Reading/Multimedia/Media Viewer/Timeline
Media Viewer is a new multimedia browser aimed at Wikimedia readers and casual editors. This tool was developed by Wikimedia Foundation's.multimedia team from July 2013 to December 2014.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Media_Viewer_-_New_Design_-_Default_Lightbox.png/320px-Media_Viewer_-_New_Design_-_Default_Lightbox.png)
This timeline lists key milestones and events throughout the development and release of this tool. It is intended as a reference to support the Media Viewer 2014 Research report.
2013
edit- July 1: Multimedia team is formed, with product manager Fabrice Florin and software engineer Mark Holmquist
- July 9: First Media Viewer product slides posted as Google presentation
- July 9: Mark starts developing sample code for a first version of MultimediaViewer extension
- July 10: Roundtable discussion about Media Viewer and other projects, on Google Hangouts
- July 18: IRC Office Hours Chat about Media Viewer and other multimedia projects
- July 19: First Media Viewer feature requirements and specifications posted on Mingle
- July 22: First user interface designs, based on community feedback and requirements
- August 8: Multimedia roundtable discussion at Wikimania in Hong Kong
- August 22: IRC office hours about Multimedia plans
- August 22: Updated design mockups by May Tee-Galloway posted on Wikimedia Commons
- September 4?: Brian Wolff develops first working version of CommonsMetadata extension
- September 18: Development starts on Beta Features, to support Media Viewer beta launch
- September 24: Pau Giner joins the multimedia team as part-time interaction designer
- October 1: Full set of feature requirements for Media Viewer minimum viable product
- October 10: Start online discussion on Wikimedia Commons about Media Viewer
- October 14: Gergo Tisza joins the multimedia team as full-time software engineer
- October 21: Keegan Peterzell starts work as part-time community liaison for multimedia
- Oct. 31: Release Media Viewer as a Beta Feature on MediaWiki.org
- October 31: Start Media Viewer talk page on MediaWiki.org
- Nov. 7: Release Media Viewer as a Beta Feature on all Wikipedias
- Nov. 11: Updated development tasks for Media Viewer, based on community feedback
- Nov. 19: Aaron Arcos joins the multimedia team as full-time volunteer engineer for 5 months
- Nov. 22: IRC Office Hours Chat about Media Viewer and Beta Features
- Nov. 27: Roundtable discussion about Media Viewer on Google Hangouts
- Dec. 4: Roundtable discussion about Media Viewer on Google Hangouts
2014
edit- Jan. 6: Gilles Dubuc joins the multimedia team as full-time senior software engineer
- Jan. 13: First weekly sprint planning meeting, using Mingle and agile development tools.
- Jan. 28: New designs for share, download, re-use and other features
- Feb. 2: First quarterly planning meeting with a full multimedia team
- Feb. 10: Expand community engagement for Media Viewer beta testing
- Feb. 21: IRC Office Hours Chat about Media Viewer beta.
- Feb. 24: Usability testing starts for Media Viewer beta on usertesting.com
- Feb. 27: Blog post invites community members to help test Media Viewer.
- Mar. 3: Reach out to community champions for gradual release of Media Viewer worldwide
- April 10 - First pilot release on MediaWiki.org
- April 17: Release on Catalan, Hungarian, and Korean Wikipedias, English Wikivoyage
- April 24: Release on Czech, Estonian, Finnish, Hebrew, Polish, Romanian, Thai Wikipedias
- May 1: Release on first large pilot sites: Dutch and French Wikipedias
- May 8: Release on Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish Wikipedias
- May 13: Release on Telugu and Kannada Wikipedia
- May 15: Release on Wikimedia Commons
- May 22: Release on Italian and Russian Wikipedias
- May 29: Release on on all Wikisources
- Jun. 3: Release on English and German Wikipedias
- Jun. 7: English RfC starts.
- Jun. 12: Release ‘View original file’, scroll down for info, show file page link to all users.
- Jun. 19: Final release on all wikis
- Jun. 23: Release ‘Disable’ for anonymous users (T77606), tooltips. Start tracking disable rates.
- Jun. 27: Commons RfC starts.
- Jul. 1: Release ‘Show attributions in Download’. Remove all surveys.
- Jul. 8: German RfC starts.
- Jul. 10: English Rfc closes, with request that Media Viewer be disabled by default
- Jul. 10: Respond to English RfC that we will not disable by default, but keep improving.
- Jul. 30: Media Viewer Review with Lila, agree to not disable, keep improving
- Aug. 1: Start work on new improvements and user research.
- Aug. 7: Respond to Commons RfC, agree to disable for logged-in users by default
- Aug. 8: German RfC closes, requests disabling by default.
- Aug. 9: Respond to German RfC that we will not disable by default, but keep improving.
- Aug. 10: German users hack their site to remove Media Viewer extension
- Aug. 10: WMF implements ‘Superprotection’ feature to prevent hacking .js pages.
- Aug. 20: Community petition to remove ‘superprotection’ and Media Viewer
- Aug. 26: Disable Media Viewer as the default for logged-in users on Commons
- Aug. 27: WMF removes ‘superprotection’, offers to improve Media Viewer further
- Aug. 28: Host community consultation, collecting 130 suggestions for improvements
- Sep. 2: Test prototype of new improvements with about 10 users, who find them useful
- Sep. 9: Remove 'File Usage' and 'Categories' from the metadata panel
- Sep. 11: Evaluate community suggestions for improvements, select a dozen 'must-haves'
- Sep. 18: Release first improvement: Enlarge feature (go to original file in full resolution)
- Oct. 2: Release next improvements: More Details (go to file page), Download, Share/Embed
- Oct. 4: Meet productively with German community members at WikiCon in Cologne
- Oct. 6: Second English RfC starts, requesting first RfC request for removal be re-opened
- Oct. 23: Release more improvements: disable/enable settings, monobook support
- Nov. 6: Release final improvements: captions above the fold, final layout
- Nov. 6: Second English RfC on removing Media Viewer is closed
- Nov. 21: Second English RfC on removing Media Viewer is re-opened
- Dec. 8: Fourth research study shows users can complete all key tasks with Media Viewer
- Dec. 9: Second English RfC is closed with 'no consensus' on removing Media Viewer
- Dec. 11: Multimedia team holds retrospective of lessons learned from Media Viewer
- Dec. 17: Metrics improvements, start tracking scrolling to open metadata panel
2015
edit- Jan. 19: Publish retrospective and 2014 research report with findings from metrics and user studies