Skin:Minerva Neue

Minerva is the skin that serves mobile traffic for Wikimedia projects across the world. Compared to other skins e.g. Vector it provides a much more simplistic user interface and is much more aggressive about optimising for performance so that it can cater for mobile users.

It is optimised for use with ext-mf>Special:MyLanguage/Extension:MobileFrontend|MobileFrontend as the wgMFDefaultSkinClass and at the time of writing this is a hard dependency.

Installation

 * Download and install the ext-mf>Special:MyLanguage/Extension:MobileFrontend|MobileFrontend extension.

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 the call to wfLoadSkin is installed after the call to wfLoadExtension.

Configuration of menu's
Certain URLs in the main menu can be tweaked. These include:
 * Random (via editing MediaWiki:Random-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 Extension:MobileFrontend).

Desktop vs mobile modes
MobileFrontend provides additional capabilities that are not available in MediaWiki core. You can compare [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Skin:Minerva?useformat=desktop&useskin=minerva desktop] vs [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: The desktop mode of the site is experimental. If you see a bug, patches are appreciated.
 * Sections can be collapsed and expanded
 * The menu contains different options 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 optimised for mobile e.g. Special:Watchlist (compare [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist?useformat=desktop&useskin=minerva&hidebots=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1 desktop] vs [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist?useformat=mobile&useskin=minerva&hidebots=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1 mobile])

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.

Questions and answers
If you have a question not answered by the page - please feel free to use the talk page to raise them.

Why does it depend on MobileFrontend?
We're working to fix this and have a whole phab>phab:project/view/2859|project dedicated to it. Your patches and help are welcomed.