Skin:Minerva Neue

This skin comes with MediaWiki 1.38 and above. Thus you do not have to download it again. However, you still need to follow the other instructions provided.
MediaWiki skins manual - category
Minerva Neue (Minerva)
Release status: stable
Compatibility policy Snapshots releases along with MediaWiki. Master is not backwards compatible.
License GNU General Public License 2.0 or later
Download
Example Example on this wiki
Translate the Minerva Neue skin if it is available at translatewiki.net
Vagrant role minerva
Issues : Open tasks · Report a bug
Minerva is a responsive screen and will adapt to mobile devices.

Minerva is the skin that serves mobile traffic for Wikimedia projects across the world. Compared to other skins such as Vector , it provides a much simpler user interface and is much more aggressive about optimizing for performance so that it can cater for mobile users.

It is optimized for use with the MobileFrontend extension (which is done by setting wgMFDefaultSkinClass to 'SkinMinerva'), but, since MediaWiki 1.35, Minerva Neue can also be used without MobileFrontend. For earlier MediaWiki versions, MobileFrontend is required.

Installation edit

  • If using Vagrant , install with vagrant roles enable minerva -p

Manual installation

  • Download and place the file(s) in a directory called MinervaNeue in your skins/ folder.
  • Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php file:
    wfLoadSkin( 'MinervaNeue' );
    $wgDefaultSkin = 'minerva';
    
  •   Done - Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the skin is successfully installed.
  • Note: Setting $wgDefaultSkin = 'minerva' will make Minerva your default skin even in desktop view. Ignore this line and instead use $wgDefaultMobileSkin = 'minerva'; (default in recent versions) if you want only MobileFrontend to use the Minerva skin.
 
Minerva in preferences

Make sure to call wfLoadSkin after wfLoadExtension.

MobileFrontend integration edit

With MobileFrontend integrated (mobile mode) the Minerva experience will be enhanced to include various other features including:

  • Red link edit confirmation
  • Reference pop-up drawer
  • An enhanced search
  • Better integration on mobile with many popular Wikipedia-style templates.

To benefit from these:

Make mobile Minerva behave like desktop Minerva edit

When MobileFrontend is installed, Minerva is modified to behave in a simplified mode. If you would like Minerva to behave more like the desktop version add the following code to LocalSettings.php:

$wgMinervaTalkAtTop['base'] = true;
$wgMinervaAdvancedMainMenu['base'] = true;
$wgMinervaPersonalMenu['base'] = true;
$wgMinervaHistoryInPageActions['base'] = true;
$wgMinervaOverflowInPageActions['base'] = true;
$wgMinervaShowCategories['base'] = true;

Configuration edit

Configuration is listed in the Minerva readme in your local download or online.

Recently deprecated configuration edit

  • $wgMinervaCountErrors - previously used to count errors via statsd. In the unlikely event you were using it as a 3rd party please refer to Extension:WikimediaEvents for client side error logging.

Configuration of menus edit

Certain URLs in the main menu can be tweaked. These include:

Certain menu items will be enabled automatically when the relevant extension is added.

Configuration of donation link edit

$wgMinervaDonateLink['base'] = true;
Default value is in MediaWiki 1.35 true and in 1.39 false.

When enabled a donate link will be added to the main menu. The donate link uses the sitesupport and sitesupport-url mediawiki messages.

Desktop vs mobile modes edit


MobileFrontend provides additional capabilities that are not available in MediaWiki core. You can compare desktop vs mobile mode.

When operating in mobile mode the following features are available:

  • Core workflows such as editing and talk will trigger JavaScript based workflows. This is provided by Extension:MobileFrontend . See there for more for details.
  • Sections can be collapsed and expanded. Expanded sections are memorized in the browser's local storage.
  • The menu contains different options depending on the current mode, e.g. Special:Preferences is available on desktop
  • MediaWiki:Mobile.css (for mobile mode) or MediaWiki:Common.css (for desktop mode) will be loaded
  • The skin will link to pages optimized for mobile provided by MobileFrontend if enabled. See Extension:MobileFrontend for more information. e.g. Special:Watchlist (compare desktop vs mobile)
  • In mobile view, navigation bars and side bars are hidden by default, as described in their documentation.

The desktop mode of the site is experimental. Bug reports and patches are appreciated.

When operating in desktop mode there are various issues that we are working towards fixing. Your patches and help are welcomed.

Questions and answers edit

If you have a question not answered by the page – please feel free to use the talk page to raise them.

What do I get when I install MobileFrontend? edit

Minerva works without MobileFrontend but installing MobileFrontend will provide several enhancements – notably reference and red link pop-up drawers, and a mobile optimized search and custom editor. These optimizations will apply to the desktop and mobile version. Currently it is not possible to disable the mobile view link but patches to that effect will gladly be accepted!

I maintain an extension, how can I integrate with Minerva? edit

How should I target styles to Minerva? edit

If the extension includes any UI, when testing your extension with Minerva, it is important to check if your extension works or degrades acceptably on break points. For testing purposes, Minerva operates on several breakpoints: 320px (@width-breakpoint-mobile), 720px (@width-breakpoint-tablet) and 1000px (@width-breakpoint-desktop). Your extension is expected to adapt to these breakpoints using appropriate media queries. It is acceptable for a feature to disable altogether, provided it gives the user feedback where necessary e.g.

@import 'mediawiki.skin.default.less';

@media screen and ( max-width: @width-breakpoint-tablet ) {
.myfeature { display: none; } /* not supported for mobile users */
.myfeature ~ .mobilewarning { display: block; } /* Show the warning message explaining why the feature was disabled. */
}

Normally it's acceptable to use media queries for your extension and this will benefit all skins, however in some cases you may need Minerva specific behaviour. If so you can use Manual:$wgResourceModuleSkinStyles to define styles.

How can I add items to Minerva menus? edit

The Minerva menu system is currently bespoke and does not work like other skins. We plan to fix this eventually so that Minerva makes use of the standard hook for modifying menus - Manual:Hooks/SkinTemplateNavigation::Universal . The work here is tracked in phab:T291568. If you would like to add menu items in the mean time, please use the MobileMenu hook.