User blog:2Actimv/Customize your wiki

Everybody who has founded or is an admin on a wiki is normally struggling with the layout, home page design and other things. What could you customize on your wiki? And where do you do these things? I'm going to tell you everything about some things you can customize easily on your wiki. For extra information about the options and how you can do some things please go to my blog or to the pages for the help on Community Central.

Special:ThemeDesigner
On this place you could change the background of your wiki, change the colors of the buttons, links and header, add a favicon and change your wordmark. It's also possible to choose a standard theme.

If you want to change the layout of your wiki you go to the page "Special:ThemeDesigner". You can find it when you type it in in the search box on your wiki or in the url behind the name of your wiki. Another way to find is to use the bar on the bottom of your screen. Click on "Admin" and you go to "Special:AdminDashboard". You see on the general page the button of the Theme Designer.

Home page
Your home page is one of the most important pages on your wiki. You can tell something of your subject and the wiki, introduce some nice pages and categories, add a poll, show the latest blog posts, add some photos and videos and much more.

To make a nice home page cost time, but it's an option to make a standard home page, that won't cost much time.

Navigation bar
It's also possible to change the navigation bar on your wiki. You can add the best pages to the bar or add important categories. Click on the "Contribute" button on the right top. You can find this button on every page on your wiki. Choose "Edit Wiki Navigation" to change the bar.

Articles
There are many ways to customize your articles. If a page looks nice, more people will read them. You can use photos and videos, headers, infoboxes and other templates and much more.

Features
You can enable here not standard features on your wiki like polls, blogs, message wall, the new forum, chat, achievements and article comments. It's also possible to show all pages in a category with the photos and you can enable top 10 lists.

If you want enable some features on your wiki you go to the page "Special:WikiFeatures". You can find it when you type it in in the search box on your wiki or in the url behind the name of your wiki. Another way to find is to use the bar on the bottom of your screen. Click on "Admin" and you go to "Special:AdminDashboard". You see on the general page the button "Features".

MediaWiki:Wikia.css
This is the page to add your special codes to change things on your wiki. From pictures in the buttons to change the icon of the edit button. It's also possible to customize the chat. If you want to customize the chat you go to the page MediaWiki:Chat.css. Don't forget to import this page to "MediaWiki:Wikia.css". There are many pages to insert your codes, but these are the pages people use the most time.

Tips

 * Customize your community message. Go to the page "MediaWiki:Community-corner"
 * Customize the welcome message of the chat on your wiki
 * Use headers on pages
 * make something special on your wiki like news or polls
 * Make a logo for your wiki
 * If you use headers and want to remove the content box, add the following code on the top of the page:

If you have questions about customizing your wiki or want help with something please go to my message wall to ask me about it. You can also ask staff, ask another admin on this wiki, go to the forum or ask in the chat.