docs/skin.txt

   1 skin.txt
   2
   3 MediaWiki includes four core skins:
   4
   5 * Vector: The default skin. Introduced in the 1.16 release (2010), it has been
   6   set as the default in MediaWiki since the 1.17 release (2011), replacing
   7   Monobook.
   8
   9 * Monobook: Named after the black-and-white photo of a book in the page
  10   background. Introduced in the 2004 release of 1.3, it had been been the
  11   default skin since then, before being replaced by Vector.
  12
  13 * Modern: An attractive blue/grey theme with sidebar and top bar. Derived from
  14   Monobook.
  15
  16 * Cologne Blue: A lightweight skin with minimal formatting. The oldest of
  17   currently bundled skins, largely rewritten in 2012 while keeping the looks.
  18
  19
  20 Several legacy skins were removed in the 1.22 release, as the burden of
  21 supporting them became too heavy to bear. Those were:
  22
  23 * Standard (a.k.a. Classic): The old default skin written by Lee Crocker during
  24   the phase 3 rewrite, in 2002.
  25
  26 * Nostalgia: A skin which looks like Wikipedia did in its first year (2001).
  27   This skin is now used for the old Wikipedia snapshot at
  28   http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/
  29
  30 * Chick: A lightweight Monobook skin with no sidebar, the sidebar links were
  31   given at the bottom of the page instead.
  32
  33 * Simple: A lightweight skin with a simple white-background sidebar and no top
  34   bar.
  35
  36 * MySkin: Monobook without the CSS. The idea was that you customise it using
  37   user or site CSS.
  38
  39
  40 == Custom CSS/JS ==
  41
  42 It is possible to customise the site CSS and JavaScript without editing any
  43 source files. This is done by editing some pages on the wiki:
  44
  45 * [[MediaWiki:Common.css]] -- for skin-independent CSS
  46 * [[MediaWiki:Common.js]] -- for skin-independent JavaScript
  47 * [[MediaWiki:Vector.css]], [[MediaWiki:Monobook.css]], etc. -- for
  48   skin-dependent CSS
  49 * [[MediaWiki:Vector.js]], [[MediaWiki:Monobook.js]], etc. -- for
  50   skin-dependent JavaScript
  51
  52 These can also be customised on a per-user basis, by editing
  53 [[User:<name>/vector.css]], [[User:<name>/vector.js]], etc.
  54
  55 This feature has led to a wide variety of "user styles" becoming available:
  56
  57 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Gallery_of_user_styles
  58
  59 If you want a different look for your wiki, that gallery is a good place to start.
  60
  61 == Drop-in custom skins ==
  62
  63 If you put a file in MediaWiki's skins directory, ending in .php, the name of
  64 the file will automatically be added as a skin name, and the file will be
  65 expected to contain a class called Skin<name> with the skin class. You can then
  66 make that skin the default by adding to LocalSettings.php:
  67
  68 $wgDefaultSkin = '<name>';
  69
  70 You can also disable dropped-in or core skins using:
  71
  72 $wgSkipSkins[] = '<name>';
  73
  74 This technique is used by the more ambitious MediaWiki site operators, to
  75 create complex custom skins for their wikis. It should be preferred over
  76 editing the core Monobook skin directly.
  77
  78 See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skinning for more information.
  79
  80 == Extension skins ==
  81
  82 It is now possible (since MediaWiki 1.12) to write a skin as a standard
  83 MediaWiki extension, enabled via LocalSettings.php. This is done by adding
  84 it to $wgValidSkinNames, for example:
  85
  86 $wgValidSkinNames['mycoolskin'] = 'MyCoolSkin';
  87
  88 and then registering a class in $wgAutoloadClasses called SkinMycoolSkin, which
  89 derives from Skin. This technique is apparently not yet used (as of 2008)
  90 outside the DumpHTML extension.
  91