Wikipedia:Customisation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Customization allows you, as an editor, to tailor Wikipedia pages to better suit your reading and editing style. Your customization affects only how pages look in your web browser, not the reading or editing experience of other editors. Only registered editors can customize Wikipedia, and the customization is visible only when an editor is logged in.
In addition, you can customize the way that your signature appears when you post a comment on a discussion page.
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[edit] User name and signatures
Your username is displayed in the edit histories of all the articles you contribute to and is linked to your user and talk pages. You choose your name when you first register on Wikipedia and it is usual to stay with the same name throughout your time on the project, though it is possible to request a change of username.
Signatures are customised using the preferences under "User profile" where they are referred to as your "Nickname". You should always sign your posts on talk pages and many users choose to customise the way their signature appears.
You can use any wikitext as your nickname. If "Raw signatures (without automatic link)" is unchecked, the software enters "[[User:Name|" in front of, and "]]" after your nickname wikitext.
[edit] Adding a link to your talk page
Perhaps the most common signature choice is to add a link to your talk page. To do so, add "[[User:Name|Name]] | [[User talk:Name|Talk]]" as your signature. Be sure to check "Raw signature", as this is necessary for the software to recognize the markup. The result will look like this: Name | Talk.
The separator is optional, but some way of visually distinguishing your nickname from any additional links is advisable.
Note: If you post your signature to your own talk page, the word "Talk" in the above example will be black rather than an active link; that's to avoid a link on a page that points to its own page.
[edit] More complicated options
When you check the 'raw signatures' box, you specify that full wikitext is to be used between the two dashes and the timestamp. This gives more versatility, and in cases like above the code is less cryptic.
You can create a page under your name and create code for your signature. For example many users have complicated signature codes and must transclude them to talk pages. Instead of transcluding a signature directly from your user space, you can use the subst: prefix, which defines template substitution. For example, you can replace "{{User:Name/sig}}" with "{{subst:User:Name/sig}}" and reduce server strain. Read more about the pros and cons of template substitution at Wikipedia:Template substitution.
- See also: Wikipedia:How to fix your signature
[edit] Preferences
The preferences link, visible to logged-in editors, allows you to change a large number of options. There are 11 tabs (User profile, Math, Editing, etc.), of which two merit further discussion - the "Skin" tab and the "Gadgets" tab.
[edit] Skins
A MediaWiki skin is a style of page display. There are differences in the HTML code the system produces (but probably not in the page body), and also different style sheets (CSS) are used.
The default is the MonoBook skin. There are a variety of user-made skins available for you to browse through.
The special page My Preferences offers a preview of the various skins for the Main page. This is not exactly interesting for typical articles, therefore here's a list of previews for this page:
| monobook (default) | cologneblue | myskin | chick | dummy |
| standard (classic) | nostalgia | simple | modern |
To test other pages replace title=Wikipedia:Customisation in the URL. For legacy Web browsers not supporting CSS classic is apparently a good choice. For modern browsers the default monobook offers a wide range of user customisations.
The dummy cell replaces the years ago deleted useskin=amethyst by action=render.
Here's a table linking the raw CSS for various skins, see also Help:Mediawiki_CSS for the Common.css. As expected Myskin.css is empty, roll your own:
| talk monobook | talk cologneblue | talk myskin | talk chick | talk common |
| talk standard | talk nostalgia | talk simple | talk modern |
Placing {{selectskin}} on a page, adds links to switch between different skins easily. This is meant for test pages, but not for articles (or other pages in article namespace). Below the links created by the template:
[edit] Gadgets
The special page My Preferences has a "Gadgets" tab with a list of custom features you may enable for your account. These gadgets require JavaScript to be enabled in your browser. These tools are not part of the core MediaWiki software, and are generally developed and maintained by users on Wikipedia. Additional gadgets can be added by admins. The page Special:Gadgets shows underlying the underlying user script(s) and/or CSS code used for each gadget.
[edit] User scripts
There are many user-made tweaks that allow for easier and quicker editing. These often only work on specific skins. Almost all work on Monobook, so if you're using a different skin, you should be aware that some user scripts may not work with that other skin.
Many user scripts can be implemented simply by checking a box in the Gadgets tab of "my preferences" (see above). For the remaining ones, you implement them by adding them to the appropriate personal JavaScript page. For example, for editor XYZ, using the default Monobook skin, the page to be edited (and created, if necessary) would be User:XYZ/monobook.js. Such pages can only be edited by the owner of that userspace (in this case, XYZ, regardless of who created the page) and by admins.
Incomplete list of pre-made customisations:
| Name | Version | Description | Skins | Author |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| wikEd | A full-featured in-browser text editor for Wikipedia edit pages. Provides wikicode syntax highlighting, regular expression search and replace, MS Word and HTML to wikicode conversion, server-independent Show preview and Show changes, fullscreen editing mode, and single-click fixing of common mistakes. | Any | Cacycle | |
| Edit Top | 1.1.1 | Allows you to edit just the first section of an article. | MonoBook | pile0nades |
| Navigation popups | When you hover over links, popups appear which let you quickly access many editing features and preview articles and images. | Any | Lupin |
[edit] Personal CSS
In addition to a personal JavaScript page, you can also have a personal page that uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to modify the appearance of Wikipedia pages. As with JavaScript, the name of the page that the MediaWiki software will use depends on the skin you're using; the default is monobook.css. So, for example, editor XYZ could add personal CSS code to the page User:XYZ/monobook.css.
As with user scripts, the Gadgets tab of "my preferences" (see above) may include a personal CSS modification that you're interested in; if so, you can simply check a box rather than editing your personal .css page.
