Last modified: 2011-01-25 00:37:40 UTC
Please turn static GIF scaling back on without turning the problematic animated GIF scaling back on with it. Please see: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Graphics_village_pump#Can_static_GIF_scaling_be_separated_from_animated_GIF_scaling.3F Static GIF resizing worked well for years. But it was turned off due to problems with animated GIF scaling. It seems from previous discussions that animated GIF scaling is very complex and problematic to do well. It also is a resource hog. So it gets turned on and off due to all the problems. There is no need for static GIF resizing to be turned off. Static GIF scaling shouldn't be held hostage for more months and years by the on-and-off problems with animated GIF scaling. To understand some of the history see also the previous talk sections in the linked discussion. That longtime discussion has more info and links about the problems and solutions.
See some of the problem of doing without scaled static GIF images: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Octave_Uzanne There are also many charts, graphs, tables, and diagrams.
Related to bug #22041, after which all GIF scaling was disabled.
Add werdna to cc, he did some stuff about GIFs iirc.
Has this been fixed now?
Yes, static GIFs are now rescaling. For examples: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Octave_Uzanne now renders correctly; 640 pixel wide http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ophangingsarmen_Diagram.gif now rescales to 400 inside http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschiedenis_van_de_auto_%281905-1918%29 . I have tested other examples on wikibooks and it.wikipedia. Animated GIF rescaling has also been turned on but mediawiki is now delivering scaled down thumbnails of animated GIFs too.
For future readers, any remaining issues with improving the handling of animated GIF thumbnailing is now discussed in bug 23063.