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 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 the
  17   currently bundled skins, largely rewritten in 2012 while keeping its
  18   appearance.
  19
  20
  21 Several legacy skins were removed in the 1.22 release, as the burden of
  22 supporting them became too heavy to bear. Those were:
  23
  24 * Standard (a.k.a. Classic): The old default skin written by Lee Crocker during
  25   the phase 3 rewrite, in 2002.
  26
  27 * Nostalgia: A skin which looks like Wikipedia did in its first year (2001).
  28   This skin is now used for the old Wikipedia snapshot at
  29   https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/
  30
  31 * Chick: A lightweight Monobook skin with no sidebar. The sidebar links were
  32   given at the bottom of the page instead.
  33
  34 * Simple: A lightweight skin with a simple white-background sidebar and no top
  35   bar.
  36
  37 * MySkin: Essentially Monobook without the CSS. The idea was that it could be
  38   customised using user-specific or site-wide CSS (see below).
  39
  40
  41 == Custom CSS/JS ==
  42
  43 It is possible to customise the site CSS and JavaScript without editing any
  44 server-side source files. This is done by editing some pages on the wiki:
  45
  46 * [[MediaWiki:Common.css]] -- for skin-independent CSS
  47 * [[MediaWiki:Common.js]] -- for skin-independent JavaScript
  48 * [[MediaWiki:Vector.css]], [[MediaWiki:Monobook.css]], etc. -- for
  49   skin-dependent CSS
  50 * [[MediaWiki:Vector.js]], [[MediaWiki:Monobook.js]], etc. -- for
  51   skin-dependent JavaScript
  52
  53 These can also be customised on a per-user basis, by editing
  54 [[User:<name>/vector.css]], [[User:<name>/vector.js]], etc.
  55
  56
  57 == Custom skins ==
  58
  59 Several custom skins are available as of 2014.
  60
  61 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Category:All_skins
  62
  63 Installing a skin requires adding its files in a subdirectory under skins/ and
  64 adding an appropriate require_once line to LocalSettings.php, similarly to how
  65 extensions are installed.
  66
  67 You can then make that skin the default by adding:
  68   $wgDefaultSkin = '<name>';
  69
  70 Or disable it entirely by removing the require_once line. (User settings will
  71 not be lost if it's reenabled later.)
  72
  73 See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skinning for more information on
  74 writing new skins.
  75
  76
  77 Until MediaWiki 1.25 it used to be possible to just put a <name>.php file in
  78 MediaWiki's skins/ directory, which would be loaded and expected to contain the
  79 Skin<name> class. This way has always been discouraged because of its limitations
  80 (inability to add localisation messages, ResourceLoader modules, etc.) and
  81 awkwardness in managing such skins. For information on migrating skins using
  82 this old method, see <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skin_autodiscovery>.