Am I right that this extension is intended to replace Lupo's ImageAnnotator gadget? If so, does it use the same format, does it provide the same features (wikitext in notes, option to require summaries, more site-specific config etc.)? Anyway, I think Lupo should be credited if this extension is based on his work.
Topic on Extension talk:FileAnnotations
Yes, it will replace the gadget. It's not based on the gadget except in concept, though, as the technical debt was too high to consider that.
Correct - the concept is the same, but we didn't copy any of the code. I tried, but Lupo's code assumed a far less powerful API than we have today, and it was too entangled in itself to fix that problem.
Thanks! And when and how will it be available for everyone? (I was rewriting the gadget to replace deprecated functions and decrease code size. Will this extension be ready before wikibits.js will be removed entirely? Also, now it can be switched off. Will this feature remain – of course, with a normal preference option instead of a switch-off gadget? Or should it explicitly turned on?)
I would guess before the end of the year. We have some polishing to do, then a gradual roll-out, and some conversion of existing annotations. I expect we should leave the gadget on indefinitely, because there's no reason to disable it necessarily. The community can change or remove it if they want.
I asked whether this extension will have a per-user disable option—as the gadget currently has, at least on Commons (and huwiki, where I'm working on this). And, of course, I'll be happy to test the extension when it goes to beta.
Oh, sorry, I misunderstood.
I suppose it might be possible to turn off the feature, but I think it should be a default-on sort of thing - else potentially important information gets hidden from users by default.
I'm sure there will be e-mails to the Multimedia list and a few other places when the feature gets out to the beta cluster. I'm hoping that happens sometime in the next few weeks!
Thank you! Of course, it should be opt-out—the gadget is also turned on by default. I'm waiting for the beta feature (it'll be in Tech News, won't it?).
I believe so. It may depend on how widely we want to announce something on the beta cluster...
I think a bit more than a few weeks passed since October 2016… What are the plans with this extension?
The work on the extension died when the Multimedia team was shut down and replaced with the Structured Data on Commons team, sorry.
:(
Then the extension page should reflect it. Currently it says the extension is experimental, which implies it’s under development; and it also asks for feedback, which is quite pointless if it won’t be worked on anyway.