Wikipedia talk:Extended image syntax

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I'm confused: If you choose 'thumb', do you have to provide a thumbnail image, or is the "thumbnail" actually just a squeezed-up copy of the normal image, or is the Wiki software somehow generating a thumbnail image on the fly, or what? —Paul A 02:14, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The software generates a sized-down image, so it's not just the big image scaled down by the browser. The image is stored on the web server, so it's generated only once to reduce performance impact. -- JeLuF 10:56, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)

From the text:
"and the alternate text is used as alt=-attribute for use as mouse popup and for screen reader."
No, no, no, no, NO. The alt attribute is not for mouse popup text. The alt attribute sets alternate text (instead of the image); the title attribute is recommended for use as such things as mouse-over popups (as well as the image). I'm glad to see the software seems to get this right, in as much as the title attribute is being set to the same thing as the alt, but we really shouldn't be encouraging their perception as one and the same. I can see that for most wikipedia purposes a sensible caption will be suitable as both supplementary and replacement, but could the wording on this and any other help pages make clear that this is not the alt= text. [Apologies for going off on a rant. I must be stressed.] - IMSoP 11:54, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

OK, I've calmed down long enough to be more wiki-like about this, and gone ahead and changed the page so that it talks about a caption text which is used for more than one purpose. I've reworded various bits to be more precise and/or understandable while I was at it, with the side effect that it may be a bit more verbose. Let me know if you think I've gone too far/done something inappropriate. - IMSoP 12:14, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Once this feature is included in a MediaWiki release, this page will need to be moved to meta:MediaWiki User's Guide. In the future, we will need to have a help namespace for MediaWiki-specific pages that would link to the user guide on Meta. --mav 00:20, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Would it be possible to extend the new syntax to supply a seperate image to be used as the thumbnail? For some images I optimized the thumbnail manually to provide only a part of the full image to enhance the quality of the small image. For two Examples see my user page in de:.
It should be possible to implement this backward compatible as: [[Image:LargeImage.jpg|Image:OptionalThumbnail.jpg|options|caption]] -- LosHawlos 20:38, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I do that too. In that case, couldn't you just redirect the image page of the small image to the image page of the big image? --mav 00:03, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

How to use new Extended Image Syntax

How do I use the new extended image syntax please? I’ve read the Help but it’s still not totally clear how to use it. Here’s a screengrab of the code I’ve used up to now (from the Hawker Hunter article):

Can some kind person tell me the new code to replace it? You might need to know that my thumbnail is to be 300 pixels across and my Larger Version is usually 750 pixels across (but both pic sizes can vary depending on the quality and aspect ratio of the source pic). Do I still have to upload a thumbnail myself or does the new code generate it? I need the choice of placing the thumbnail on left or right, for the Hunter pic it needs to be on the right.
Thanks,
Adrian Pingstone 17:51, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Well I would use the following, although it doesn't reproduce what you did exactly:

[[Image:Hunter.black.750pix.jpg|thumbnail|right|300px|A privately-owned Hawker Hunter photographed in England 2003]]

A privately-owned Hawker Hunter photographed in England 2003

And no, you only need to upload the large version. Fabiform 18:24, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Ah, excellent. I'll go and tweak the images I did in the last day then. :) Fabiform 18:43, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

~~Does this new system not work with special characters? See for example: User:Dori/Sandbox~~. It appears that this bug has been squashed. Dori | Talk 17:01, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)

Also, check out the alt text on the right hand image in Dori's sandbox, it displays as:
<center ><strong>Image:Butrint 2.jpg</strong></center >
fabiform | talk 21:01, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks everyone, the new code works fine. Have a look at my first attempt (Morris Marina). I only had to upload the large pic, the thumbnail was created by the code so the work of image uploading is now halved for me. Thanks to whoever coded this improvement.

P.S. I notice that the thumbnail the code makes is a little large, it was 36K compared with the 20K I got when I made the thumbnail. So the new code will have a penalty in page loading times.Adrian Pingstone 23:13, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Left alignment

Is there a way to align left the image on Henri_Druey ? Currently the list interferes with the image (it probably also did in the previous version). -- User:Docu

Yes, there is away to improve the page, just shift the image over to the right where it looks much more natural! It's standard practice on Wikipedia to put the first image on the right so that the beginning of lines are not disrupted. I hope you like the result.

