Last modified: 2014-11-17 10:35:40 UTC
We found it is tedious to upload file one by one if we have a bunch of files to be uploaded. It would be better to allow users upload several files at a time. Taking yahoo mail as an example, users can attach 5 files in a single page. I use this feature a lot.
For a Windows (.NET) tool to bulk upload to the Wikimedia Commons, see http://tiredbrain.com/wikimedia/commonplace/
Has there been any further talk about including such a feature into the core cvs of MediaWiki?
My mother (an art history professor) has been collecting an impressive number of 19th-century painters' images online (public-domain per [[w:Bridgeman v. Corel]]), and it would certainly be handy if I could upload them somehow en masse to Commons eventually. However, there are major implementation details that would need to be worked out: how would you deal with descriptions and copyright info? Sources should be given individually for every image, ideally, so how will that work?
In the meantime... there is a Perl script you can use to upload en masse, if you're comfortable with using Perl: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:File_upload_service/Script and there is a java program Commonist http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Tools/Commonist which might be easier to use, but I'm not sure how much flexibility it will allow you. Commons also has a 'Creator' namespace which was used when we uploaded 100,000 paintings from DirectMedia, for example http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Creator:James_McNeill_Whistler which is just transcluded onto image pages like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Whistler_Portrait_of_his_Mother.jpg . --[[commons:User:pfctdayelise]]
Please note that HTML/HTTP does not allow for bulk uploads. While it would be possible to have three or five or ten file upload fields, users would still have to select each file individually. Selecting an entire folder, or using drag & drop of a selection of files, would still not be possible. Multi-File upload could be implemented using a (signed) Java Applet, or Flash. Both platforms are not "free enough" for inclusion in core MediaWiki, raise the client requirements, and pose a problem for accessibility. Also, when uploading multiple files at once, warnings/feedback about name changes, overwriting existing images and invalid files would become a lot more complicated. For the time being, it seems to be best to use client side programs like Commonist for mass uploads. An alternative aproach would be to allow "archive import" of images, analogous to Special:Import. That would however still require an application on the client side to prepare the import archive, which would have to follow a strict format, contain meta-info as XML, etc. As far as I know, there is no simple, clean and reliable way to implement multi-file uploads over a web interface.
Should we change it to WONTFIX then?
(In reply to comment #6) > Should we change it to WONTFIX then? > No. Even uploading a few files at a time is a step forward.
There is of course http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MultiUpload . I do not know if it works properly.
I've split this into three component bugs: bug 16751 -- backend support / basic interface bug 16572 -- use of HTML 5 multiple-upload option where available bug 16573 -- use of Flash multiple-upload widget where available And indeed, peeking at MultiUpload would be wise. :)
Extension:MultiUpload is crap. It works basically but I think it's not very secure. It doesn't even check if the target name exists.
(fixing bug numbers) > bug 16751 -- backend support / basic interface > bug 16752 -- use of HTML 5 multiple-upload option where available > bug 16753 -- use of Flash multiple-upload widget where available
*** Bug 14926 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
[[Special:UploadWizard]] supports multiple file uploads. According to Bug 16751, we can consider that this bug is fixed.
