Skin:MonoBook/en

MonoBook is a skin. It was the previous default skin for Wikimedia Foundation websites since MediaWiki 1.3 (2004), as the replacement for the old Standard skin.

Later, it adapted support for responsive web design for narrow, mobile phone displays.

Installation
This skin is included in the MediaWiki download tarball. You only need to install it separately if you installed MediaWiki using a different method.

User settings
The responsive styles for MonoBook can be disabled or enabled via a user preference:, which defaults to true.

Historical notes
It became the most popular and most widely supported skin in the MediaWiki ecosystem until it was finally superseded by the Vector skin as the default on May 13, 2010 (MediaWiki 1.17, ), as a result of the efforts of the Wikipedia Usability Initiative to improve Wikipedia user experiences and potentially draw in more contributor participation. It served as a common backup for Vector and is still present on many wikis using older versions of MediaWiki software. See Layout design document and MediaWiki 1.3 comments and bug reports for related discussions during MonoBook's development.

Current status
In 2013, MonoBook became primarily supported by volunteer developers, not the Wikimedia Foundation. As of 2019, it is one of the four volunteer-supported skins used on Wikimedia projects: MonoBook,, , and.