Help:Customizing Monaco/Getting Started

This guide will help you customize your wiki. These elements can be added to MediaWiki:Monaco.css.

Editing the "color1", "color2", "accent" and "neutral" classes (as described below) is the best way to start any customization.

Changing the default skin
Important: Edits to MediaWiki:Monaco.css will not show up until the site default is switched to Monaco Custom.

You must have administrator rights to change the site default skin.

The default can be switched by going to:
 * Special:Preferences >>
 * Skin Tab >>
 * At the bottom of the Skin page is the "Admin Options" section, "Set the default theme for this wiki" >>
 * Save.

Test edits
If you are an admin wanting to customize your Monaco skin and do not want your edits to show live, either:


 * Set your skin to Monaco Sapphire and edit Special:Mypage/monaco.css.
 * Or, edit MediaWiki:Monaco.css and view pages using Article_name?useskin=monaco&usetheme=custom (e.g. http://help.wikia.com/Help:Customizing_Monaco?useskin=monaco&usetheme=custom)
 * Leave the site default on a preset Monaco theme until the custom theme is ready to go live.

See also Testing the Customizations below.

Customizing the Header

 * See Help:Customizing header

Customizing the Sidebar
All items in the sidebar on the left are contained inside a div with the id

Widgets
All widgets share the class "widget". By styling this class, all widgets will be affected.

.widget { background-color: red; }

Additionally, each widget has a unique identifier for that widget, so you can style some extra things for 1 widget, without affecting all widgets.

Note: Widgets that are embedded into a page using the Widget tag also have this  class, so if you need to affect just the sidebar, or just the embedded ones, place   or   at the start of your CSS rule.

Widget Headers
The widget headers' style is initially defined by the class "color1".

.widget dt { background-color: red; }

Search Box
Subtle shading is automatically added to the specified background color. To remove the shading, set background-image: none. The search box's style is initially defined by the class "color1".

background-color: red; }
 * 1) search_box {

The text inside the search box is by default "Search ". You can adjust it by changing the MediaWiki:Tooltip-search page.

Search Button
The search sprite can't be customized, but you can customize border color.

 border-color: #ccc; }
 * 1) search_button {

Navigation
If you want to specify a color for the navigation items that is different than the widget background color, use the following selector.

background-color: red; }
 * 1) navigation a {

Use this selector to specify the hover color of your navigation.

background-color: red; }
 * 1) navigation a:hover, .navigation-hover {

Dynamic Link Box
The dynamic link box sits just below the navigation in the first widget.

background-color: red; }
 * 1) link_box_dynamic {

color: black; }
 * 1) link_box_dynamic a {

Link Box
The link box sits just below the dynamic link box in the first widget.

background-color: red; }
 * 1) link_box {

color: white; }
 * 1) link_box a{

Page Bar
The page bar contains the Article/Discussion tabs as well as the actions for the page (Edit, History, etc). Subtle shading is automatically added to the specified background color. To remove the shading, set background-image: none. The page bar's style is initially defined by the class "color1".

background-color: red; }
 * 1) page_bar {

color:           White !important; }
 * 1) page_controls a {

Page Tabs
The page tabs, in most cases, are the Article and Discussion tabs within the page bar. The second selector sets the color of the currently selected tab.

background-color: red; }
 * 1) page_tabs li {

background-color: White; }
 * 1) page_tabs li.selected {

It's a good idea to make the selected tab's background color match the background color of the article.

Article
background-color: red; }
 * 1) wikia_page {

Customizing My Home and the user masthead

 * Further information: Help:Customizing MyHome



My Home and the user masthead use a few new color classes.

.accent { background-color: White; }
 * Accent defines the background color in the user masthead. (see #1 in the black circle)
 * If .accent conflicts with something in your wiki's templates/other stylings, you can adjust this to be

color: black; }
 * User_masthead h2 defines the text color of the Username in the masthead. (See the #2 purple item)
 * 1) user_masthead h2 {


 * Next to the Username, is an editcount and a date, this is inside a  tag with the ID of user_masthead_since (item #3). No extra styling is required on this, as it will use the color from the h2 above, but this ID is available if you want to style this element on its own.

.dark_text_1 { color: Firebrick; }
 * dark_text_1 defines the color used ontop of the accent (background) color. This is mainly used for the edit count on the top right of the user masthead right now (item #6), but along with, it  will be used elsewhere in the masthead project later, so its a good idea to set this text color by this class, not just the large edit count on its own.


 * You can affect the large edit count on the right side (see the #6 item on the map) on its own, separate from the .dark_text_1 color, by using

.dark_text_2 { color: #006400; }
 * Dark_text_2 defines the color used for the headings on the My Home page.

Tabs

 * The default colors for the inactive tabs is defined by color1. This is the same as the normal pagebar and widget title color used in most of the skin. You can further control the background and link colors of both the inactive and active tabs. The inactive tabs are indicated by #4 on the MyHome sample map above, and the active tab is indicated by #5.

/* inactive tab background color */ background-color: #00689A; }
 * 1) user_masthead #user_masthead_tabs li {

/* inactive tab link color */ color: #ffffff; }
 * 1) user_masthead #user_masthead_tabs li a {

/* active tab background color */ background-color: #70B8FF !important; }
 * 1) user_masthead #user_masthead_tabs li.selected {

/* active tab link color */ color: #ffffff !important; }
 * 1) user_masthead #user_masthead_tabs li.selected a {

/* pagebar colorings (only on masthead pages) Note: It is a good idea, but not required, to keep these the same colors picked for the "selected" tab */ .masthead-regular #page_bar, .masthead-special #page_bar { background-color: #70b8ff !important; }

.masthead-regular #page_bar a, .masthead-special #page_bar a { color: #ffffff !important; }

Customizing the Latest activity widget
The Latest activity widget in the sidebar uses some of the same colors as the user masthead.

The article number is controlled by dark_text_1, and the background of that area is controlled by accent.

The line under that area is controlled by the border-color styling under "accent". For example:

.accent { background-color:#D6E0F5; border-color:#3366CC; color:#000000; }

Testing the Customizations
To test your customizations before deploying the changes to all users as the default, use the useskin and usetheme CGI parameters in your URL to access your wiki. For example, the customized Monaco theme on the WoWWiki may be accessed regardless of your preferred skin and theme selection or the default skin and theme using the following URL: http://www.wowwiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=monaco&usetheme=custom