Standard HTML 4 / XHTML 1 file upload widget only allows you to select one file at a time, which is terrible.
Flash upload widgets can provide multiple-file selection, as well as some other nice things like progress feedback. Compare with WordPress's Flash upload widget; see if it's compatible and could be adapted directly?
(No patent-encumbered codec issues are involved, so this falls under our acceptable use cases for Flash. Flash's wide install base, and not requireing the user to click through a full-system-access permissions dialog to do file uploads, make it more attractive for this purpose than Java.)
When Flash isn't available, should naturally fall back to the standard upload widget. (It should also be possible to select the standard upload widget manually, in case of difficulties with the particular version.)
Requires actual backend support for dealing with multiple file uploads -- bug 16751.
Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement
URL: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload