Skin:Minerva Neue/en

Minerva is the skin that serves mobile traffic for Wikimedia projects across the world. Compared to other skins such as, it provides a much simpler 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 the extension (which is done by setting   to 'minerva'), but, since MediaWiki 1.35, Minerva Neue can also be used without MobileFrontend. For earlier MediaWiki versions, MobileFrontend is required.

Installation

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

Make sure to call  after.

MobileFrontend integration
With MobileFrontend integrated (mobile mode) 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 extension.

Make mobile Minerva behave like desktop Minerva
When MobileFrontend is installed, Minerva is modified to behave in a simplified mode. If you would like Minerva to behave more like the desktop version add the following code to LocalSettings.php:

Configuration
Configuration is listed in the Minerva readme in your local download or online.

Recently deprecated configuration

 * $wgMinervaCountErrors - previously used to count errors via statsd. In the unlikely event you were using it as a 3rd party please refer to for client side error logging.

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 ).

Desktop vs mobile modes
MobileFrontend provides additional capabilities that are not available in MediaWiki core. You can compare [ desktop] vs [ mobile mode].

When operating in mobile mode the following features are available:


 * Core workflows such as editing and talk will trigger JavaScript based workflows. This is provided by . See more for details.
 * Sections can be collapsed and expanded. Expanded sections are memorized in the browser's local storage.
 * 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
 * The skin will link to pages optimized for mobile provided by MobileFrontend if enabled. See for more information. e.g. Special:Watchlist (compare [ desktop] vs [ 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 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, 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!

How should I target styles to Minerva?
If the extension includes any UI, when testing your extension with Minerva, it's important to check if your extension works or degrades acceptably on break points. For testing purposes, Minerva operates on several breakpoints: 320px (@width-breakpoint-mobile), 720px (@width-breakpoint-tablet) and 1000px (@width-breakpoint-desktop). Your extension is expected to adapt to these breakpoints using appropriate media queries. It is acceptable for a feature to disable altogether, provided it gives the user feedback where necessary e.g.

Normally it's acceptable to use media queries for your extension and this will benefit all skins, however in some cases you may need Minerva specific behaviour. If so you can use Manual:$wgResourceModuleSkinStyles to define styles.

How can I add items to Minerva menus ?
The Minerva menu system is currently bespoke and does not work like other skins. We plan to fix this eventually so that Minerva makes use of the standard hook for modifying menus - Manual:Hooks/SkinTemplateNavigation::Universal. The work here is tracked in T291568. If you would like to add menu items in the mean time, please use the MobileMenu hook.