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Wikipedia / Help:User style

The user can customize fonts, colors, positions of links in the margins, and many other things! This is done through custom Cascading Style Sheets stored in subpagess of the user's "User" page.

E.g. To create your own CSS modifications for the skin you are presently using, create a page at Special:MyPage/skin.css containing the CSS you want to use (to apply your changes regardless which skin you are using, put them in Special:MyPage/common.css instead). For how to hide particular messages, see WP:CSSHIDE.

General

Cascading Style Sheets

For each user-definable style, a skin is first selected, along with a corresponding Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). For each skin, the user can make various choices regarding fonts, colors, positions of links in the margin, etc. CSS is specified with reference to selectors http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/selector.html: HTML elements, classes, and ID's specified in the HTML code. Accordingly, what the possibilities are for each skin can be seen by looking at the HTML source code of a page, in particular looking at these classes and ID's: the more there are, the more versatility there is.

There is CSS in the MediaWiki software itself, and Wikipedia overrides this using the following pages:

Site-wide CSS is in MediaWiki:Common.css

You can override these for yourself using user styles. To make changes that apply regardless of your current skin, change your common.css. To make changes that affect your current skin, change your skin.css. To make changes that affect all Wikimedia projects, you can log in to Meta and change your global.css.

Enter some CSS into that page. Preview of CSS works in a special way: it allows viewing of the margins of the page (not the contents) on the basis of the style info in the page, provided that the skin used is the skin for which the page applies. This has limitations. E.g., one can preview how links in the margin will look, but these may not be of all the types one would want to check. After saving, while still on the page or while on any other page, do a forced reload (shift-reload/ctrl-f5) to get the new files.

For the user CSS to be automatically loaded, make sure the $wgAllowUserCss variable is set to true on config. Otherwise, it is possible to load it by JavaScript.

To import CSS from a user subpage by JavaScript, use the mw.loader.load command in your common.js:

JavaScript & user scripts

On Wikipedia, JavaScript can be used to add new features such as add find/replace textboxes or give advanced rollback options. There are scripts to customise everything, from default font style to custom buttons.

Many script pages can be imported and used. Different scripts can also be used in conjunction with each other to accomplish several tasks at once. Some scripts are available as "Gadgets", which means they can be installed by simply ticking a box in the "Gadgets" tab of Special:Preferences.

In order to add pre-existing scripts to your JavaScript page, add to the file. More detailed instructions can be found at the Wikipedia:User scripts/Guide.

Rendering

The HTML source of a page contains lines like

for the project-wide CSS for the particular skin (in this case here on Wikipedia referring to /style/wikistandard.css ) and the personal JS and CSS for a particular skin.

Thus the server provides HTML referring to the CSS and JS files, but it does not do any interpretation of their content. The interpretation is done by the browser, depending on its capabilities and settings.

CSS

CSS in user subpages versus CSS in a local file

In addition to the above, or alternatively, a local CSS can be set on the browser. If one uses multiple browsers, each can be set to a different CSS. Each applies to the whole World Wide Web, not just a MediaWiki project (and does not depend on being logged in). However, a setting only affects other webpages if they use the same CSS selector; e.g. a setting for the selector a.extiw affects fewer pages on the web than one for h2 (but it affects at least all MediaWiki projects, not just one).

For lines of CSS which should be different on different MediaWiki projects, e.g. for a different background color for easy distinction, clearly the local CSS cannot be used; at least these lines should be put in the user subpages.

Some computers, e.g. in internet cafes, mobile devices/tablets, do not allow users to set preferences for the browser. In that case the user subpages allow the setting of a user style anyway.

When the browser has been set to the option to ignore the font size specified in the webpage or external CSS, CSS lines regarding font size have to be put in the local CSS.

CSS selectors

The CSS selectors, expressed in terms of elements, classes and id's, relevant for the style of the page body include the following. As far as possible, examples are given, which show the result for the current style settings:

  • — links— example: Help:Index ; default: help:index (See a vs :link)

  • — http://example ; default:

  • – interwiki link in page body – ; default: en:example

  • – link from full image to image description page

  • – link to file itself (Media:), and links from thumbnail and magnifying glass icon to image description page (note that color and font size specified for a.internal are only applicable in the first case)

  • example ; default: example

  • – abc – redirects in Special:Allpages and Special:Prefixindex

  • , ..., (namespaces)

  • TeX image

  • – example

vs – It's a common mistake to use "" instead of "" to style links. Whereas "" applies only to links, "" applies to both links and named anchors (e.g. ).

Normal internal links are not in class (they used to be, and still are on sites that use an older version of the software, e.g. http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Main_Page); they can be styled referring to and , in general, after which styling of etc. can provide for exceptions to this general style for links.

For interlanguage links:

One may also have the style depend on the value of an attribute, e.g. with the selectors:

to color-code or highlight particular users (including oneself) and/or links to particular pages (like the bolding of watched pages on Recent Changes). This works in Opera, but not in IE. See also Help:Watching pages#CSS.

The watchlist and Recent Changes use two classes:

  • example

  • (see below)

The page history has classes and:

Thus the font specified for user applies in the page history, but not in the watchlist or Recent Changes.

Edit page

  • Edit box: 

example1

  • Edit summary box: 

example2

Major style blocks

See meta:Customization:Explaining_skins

Non-display

One extreme "style" for a text is not displaying it, with etc.

