sanbox

Suggest create an image sandbox, so user can experiment more easily, without creating own sandbox page. --BoldLuis (talk) 09:22, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Video

I suggest a video (screencasting), explaining how this feature works. It can make it more easy to understand (a video values more than 1000 words or pictures). --BoldLuis (talk) 09:24, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

How do I add notes to existing files?

Place Stanislas, Nancy, France

I've been experimenting with the personal image note sandbox and I'd like to try adding notes to some of the photo's I've taken and uploaded myself. I was thinking of adding some notes to this image, uploaded December 2021. How do I get to the "Add a note"-button? Help would be very much appreciated. Kind regards, MartinD (talk) 14:10, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi MartinD,

Do you use the Vector 2022 skin? Switching back to Vector 2010 may help, see my request at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-ImageAnnotator.js#No activation button in Vector 2022 skin → bertux 09:17, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi Bertux, thank you very much! Kind regards, MartinD (talk) 09:28, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Don't work on a certain image

Do have somebody an idea, why the annotations don't work on image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kirchseeoner_Maskeum_-_Schnadernschlenzer_Masken_Haberngoa%C3%9F,_Shnupp,_Einauge_und_Vogel.jpg ? It works fine on a similar image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kirchseeoner_Maskeum_-_Schnadernschlenzer_Masken_Nashorn,_Der_Fuchs,_Die_Katz_und_Der_Alte.jpg .

Download

How do I download image annotations? Where are they stored? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Las Casas (talk • contribs) 00:00, 5. Okt. 2022‎ (UTC)

They are stored in the file pages using templates like {{ImageNote}}. whym (talk) 11:15, 26 August 2023 (UTC)