Help:Comparison of skin features

Customizing Monaco
Getting Started talk Overview    Monaco new features    Skins    Skin comparisons    Examples of customized    Monaco skins Customizing Layout    Customizing colors    Header    Logo    Sidebar    Toolbox Specific Skins    Monaco/Dark skin (changes)

This article describes the original Monaco skin. Some information is not applicable to the Dantman`s Monaco skin. (Details).

This page compares the feature sets of the Wikia Monobook and Monaco skins.

Several features on Wikia are exclusive to the latest skin, Monaco.

General skin features

	Monobook	Monaco
Actively developed	(only via MediaWiki upgrades)	(Removed from Wikia)
Editing tips and widescreen editing available
New editor available
Link suggest available
Add Images tool available
Video Embed tool available
Advertisements load last

General skin design

	Monobook	Monaco
Max logo size	Box/vertical, 135 x 155px	Box/horizontal, 216 x 155px
Content area width	Middle	Largest
Sidebar widgets
Flyout navigation system
Prominent search box
Top banner with re-organised personal and Wikia links
Page bar tabs/links represented with icons
Community widget with last two edits and personal links

Navigation customization

	Monobook	Monaco
Customizable sidebar links per site
Customizable toolbox links per site
Customizable sidebar links per user
Customizable toolbox links per user

Skin customization

	Monobook	Monaco
Customization guides	Help:Customizing Monobook	Help:Customizing Monaco
Ease and flexibility of customization (with guide)	Average	Easiest
Multiple premade skins available
Jade (green) theme available
Image independent for skin customization
How to design site-wide custom dark themes without causing problems for light themes of that skin (e.g. [[1]])	Design code in Common.css, custom dark skin in MW:Monobook.css. Users can import light skin CSS.	Design code in Common.css, custom dark skin in MW:Monaco.css. Users choose not to use custom skin from prefs.

Other notes

Other benefits of Monaco, from Wikia measurements:

1. Users find content easier using fly-out menus - less people leaving after looking only at the main page.
2. More editors - people finding deep content are more likely to edit than just read.

From [2], on the usefulness of the Community widget:

"On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons."