Can I make just slight modifications to the existing skins? I like the layout and functionality of vector (or whichever one it is that matches most Wikipedias?) but I want to give it some themed colours to suit our own
wikiCan I locate the file for that skin (where?) and just change a few he codes? Or is it more complicated than that?
Do not touch installation files for this. That would complicate your upgrades.
Instead, generate override stylesheets on the wiki, as described in Manual:Interface/Stylesheets. You would create MediaWiki:vector.css or MediaWiki:vector-2022.css (depending on your vector skin) with the styles to override, usually just colors. You'd have to copy the entire selector to override and modify the colors as you wish, removing other rules that you don't want to modify.
Note that changes may not be applied immediately due to caching. You better try it yourself live on the page by using the browser's development tools, or in your personal stylesheet and using the preview button.
@Ciencia Al Poder, thank you.
I think I understand you as far as I need to make my own copy of the skin before I customise it?
But I'm confused about step zero, which window do I open? - do I find those paths the way I would find other pages on the wiki through the browser? - or through the xamp etc. control panel? - or through my computer's file system?
Sorry I'm such a novice. A friend did most of the installation, so I've mostly been just editing pages, the rest is a bit of a black box to me.
I have my wiki just running locally currently, no on line, in case that makes any difference.
No, there's no need to make a copy of the skin. You only need to introduce the desired rules you want to change, not everything.
You can use developer tools of your browsers (hit F12) to inspect element and see the CSS it's using, and even change it to see how it would look. Then you can copy the rule to the CSS page. However, you need to understand the very basics of CSS (cascading stylesheets) to know what to do. I'd recommend you to look at any simple introduction tutorial to CSS.
