Skin:Minerva Neue



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 more simplistic 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  as the   but at the time of writing (current master and 1.35 release) this is a soft dependency and it will function without the extension installed. If using the 1.34 release or earlier it is a hard dependency.

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 pop-up 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:
 * Sections can be collapsed and expanded
 * 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
 * Various pages are optimized 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])
 * 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 phab>phab:project/view/2859</>|fixing. Your patches and help are welcomed.

Overlays
This skin is equipped with several custom JavaScript-enabled overlay interfaces for editing, browsing legacy (non-flow) discussion boards and viewing page notice boxes, including multiple ones inside w:template:multiple issues.

If JavaScript is activated in the user's browser, the custom mobile-optimized editing interface overlay (URL fragment:, where   may be replaced with a section number starting at 0) will be shown. The edit summary is entered on a separate page within it.

If JavaScript is deactivated or unsupported, the normal  URL will be opened as fallback.

Page notice boxes are opened in the URL fragment:, and notice boxes for individual sections starting at.

The overlay interface for discussion pages shows a list of sections and has a “Read as wiki page” button at the bottom.

The sidebar menu works with or without JavaScript. For those interested a non-JavaScript fallback page for the side bar menu (Special:MobileMenu) has been removed in 2020.

Dedicated pages
Instead of MediaWiki's native history and difference viewers, this skin uses its dedicated special pages: Special:History and Special:MobileDiff respectively.

Special:History shows a minimalistic and coarse view of the page history, excluding some features such as the ability to select two non-consecutive revisions for comparison.

Special:MobileDiff shows page differences in a unified, rather than a split view, and does not include the page title in the URL.

While this skin also uses Special:Contributions to list iser contributions, its layout in this skin resembles the mobile Special:History by default.

Further distinctions

 * Search suggestions:In addition to page titles, the search suggestions include preview pictures and short descriptions of the results where available.
 * Tag lines:On the German Wikipedia, an article's description from WikiData is adopted as tag line below the page title.
 * Time of last change:At the bottom of a page, the absolute date and time of the last edit (example: Last edited on 24 October 2020, at 00:46) get substituted by JavaScript with the relative time and last edited user name (example: Last edited 2 days ago by UserName).
 * Registration date:Unlike other known skins, Minerva Neue displays the join date under the user name on user pages. JavaScript, if enabled, substitutes the absolute time (e.g. Joined 12 June 2015) with a relative time (e.g. Joined 5 years ago).

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, 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!