Topic on User talk:Jdlrobson/Flow

Hi Jdlrobson,

I just saw that you marked the Skin:MediaWikiBootstrap as Unstable. I know it does not work even in 1.36.

I found this issue a few weeks back and tried to search the related docs to update the skin. We also talked a few months back about upgrading the skin. I am kind of frustrated that Mediawiki is updating the skin system and there is no related doc at all. If any skin developer have to discover the list of methods from the codebase, that is the other way of saying, "Do not use MediaWiki" at all!

Can you please let me know where can I find the docs and help to build a skin which works. ~~~~

I'm not sure what docs you are looking for, but the skin is not working for some time due to usage of a function deprecated a long time ago.

https://github.com/nasirkhan/mediawiki-bootstrap/pull/15 should be all that's needed to fix it. Provided you are subscribed to deprecation notices (and the deprecation notices that should appear in your server logs and in your browser), all you should need to upgrade your skin is to follow the Release notes.

If you are building a skin from scratch against current master, Manual:How to make a MediaWiki skin documents exactly what you need to do. If you have an existing skin I'm not sure what documentation you are looking for so it would help if you were more specific with your queries so I can help you.

thank you for you help.

I do not regularly follow the mediawiki releases and did not updated the skin for a long time. So, even though I know that Release notes are the best place to look into while updating the skin. You updated one method which was deprecated in 1.36 and there might be other method calls while may deprecate on 1.37 or the next release. And structurally MediaWikiBootstrap and Example/SkinLabsSkin is different.

In summary I want to update the skin to Mustache but the skin will look similar.

If I read the Manual:Skinning Part 2 and Manual:Skinning Part 3 I would be able to built a PHP based skin. But if I want to build a Mustache based skin there is not equivalent amount of doc available.

I have a number of queries, those might look silly but as I do not building the skin system I do not have much info about those. Like I installed 1.37 and installed Example skin. After that I found that the logo is not visible, but there is a file on the LocalSettings logo path. What should i do now? How to set the Favicon? how can I show the language links? will I have to do anything for RTL language wiki? how to control the footer links? what are the steps to format the categories area? I also need to add Google Fonts, Icon fonts. how to show/hide the navigation menu items, how to format those? styling the search box, add an extra class/id with that, formatting the search box results. None of these questions have answers to that Manual:How to make a MediaWiki skin doc.

If you can answer to my queries, I also can write docs and update that single page as well.

Okay lots to digest here. I think a good starting point might be a migration guide of how to migrate a SkinTemplate skin to SkinMustache. I'll commit to writing one of those as that seems like it would be useful to others.

In terms of your questions, I would say these are good questions and thanks for asking them. I've raised the ones I've understood on the Manual_talk:How_to_make_a_MediaWiki_skin and will get to them when I can.

It would be helpful to expand on your other questions with time, to understand them better.

> "what are the steps to format the categories area? I also need to add Google Fonts, Icon fonts. how to show/hide the navigation menu items, how to format those? styling the search box, add an extra class/id with that, formatting the search box results."

I'm not 100% sure what's being asked here. Provided you've setup a CSS/LESS file you can put anything you want in there, including paths to resources such as downloaded fonts or Google Font URLs. You are also free to include libraries such as Icon fonts in the declarations. ResourceLoader/Developing_with_ResourceLoader has information on how that works if that's what's needed here. You are also free in your skin to add any HTML markup you need for styling things like the search box.

Some pages that may help you with your immediate questions around languages and icons:

• Logo: Manual:$wgLogos
• Favicon: Manual:FAQ#How do I change the icon in the browser.27s address line .28favicon.29.3F
• Language links: Manual:Interwiki

It would be really helpful if you can write a migration guide. When it will be ready it will be easier to prepare a doc to building a skin from scratch.

I can write my questions in details, but got confused about where to ask those! I did not asked those to Manual_talk:How_to_make_a_MediaWiki_skin as the questions are not specific to that page. Rather about those which are not included there. I asked to Project:Support desk, Discord and wikitech mailing list ( Topic:Wb1kvracyubak7se, Topic:Wb1rvgucmqffnsws, Topic:Wazztppvnjh62mo7, https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/HVS7OBF5YQEMY7MFAYRSQZNEMHJGA5VS/). Not no one have the time or knowledge to help, except you.

So first help I need is, a place where I can ask questions and get answers about MediaWiki. Should I ask everything to you, or if there is any group/ forum available?

Historically there has not been much interest in skin development for mediawiki (IMO) and a lot of the skin development does seem to happen in private. In 1.36 we began to challenge that by trying to simplify the creation process and poke existing skins to see it they were still being actively developed.

Manual_talk:How_to_make_a_MediaWiki_skin is probably the best place to ask questions as it's linked to the main page and the small group of us that does exist is at least aware of it.

I will ask questions to the Manual_talk:How_to_make_a_MediaWiki_skin page then. I hope I will be able to build a skin soon with intended customization.

I think you are not right that, people do not have interest on the skins. From my experience and issues I am facing so far, I can confidently say that people were demotivated and discouraged in a a number ways to build new skins and even using MediaWiki. This is done by the core community/staff members of MediaWiki. I asked a number of questions about some common customization needs like, logo, navigation, footer and so on. There is no answer available for those, without those answer how can someone new to the platform can build a skin?

You are the only person who is replying with some helpful information. But you are not the only one who is building and using the entire skin system. Where are others and which platform they are active in? You can check Topic:Wb1rvgucmqffnsws as a reference. The person trying to help may have the least info about the skin system. But I asked the question in the Support desk and there are a group of volunteers claim to be active there!

Wordpress is the most popular CMS and a major reason is their are docs and community member helping others and their theme/skin is easy to build/customize. So far the Wordpress websites I visit every day I probably not seen any site with the default theme, where as a big number of mediawiki sites are using default skin. It can not be the lack of interest to developing new skins.

There is no team at the Wikimedia Foundation supporting skins and no skin community site (wordpress on the other hand does that).

I am not questioning that people want to build skins and are put off from doing so, I am saying we do not have a community in the same way. The skins that are built are seldom shared as there is nowhere obvious to share them. Https://skins.wmflabs.org is an experiment in seeing what happens when skins are showcased, but this is being done by me in a volunteer capacity.

I have begun your migration guide. Questions at this early stage are welcomed Manual:How to make a MediaWiki skin/Migrating SkinTemplate based skins to SkinMustache

thanks for starting the migration guide. I will add my questions to Manual_talk:How_to_make_a_MediaWiki_skin and you can pick which you want to add in the migration guide.

I know there is no separate team to support skin, but my point was a skin in a part of MediaWiki not some outside thing. I support MediaWiki means, I support MediaWiki and all the core components including extension & skin systems.