Non-displayed links do not work (as opposed to links in a very small font).

It cannot be used to remove text in expressions for template names, parameter names, parameter values, page names in links, etc.

Style depending on a parameter or variable

Variable class or id

A class or id can depend on the result produced by a template or on a template parameter, e.g. class="abc". For one or more of the possible class names the style of that class can be defined. If the class is undefined it is ignored, so the standard style is used.

In the simplest case we have e.g. class="abc" and define class abcdef. If the parameter value is "def" it applies.

If a page for general use only makes sense when styles are defined for certain classes, then these have to be specified in the page MediaWiki:Common.css, which applies for all users and all skins, as far as not overridden.

Variable HTML attribute name

An HTML attribute name can be made variable. HTML Tidy – an outdated HTML4 library that is slated for removal – has historically removed attributes with invalid names at the server side, so the result does not depend on a browser capability to ignore invalid attribute names, and the amount of data sent is reduced. For a variable with possible value "class", see Wikipedia:HiddenStructure and .

Variable style parameter value

Wikitext like displays "Wed" if parameter 3 is defined, but not "none", and displays nothing if parameter 3 is undefined or "none". If the value of parameter 3 is a display style other than "none", that style is applied.

Samples

Custom styles can be placed in each user's personal CSS files, such as Special:MyPage/common.css, which each user can edit to set personal styles.

Rounded corners

Print view tweaks

Make the user toolbar a sidebox

Tested to work in Camino, Safari and Internet Explorer 7. See the monobook main.css for the full styles in use by default.

Fix the top bar's position while you scroll

This style allows Vector Legacy users to keep the top bar (with the search bar and the talkpage, edit, userpage, etc. links) visible as you scroll, similar to Vector 2022:

Fix the sidebar's position while you scroll

In the Vector Legacy skin, the sidebar's position can be fixed easily:

This may have undesirable side effects in Chrome; e.g., when viewing a page like the very common.css page you just edited to put this code in, the viewable content will become much shorter, and require vertical scrolling in a frame.

The Cologne Blue skin has an option for a "floating left" quickbar, which causes the navigation links and toolboxes and such to stay in the same position on the screen while you scroll. This provides the same functionality for the Monobook skin (in Mozilla). See meta:Help:User style/floating quickbar.

Monobook menus with serif fonts in the content area

A quick-and-dirty combination of Monobook menus with serif fonts in the text area is found at User:Tillwe/monobook.css (in the first part). Also displays table-formatted things more or less correctly. There are some quirks and bugs (some because the CSS scheme of Wikipedia doesn't seem to be too thoughtful). Works on Netscape7/Win98 for the author.

Diff view styling

Removing the "(thank)" buttons in History log

Hiding long instruction messages

As with other CSS styles above, edit Special:MyPage/skin.css or Special:MyPage/common.css to insert the customized CSS, and then refresh the browser's cache.

Add style formatting to discussion threads

There is an experimental style sheet to add vertical lines to the left of discussion threads and to alternate between two different background colours. See User:Isaacl/style/discussion-threads for more details and a mockup of the appearance.

Add style formatting to temporary account names

User:Isaacl/style/temporary-account-names.css is a stylesheet that adds a bi-colour square in front of temporary account names on your watchlist and history pages, and on pages where there is a link to the contributions from a temporary account (such as in signatures). See User:Isaacl/style/temporary-account-names for more details and a mockup of the appearance.

Also see for other ways to add style formatting to temporary account names.

User CSS for a monospaced coding font

  • http://www.22bulbjungle.com/ – great css tutorials

  • http://www.csszengarden.com/ – inspiration

  • http://www.alistapart.com/ – great articles

  • http://www.positioniseverything.net/ – some entertaining i.e. bugs and more

JavaScript

JavaScript has many possibilities, for example adding text, including links, at the desired positions. This added content may depend on content on the HTML source page produced by the server; for example it may depend on HTML elements with an ID, by applying getElementById. The position of insertion may be specified by insertBefore.

As an example, to add a page link at the left of your preferences, add the following to Special:Mypage/common.js, replacing PageTitle with the title of the wiki page :

Moving categories to top

The following code moves the category box to the top of the article. Of course, you might want to apply some CSS to make it look prettier: An alternative that, when coupled with an appropriate stylesheet, will put the text up at about the same line as the title:

Some CSS to go with that...

Unfortunately, if the category box is large (such as on entries on U.S. presidents and other major figures), it can push an infobox off to the side. To correct this, the "clear: right" attribute can be added to an infobox.

Wikitext-controlled CSS

CSS can be controlled through JS by wikitext. For example, an HTML element "span" without content can, through its class and id, provide parameters for JS specifying CSS for any parts of the page. For example, if a page contains a "span" element with class FA and id lc, MediaWiki:Monobook.js specifies the style and title of elements "li" of class interwiki-lc, thus controlling the style and title of the interlanguage link of language code lc in the margin, provided that the skin specifies this class interwiki-lc (E.g., Cologne Blue specifies class='external' for each language, so it does not work for that skin.)

  • http://www.quirksmode.org/ – see the JavaScript and DOM section

  • http://www.alistapart.com/

  • http://www.quirksmode.org/dom/domform.html – form cloning (might be possible to upload a few images at once using this, also a good starting point for the structure cloning)

See also