Help:Customizing Monaco/Dark skin



In order to create a dark Monaco skin (i.e. white text on a dark background), you will need to do more customization than for a light skin, but it is entirely possible. You can see a dark skin in action on WoWWiki.

What do I need to do?
In order to make sure a dark skin not cause problems for users who choose to use a light skin, you will need to put all layout and light skin coloring in a separate CSS file, MediaWiki:Common.css (this should always be done whether or not you are customizing a skin).

Note that this method will currently unavoidably cause problems for the "Gaming" themes.

This is because the load order for a dark wiki is:
 * 1) MediaWiki:Common.css
 * 2) MediaWiki:Monaco.css

Whilst users on a light skin (Monaco, Quartz, monobook) will only get:
 * 1) MediaWiki:Common.css

In summary:
 * MediaWiki:Common.css for all article and template layouts, and light skin coloring.
 * MediaWiki:Monaco.css for all dark skin coloring.

Where do I start?
Your best bet is to look at WoWWiki's MediaWiki:Monaco.css style sheet. It is intended to skin the entirety of Monaco without bugs.

It is split into four sections, most of which are commented:
 * The first section covers the basics of switching Monaco to a dark style. You will want to copy all of this.
 * The second section covers more design tweaks, and fixes some bugs. You will want to copy most of this.
 * The third section lists WoWWiki-specific template and article designs. You should not need this, though it may of interest.
 * The fourth section is a testing area. This is unlikely to be of use, unless it contains a bug fix.

For reference, all WoWWiki's layout and light skin CSS is on the MediaWiki:Common.css style sheet.

Examples of dark Monaco skins
You can find examples of dark Monaco skins on Help:Examples of customized Monaco skins. Feel free to add your own!