Thumbnail previews of media files from local drive, to be uploaded to a Wikibase (or Wikimedia Commons)

[trnstlntk]

Scenario: User wants to use OpenRefine to upload new files to Wikimedia Commons, from harddrive. They select a set of files from their harddrive.

We want to give users the option to toggle previews (thumbnails) of the media files, and the option to click the thumbnails to enlarge them. Such preview thumbnails are helpful during editing (e.g. to check if a certain thing is indeed depicted in a file, without having to preview the file via another application on the local drive itself).

Wireframes for this feature have been drawn by @lozanaross for another scenario (show thumbnails of files already on Wikimedia Commons), but I think the basic UX behavior is the same? OpenRefine/OpenRefine#5154 provides the technical basis for making this feature possible. In the backend

Most recent wireframes I found (v4, development version; shows files on Commons):

• The small thumbnails: https://xd.adobe.com/view/df767737-c4ca-4d25-977e-7ad8ca3a6840-8a25/screen/8c10c8d4-9ab6-4da2-adb6-9552f789593f/
• Hover effect: https://xd.adobe.com/view/df767737-c4ca-4d25-977e-7ad8ca3a6840-8a25/screen/e8aadeae-d6e6-414f-9852-26e85ce6964d/
• Enlarged thumbnail: https://xd.adobe.com/view/df767737-c4ca-4d25-977e-7ad8ca3a6840-8a25/screen/698c6f1c-d747-4adc-895b-142e21c2830c/

[wetneb]

Since we are building an extension point for this (OpenRefine/OpenRefine#5154), this will be part of the Commons extension, so moving this issue there.

[lozanaross]

Since we are building an extension point for this (OpenRefine/OpenRefine#5154), this will be part of the Commons extension, so moving this issue there.

If thumbnail functionality is part of the Commons extensions, does this mean thumbnail previews won't be available to Wikibase users? In theory the scenario described above could be useful for WB users, too. But, I can certainly see main use-case is for Commons, so probably WB users shouldn't be prioritized here.

[wetneb]

For previewing files from the local drive (this issue), I think it should be easy to have something not be specific to Commons.