Skin:Refreshed

Refreshed is a clean, modern skin. It was developed by the users of the wiki family, but it is also well suited for other wiki farms and standalone wikis. Refreshed uses responsive CSS to adapt to mobile devices, and it is fully compatible with modern smartphones and tablets.

The skin's appearance is easily and extensively customizable using CSS and LESS.

Refreshed 4.0.5 requires MediaWiki 1.35+. Previous versions of Refreshed 4 require MediaWiki 1.28+.

Choose how to style Refreshed
Refreshed 4 is built using LESS, so you can take advantage of mixins and other features to customize the skin extensively while writing few rules.

Method 1: edit
This is the simplest method to customize Refreshed using LESS.

Refreshed includes a starter LESS file located at.

Edit this file to customize the skin.

Within this file you can access skin-specific LESS mixins available at.

You can also import wiki-wide mixins; see for more information.

If you use this method, remember to back up your file before upgrading.

Method 2: edit MediaWiki:Refreshed.css
You can customize Refreshed from within your wiki's interface by editing MediaWiki:Refreshed.css.

This allows users to customize the skin without going through the site's backend.

As an added bonus, the wiki's page history provides version control for your CSS.

Unfortunately, MediaWiki does not provide a LESS content model as of version 1.34.

As a result, if you want to customize the skin through the site interface, you must use plain old CSS instead of LESS.

Method 3: use
You can customize Refreshed through.

Register and set up a theme for Refreshed just as you would for any other skin.

This method lets you provide multiple customized versions of Refreshed that wiki users can pick from.

Also, if you use this method, you do not have to back up Refreshed's file every time you upgrade the skin.

You can use LESS, but note that your custom LESS files will be somewhere in the Theme extension's directory while Refreshed's skin-specific mixin file will still be in the Refreshed skin's directory.

Therefore, if you want to use Refreshed's mixins in your custom LESS files, you will have to the mixin file from the Refreshed skin's directory (perhaps with a long relative URL).

Logo/wordmark
Unlike many other skins, Refreshed uses a wordmark instead of a large logo.

To adjust Refreshed's wordmark/mobile icon set $wgLogos[wordmark] and $wgLogos[icon] per the manual. When the values in $wgLogos aren't set, or if you are using an older version of Refreshed, the below interface messages are used instead (if they are set).


 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-this-wiki-wordmark - The URL of the wordmark displayed on the "big" and "medium" layouts of the skin. This wordmark is also displayed in the sidebar of the "small" layout of the skin.
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-this-wiki-mobile-logo - The URL of the logo displayed on the "small" layout of the skin. A graphic with no text is recommended.

Wiki farm support
Refreshed was designed with wiki farms in mind.

By default, Refreshed only shows one wiki logo.

The skin can be configured to also show a dropdown with links to other wikis.

To add other links, edit MediaWiki:Refreshed-wiki-dropdown and add one line of the following form for each wiki in the farm.


 * Wiki name|logo image URL|wiki URL

The dropdown appears in the header on the "big" and "medium" layouts of the skin.

In the "small" layout, the dropdown appears in the sidebar.

The third parameter, the wiki URL, defaults to the wiki's main page but can be customized with MediaWiki:Refreshed-this-wiki-url.

Header categories and the Explore dropdown
Refreshed 3.0 and above feature "header categories".

These are customizable dropdowns in the header that contain links to wiki pages.

To modify the header categories, edit MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation and create a list similar to this:


 * Category 1
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 1
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 2
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 3
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 4
 * Category 2
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 1
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 2
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 3
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 4
 * Category 3
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 1
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 2
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 3
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-navigation|Entry 4

Header categories appear in the "big" and "medium" layouts of the skin.

If the window is not wide enough to fit all of the header categories, the header categories are placed inside a single dropdown titled "Explore."

(To change the name of this dropdown, edit MediaWiki:Refreshed-explore .)

In the "small" layout of the skin, the header categories appear in the sidebar.

To display the header categories in a different language, go to where  is the language code and create the same list in the desired language.

Advertisements
Refreshed does not contain advertisements by default, but you can configure it to show Google Ads by placing the following code in your file.

The values of and  should match the values that Google gave you.

To make your ads responsive across devices, add the following CSS to MediaWiki:Refreshed.css, or MediaWiki:Global-refreshed.css if you are on a wiki farm setup. This requires installing GlobalCssJs.

(As of Refreshed 4, you can also use LESS to customize how the ads display at different window sizes.)

Echo
Refreshed 4 supports Echo natively.

Refreshed autodetects the presence of and loads users' avatars if they are enabled.

Default avatars
If SocialProfile avatars are not enabled, Refreshed displays a generic icon by your username (or by the "log in" dropdown if you are not signed in).

You can customize these generic icons by editing the following pages.


 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-icon-logged-in - The URL to a default avatar for logged-in users.
 * MediaWiki:Refreshed-icon-logged-out - The URL to a default avatar for logged-out users.

Page status indicators
Refreshed 3 and above supports.

By default all page status indicators are hidden on the "small" layout of the skin, but you can whitelist individual indicators with the following CSS: