As we're starting to migrate functionality provided by the MobileFrontend extension into Mediawiki core, we have to grapple with some existing limitations in Mediawiki. I'd like to propose a core change that I think will greatly increase MW's flexibility in rendering content for different 'view types'. By 'view type', I mean things like: * The standard web browser view * A print view * A mobile view * Other device specific views, views for particularly slow connections, views with no graphics, etc. We could use the idea of a 'view type' to allow us to do some cool stuff, for instance: *Dynamic view-specific skin loading* MobileFrontend already displays content from a mobile-specific skin. We could make it possible for Mediawiki to dynamically determine the skin to load based off of the current view type, and provide a pattern for skin authors to follow for building view type-specific skins, for example: * Standard: <SkinName>.php * Print: <SkinName>Print.php * Mobile: <SkinName>Mobile.php We could also provide a hook for people to be able to define their own view types, as well as allow for configuration to define default skins for specific view types. We could then more easily build view types for specific devices, for instance. This would greatly lower the barrier of entry for someone who wants to write a mobile-specific skin, print-specific skin, etc, and would enrich the pool of available MW skins. *View-specific functionality* Different view types will likely have different bits of functionality that they require, separate from the rest of MW, that may not make sense to exist in a Skin. We could allow different view types the opportunity to bootstrap view-specific functionality when appropriate. If we segment this functionality to only load for a specific view-type, we can prevent unnecessary components from loading if they are not appropriate for a specific view. I haven't yet really flushed this concept out, and am very open to suggestions on implementation. * * I started hacking a bit at a few core files to give a code example of how this might be implemented, at least for dynamically loading view-specific skins: http://pastie.org/4010775 I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this and integrate feedback as we move forward with migrating MobileFrontend into MW core. Fore more info on the MobileFrontend to core migration, see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_support_in_MediaWiki_core -- Arthur Richards Software Engineer, Mobile [[User:Awjrichards]] IRC: awjr +1-415-839-6885 x6687