Separating skins from core MediaWiki/Progress

I'm going to try keeping some kind of a progress log for the Separating skins from core MediaWiki project here.

Community bonding period
I was already an active community member, so I focused on getting a hang on the skinning landscape (existing skins and their creators).

My goals for the first half of the internship are still the same as in the original proposal: defining the recommended way of structuring skins, improving their installation process and allowing third-party skins the same degree of freedoms core skins have.

As outlined in my proposal, I am using the wikitech-l mailing list for important discussions and major milestones, and IRC for day-to-day communication.

2014-05-20

 * Asked "What should be the recommended / supported way to do skins? (A proposal.)" on wikitech-l: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2014-May/076591.html
 * Commented on pending changes aiming to move some skins out of core

2014-05-22

 * Reviewed changes to core and VectorBeta extension that aim to solve an incompatibility for custom skins using LESS stylesheets

2014-05-24

 * Replied to the discussion with a summary and some action items. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2014-May/076671.html (life interfered with my plans to do this earlier)

2014-05-25

 * Cleaned up the category tree of Category:Skinning a bit, fixing skin documentation pages and renaming several categories
 * Started the work on deprecating skin autodiscovery, tracked on.

2014-05-26

 * Complete list of patches about skin autodiscovery, finished today:
 * https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/135383/ (master) "Don't use autodiscovery for core skins"
 * https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/135384/ (master) "Move core skins to separate directories" See https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/135383/
 * https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/135429/ (master) "Officially deprecate skin autodiscovery"
 * https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/135427/ (REL1_23) "Officially deprecate skin autodiscovery"
 * https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/135439/ (master, on hold) "Completely remove skin autodiscovery"

2014-05-27

 * https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/118345/ "Move Modern and CologneBlue out of core" and related patches were merged by Chad. I was planning to do this in the second half of the project, but it might as well be done now.

2014-05-28

 * Fixed some minor issues with the merged patches related to the above, got poked myself and poked Chad about getting it deployed on Wikimedia wikis (tracked on ).

2014-05-29

 * Modern and CologneBlue moved out of core and deployed on testwiki: everything seems to work. As I was not planning to spend time on this right now, it might delay my schedule a little, but in the worst case I'll be able to regain the lost time in the second half of the project (which has just been partially done thanks to Chad's help).
 * "Officially deprecate skin autodiscovery" merged into REL1_23.

2014-05-31

 * Worked on deprecating old functionality: reviewed, updated and merged https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/63364/, submitted https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/136531/ and related patches to existing skins (Modern, CologneBlue, Nostalgia).
 * Cleaned up and updated Manual:Skinning in preparation for expanding it.

2014-06-01

 * Commented on things a lot.

2014-06-02

 * Wrote initial version of Manual:Skin autodiscovery and added release notes at MediaWiki 1.23.

2014-06-03

 * Gotten https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/135408/ merged, which blocked separating MonoBook from core.
 * Further Manual:Skin autodiscovery work.
 * Submitted patches for converting Nostalgia into a proper skin. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=61256#c5

2014-06-04

 * Updated the status of deliverables on the project page.
 * Manual:Skin autodiscovery should be complete and usable now.

2014-06-09

 * Nothing done because I was fixing Vector bugs.

2014-06-10

 * Skin autodiscovery deprecation patches were merged, and then one was reverted again because of WMF CI issues.
 * Added support for enabling skins in MediaWiki installer, pending review: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/138652

2014-06-11

 * Wrote tentative patches to separate Vector and MonoBook skins from core: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/135413/ https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/138795/. Hopefully these can be finalized soon and the skin directory layout can be documented.

2014-06-15

 * Skin autodiscovery is deprecated in master again.

2014-06-20

 * Rebased several patches that became outdated.
 * Took part in a meeting where I responded to questions about what I'm doing and discussed about the replacement for : Architecture meetings/RFC review 2014-06-20.
 * Nostalgia skin patches from have been merged.
 * The patch to separate Vector from core (https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/135413/) has been merged, the one for MonoBook is on the way.

2014-06-21

 * MonoBook patch (https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/138795/) has been merged as well.
 * Submitted several patches to improve information shown on Special:Version for all the skins that have been split from core recently.

2014-06-23

 * Submitted a patch to allow skins to define  for arbitrary modules after discussing the approach with ResourceLoader developers. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/141259/