User:Eleazaros/Skins/User Information

There is a serious lack of information on users trying to learn how to customize their skin layouts so let's look at a few basics on this. There is also some rather poor comments in some of the "template" style approaches you will find out and about on this site and other sites about how you tweak the design of the wiki. By default, monobook is your skin with a new install of MediaWiki. This does not mean that it is the default skin you are using but that is the starting point and the assumption which this information is based upon so, if you aren't using the monobook skin as your skin then you'll need to work with a different set of files than I reference here -or- most sites will allow monobook as an option so you can set it as your skin then follow this information and these instructions.

monobook layout information
Feel free to read this article and go a bit brain dead from it. I know I did but it helped.
 * First -- the links:
 * Customize_page_layout (not very helpful from a "user" perspective -- little help for an admin learning this)
 * m:Customization:Explaining_skins (decent info -- you'll find some value in this)
 * Layout_customization

The default skin link isn't an external link, just someone put the internal/on that page link in long format so it's interpreted as an external link. It also is based upon the normal "you are an administrator so you have access to everything..." style so let's reformat that information into a way that we "user" types can understand it. Here is the basic layout of the monobook. It's a bit trickier than it looks so we'll have to get into each section individually as we go through this. body {



Views Personal tools

} Back to the Top

Changing the Logo
Forget it. You will not be doing this until you are ready to deploy a skin. It does require an administrator to adjust this. If you are planning on using a logo different than the one shown for a particular skin you are making, then you'll need it's dimensions so you can adjust the amount of space you want for it on the page. We'll get into logo adjustments in the appropriate area but for now, just ignore trying to change it for preview use -- until you are ready to deploy a full skin (which many "users" won't be up to doing...) Go look at the Administrators Information section when you are ready for this *IF* and/or *WHEN* you are ready to do this.