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 will 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" theme.

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, 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 be 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.

Note that these stylesheets are actively updated to deal with issues as and when they crop up.

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!