Skin:Minerva Neue



Minerva is the skin that serves mobile traffic for Wikimedia projects across the world. Compared to other skins e.g. Vector it provides a much more simplistic user interface and is much more aggressive about optimising for performance so that it can cater for mobile users.

It is optimised for use with  as the   but at the time of writing this is a soft dependency and it will function without the extension installed.

Installation
Ignore this line and instead use   if you want only MobileFrontend to use the Minerva skin.
 * Note: Setting   will make Minerva your default skin even in Desktop view.

Make sure to call wfLoadSkin after wfLoadExtension.

MobileFrontend integration
With MobileFrontend integrated the Minerva experience will be enhanced to include various other features including:


 * Red link edit confirmation


 * Reference popup drawer


 * An enhanced search


 * Better integration on mobile with many popular Wikipedia-style templates.

To benefit from these:


 * Download and install the ext-mf>Special:MyLanguage/Extension:MobileFrontend|MobileFrontend extension.

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


 * Random (via editing MediaWiki:Randompage-url)
 * Portal URL (of Advanced editing mode via MediaWiki:Portal-url</>)

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


 * Nearby (provided by <tvar|1></>).

Desktop vs mobile modes
MobileFrontend provides additional capabilities that are not available in MediaWiki core. You can compare [<tvar|desktopLink>https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Skin:Minerva?useformat=desktop&useskin=minerva</> desktop] vs [<tvar|mobileLink>https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Skin:Minerva?useformat=mobile&useskin=minerva</> mobile mode].

When operating in mobile mode the following features are available: The desktop mode of the site is experimental. If you see a bug, patches are appreciated.
 * Sections can be collapsed and expanded
 * The menu contains different options e.g Special:Preferences is available on desktop
 * MediaWiki:Mobile.css (for mobile mode) or MediaWiki:Common.css (for desktop mode) will be loaded.
 * Various pages are optimised for mobile e.g. Special:Watchlist (compare [<tvar|desktopLink>https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist?useformat=desktop&useskin=minerva&hidebots=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1</> desktop] vs [<tvar|mobileLink>https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist?useformat=mobile&useskin=minerva&hidebots=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1</> mobile])

When operating in desktop mode there are various issues that we are working towards phab>phab:project/view/2859</>|fixing. Your patches and help are welcomed.

Questions and answers
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?
Minerva works without MobileFrontend but installing MobileFrontend will provide several enhancements - notably reference and red link pop up drawers, a mobile optimised search and a mobile optimised 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!