Vector skin development project

The Sturmkrieg Vector skin development project was intended to expand on the Vector skin, which had relatively recently been implemented into MediaWiki. It seems to have been abandoned in May 2013. More recent pages are: Skin:Vector/2022 and Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements.

Rationale

Unlike MonoBook, there has been relatively little derivative skins, even fewer that have been generally published, and very little documentation on how to modify Vector. This creates several problems for wikis that want to use Vector. In the first, all wikis appear the same, and identical to Wikipedia, which is a source of confusion among readers who often refer to all MediaWiki websites as "Wikipedia." The second problem prevents appropriate skins from being used by various wikis that have a topic that is not well suited to the light colors and "Wikipedia" appearance of Vector. Modified Vector skins will allow different wikis to have their own feel, which is appropriate to their topic.

Development

The skins will follow this method^{[dead link]} for creation. While this requires that the wiki have Vector, it uses the Vector files, meaning that only one file will need to be modified for changes to be applied to all Vector based skins. It also requires considerably less technical knowledge, since most of the changes are done by writing the CSS page for the skin. The MediaWiki version this method is intended for is 1.19 and above, which includes Vector by default.

Development will begin with the Sturmkrieg development organization at GitHub. Once a usable skin is created, we will request creation of a WMF Gerrit repository and move the source code there. This will become the main repository for the skin.

Skin creation

For the development of new skins, we will be using the method described here: http://blog.redwerks.org/2012/02/28/mediawiki-subskin-tutorial/^{[dead link]} that overlays a new CSS stylesheet over the default Vector CSS stylesheet. This has the benefit of requiring minimal scripting and coding; the only CSS code necessary is that which will override the default CSS of Vector.

Planned skins

VectorBlue

A light blue variation of the Vector skin

https://github.com/Sturmkrieg/mw-VectorBlue

VectorRed

A red themed version of Vector

https://github.com/Sturmkrieg/mw-VectorRed

FieldGray

Gray version of Vector

https://github.com/Sturmkrieg/mw-FieldGray

VectorGray

A light gray version of Vector, similar to the original

VectorGreen

Light green variation of Vector

Sturmkrieg skin port

This will be a modified, open source variant of the Sturmkrieg skin for public use. It will be similar to the skin used by Sturmkrieg, but modified to maintain a distinctive appearance for the original.

http://www.sturmkrieg.us/Sturmkrieg_Wiki^{[dead link]}