Adrian Pingstone 20:53, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This solves the formatting problem. I usually prefer to have portraits look into the article, e.g. John Adams seems to be looking the wrong way, but Henri_Druey looks o.k. even on the other side. -- User:Docu

I guess I was just lucky that the pic still looks OK on the right. Even so, if the pic is public ___domain, you could flip it horizontally in your graphics program and then the person is looking the other way! I know this would not always look right if medals etc. or any writing got reversed.

Adrian Pingstone 09:56, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer not to do this. BTW I found another solution on Richard_Greene: using <br clear=all> before the list. -- User:Docu

Whoops, too late. I've already flipped John Adams and it looks fine. If you don't want it like that, just revert me. I'm sorry I did something you don't like but reversion is easy because the previous versions are still there.

Adrian Pingstone 10:19, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Unless it's a symmetric object, I'd leave the choice to the painter (or the photographer). Here I don't mind that much, since I picked John Adams primarily because I recalled that the template for US Presidents includes an image and he was just the first one to look to out of the article (BTW the third image in the article even more so). -- User:Docu

</from User talk:Docu>

Feature request

A couple of feature requests, posted at meta, comment if you want Dori | Talk 17:23, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)

Can I get a caption without a thumbnail?

Logo of Digital Equipment Corporation

Let me be more specific: I expected

[[image:digital_dec_logo.jpg|right|Logo of Digital Equipment Corporation]]

to display a full-sized image with the caption "Logo of Digital Equipment Corporation" underneath it (just as in the thumbnails, but without the magnifying glass).

It didn't do what I expected. Instead, it does what you see. Apparently the caption simply gets thrown away. (Why does MediaWiki think I put the caption there in the first place?) A bug, or functions as designed?

If the latter, is a way for me get it to do what I want? Dpbsmith 22:43, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Having 'right' or a specified width should tell the software that the last bit of text is a caption and not just alternate text. But in cases where the position or width is not specified the software must treat it the old way and not create a caption. --mav 23:10, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

To answer the question, I think it is functioning as designed: the caption text or alt-text or whatever you want to call it is not "thrown away", it is merely acting the same way as the old-style syntax of [[image:digital_dec_logo.jpg|Logo of Digital Equipment Corporation]] would do. In my opinion, using it as title, alt and an inline caption is somewhat overdoing it anyway... - IMSoP 00:52, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There are a lot of articles in Wikipedia that have images or diagrams that are already sized to be displayed as-is, without thumbnails, and which also have captions. As soon as I found out about this new image syntax the very first thing I did was try to create such an non-thumbnail image/caption structure with it, and was puzzled when it didn't. I think it's not at all overkill to display the caption text as a caption too, since that's one of the main things I want to do with images. :) Bryan 00:41, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I had already proposed this before, my proposal was to add a 'caption' keyword to say that you want the alt-text as a caption, or a different caption. That is, [[Image:someimage.jpg|right|Image]] would have no caption and alt-text 'Image' (as it is now), [[Image:someimage.jpg|right|caption|Image]] would have 'Image' both as caption and as alt-text, and [[Image:someimage.jpg|right|caption:A crappy thing|Image]] would have 'Image' as alt-text and 'A crappy thing' as caption. JeLuF seemed not to think it would be useful, unfortunately. Andre Engels 18:46, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Could someone vistit Monument to the Royal Stuarts, and fix the nifty magnifying glass thing, which I copied from Athens, so that it leads to the big version of the photo as it is supposed to. The big version is uploaded as [[Image:ac.stuarts.jpg]] and the small version as [[image:ac.stuarts2.jpg]]. Obviously I have missed a step in the process somewhere. Adam 11:41, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

With the new version, you need just one picture. I changed it on the page. Hope you like the result. -- User:Docu

Many thanks. So I just upload the big version, and then specify in the edit box the width I want the small version to appear as, is that correct? Adam 11:54, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but I haven't tried out all options yet. A quick way to do it, seems to be [[Image:ac.stuarts.jpg|thumb|Monument to the royal Stuarts, Rome]] -- User:Docu

Have you been here yet: Wikipedia:Extended image syntax? There are examples of the different options that you can copy and paste. :) fabiform | talk 13:40, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Here's the code I'm now using for a large pic with its associated thumbnail, it seems to work fine:

[[image:yourfilename.jpg|thumb|right|300px|<center>yourpicturetitle</center>]]

Put double apostrophes around the picture title to give the italics.
DON'T UPLOAD A THUMBNAIL, the new code does it for you.

