On 6/16/07, Mark Clements gmane@kennel17.co.uk wrote:
Given that monobook is the only skin in MediaWiki that looks even slightly professional and modern, and given that it isn't particularly obvious how to create a new skin, it is no wonder that it is so prevalent. For the general public that use MediaWiki (i.e. non-WMF sites) some kind of style editor as described here would be a great tool and would hopefully alleviate the monotonybook woes. I'm not sure what, if any, benefit it has to WMF though.
You can customise the skin using CSS and JS, but to create a completely new skin you need to actually put that into the PHP that the wiki runs. It's not terribly difficult for someone with a working knowledge of PHP and HTML, but the necessity of putting things into the codebase puts it out of the reach of most people.
There are some instructions on how to make a skin on Meta:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Skins
On 6/16/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Given commons very different role from classic wiki projects I don't see quite the same level of problems with using a different style.
A new interface for Commons might make up for some of the features that Commons users have on their wishlist for MediaWiki. You could make Commons look and work more like Flickr, for example, without really changing the software.
On 6/16/07, Monahon, Peter B. Peter.Monahon@uspto.gov wrote:
I suggest that we instead design a new MediaWiki front end to allow the look and feel and function of any MediaWiki element to be customized USING MediaWiki directly through the same interface everyone else uses.
There's lots of work going on/being planned behind the scenes in MediaWiki, with the development of the API, and large structural changes to the way the software works. Eventually it will be possible to have completely independent UIs that will plug into a wiki through the API.