Last modified: 2007-04-26 00:58:35 UTC
If we have <gallery> Image:this doesnt exist.svg Image:this doesnt exist.png Image:this doesnt exist.jpg Image:this doesnt exist.gif </gallery> and none of the four files exist, the SVG will appear as http://commons.wikimedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/icons/fileicon-svg.png (some weird blob shape) and all the others will appear as http://commons.wikimedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/icons/fileicon.png (a blank white rectangle). The SVG gallery image should be changed to the blank white rectangle, same as the other images. thanks.
Alternatively all of the missing images could be made spiffier if so desired. But there is a feeling that the current "weird blob shape" (which to me looks like a shape with control handles on it to adjust the curvature and so forth as you would do in Inkscape) is more confusing than it is evocative of SVG.
Larry, I dissagree with you. The images shown in place of a missing/deleted image shold not look like anything meaningfull, but make clear that this is what it is, a missing image. Showing a blank image like for PNG and JPG is the easiest solution and is the minimum solution for SVG. A better solution would be to show a broken link, like with images outside a gallery, or something else that can transport this message. XorX
making something "spiffier" has to still convey that the image is "missing". Which the current svg image does not do. Perhaps if it was broken, or a red X were on top of it, or whatever, as you say. But just using a blank white rectangle might well be the very easiest to do, and would be an improvement over what is there now, as Brianna points out. So I don't think we are disagreeing, necessarily.
There just doesn't happen to be a specific icon for PNG, GIF, or JPEG at the moment, so they get the generic icon.
Sorry Brion Vibber, but that is maybe not a solution for the problem. As I understand it, to achieve the minimum solution for wikimedia commons (blank icons for missing SVG files) this would mean to remove the generic icon for SVG files. Has this to be done in the software or is it a configuration thing that can be done by a commons-administrator?
It can only be changed by a developer or sysadmin. Maybe the filename could be added to messages so they're changeable by sysops to any uploaded image (check that it's protected, though . . .). Or just use magic filenames.