The result is a centred, italicised, caption and a nice-looking thumbnail 300 pixels wide and set on the right of the article. Go to Morris Marina to see how it all turns out.

Can I suggest that 300 pixels be the standard thumb width, it makes a thumbnail big enough so that the reader is not forced to view the big pic but not so big that the text is squeezed into a narrow channel on an 800 by 640 screen.

Adrian Pingstone 15:28, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I second this suggestion. A standard width of 300px would be perfect. Hadal 16:32, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Image position

There is now acres of white space next to the picture at the top of this page (at least on my not-excessively-high-res screen). A similar thing is occuring at Hutton Inquiry. Is this due to the new image markup? Could it be changed so that the text wraps around the pictures like it used to... I think it is less ugly that way. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:23, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It still wraps around the pictures just like it used to for me. While you're waiting for the techies to arrive, perhaps you should say what operating system and browser you're using... those are usually the first questions. (What I did to the Hutton Inquiry must look really bad on your machine, sorry!). fabiform | talk 09:10, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

IE 5.5 on Windows NT. (It doesn't look great - but I am slowly learning not to fly off the handle about these things - if something needs to be fixed then it will be soon enought) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:15, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This was causing the problem: <br clear=all> It was inserted when Hutton's picture was moved to the left. I have removed it, and now the text should wrap properly. --Minesweeper 09:17, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I left it there when I moved the pic to the right again assuming it served a useful purpose... sorry. But you said the pic looked all wrong on the village pump as well? fabiform | talk 09:32, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Post hard refresh (ctrl+f5) it now appears fine on both this and the Hutton page. I don't know if there has been a change on this page or if it was just the refresh that sorted something. Thanks for all your help guys. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:04, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Oddly, it seems I have to hard refresh every time I come to this page to get the correct layout. i.e. I load the page, get whitespace, hard refresh, no whitespace. Something local to me? Something squidy? Something with the new image code? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 12:11, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Code for pics in a column

Help, please, with putting 5 pics in a column on the page. In Sistine Chapel I need to know the new code to put the 5 pics in the same vertical arrangement as you see on the page now.
Thanks.
Adrian Pingstone 11:18, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I tried a version, leaving the <div> in. Personally I would probably have kept the previous version, it looked great already. -- User:Docu

Thanks for your help, that's exactly what I wanted (and I'm sorry I made you type it all in!). I wanted to change to the new code because if we have a mixture of the old and the new look in different articles, then (IMHO) Wikipedia is going to look amateur.

Will anyone else tell me if they think a mixture of the two pic styles (not within the same article, of course) is OK?

Adrian Pingstone 13:11, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Please don't post screenshots of wikitext. Just surround the text with <pre> and </pre>. Especially not as a 43 KB JPEG. -- Tim Starling 13:18, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, screenshot removed.

Adrian Pingstone 16:09, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be <nowiki></nowiki>? - IMSoP 17:03, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Either way, they have basically the same function. <pre> is better for preserving line breaks, and uses a fixed rather than proportional font. e.g.

<div style="float:right; margin-left:10px; margin-right:10px; width:200px; text-align:center">
[[image:sistine.chapel.entire.500pix.jpg|200px|none|thumb|''The interior of the Sistine Chapel'']]

-- Tim Starling 23:43, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)

Bug in the image resize code

Sennheiser points out a problem with the new image resize feature. Please see Igor Kurchatov to fully understand the problem.

Is that <center> tag allowed? If you take it out, the problem goes away. Not sure the new thumbnail feature allows that formatting. Fuzheado 14:47, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

the center is fine (although it shows in the alt text!), the problem is the "". I just chucked the pic in the Wikipedia:Sandbox with the "" and then replaced them with ', and it worked. You can't wikify the caption either, and I imagine that you might have a problem if the caption should read thumb, or right. ;) (Wonderful beard, by the way!) fabiform | talk 14:52, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)