Skin:Timeless

This skin comes with MediaWiki 1.31 and above. Thus you do not have to download it again. However, you still need to follow the other instructions provided.

MediaWiki skins manual - category

Timeless Release status: stable
Author(s)	Isarra
Compatibility policy	Snapshots releases along with MediaWiki. Master is not backwards compatible.
MediaWiki	1.31+
License	GNU General Public License 2.0 or later
Download	Download skin Git [?]: Download Git master browse repository (Phabricator · GitHub) commit history repository contributors (GitHub) code review
Example	mediawiki.org This article
Parameters $wgTimelessBackdropImage
Quarterly downloads	159 (Ranked 3rd)
Public wikis using	2,938 (Ranked 13th)
Public wikis using as default skin	165
Translate the Timeless skin if it is available at translatewiki.net
Vagrant role	timeless
Issues :	Open tasks · Report a bug

English Wikipedia homepage in the Timeless skin viewed on a mobile phone

Timeless strongly supports responsive web design and is optimized for a multitude of screen widths ranging from narrow mobile phone screens up to wide monitors.

The skin is based on Winter and an attempt to incorporate suggestions on this 2015 Village pump discussion into a skin.

Installation

• If using Vagrant , install with vagrant roles enable timeless -p

Manual installation

• Download and place the file(s) in a directory called Timeless in your skins/ folder.
• Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php file:

  wfLoadSkin( 'Timeless' );
  

• Configure as required.
•  Done - Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the skin is successfully installed.

Features

Unlike the minimalistic skin Minerva , which is the default skin for mobile phones, Timeless incorporates the functionality of a desktop-focused theme such as Skin:Vector , the default desktop skin, onto all screen sizes.

In addition, Timeless offers a distinct convenient shortcut to the user contribution list in the top bar, next to the “Edit” and “View history” buttons.

The general aim is to make a fully featured skin that emphasizes both content and editing tools, with multiple view modes for showing everything, focusing only on content (winter), or switching to dark/night viewing. One day it will actually do this.

Unlike MobileFrontend/Minerva, Timeless does not forcibly restyle tables for mobile resolutions, and instead expects and encourages users to make tables and templates responsive themselves, optimized to their particular usage.

With Skin:Timeless-DarkCSS , users are able to manually enable a dark background for reducing eye strain and power saving on AMOLED displays. Instructions are available on that page.

The future goal is to create a fully featured skin that:

1. emphasizes both content and editing tools,
2. with multiple view modes for showing everything, focusing only on content (winter), or
3. switching to dark/night viewing.

Responsive website design details

This section is based on the default configuration.

≥1340 pixels

Above a simulated screen width of 1340 pixels, the site is visible in three columns. Some site navigation sections are on the left side of the content area (e.g. "Navigation", "Tools") while some are on the right side ("More", "Print/export", "In other projects", "In other languages", "Categories").

Starting at a simulated browser viewport width of around 1900 pixels, the width of the center column with the content is fixed to 1261 pixels, while on the earlier skins Vector and MonoBook , it is able to extend indefinitely with screen width.

An indefinite content width can be achieved with this skin using this CSS code snippet.

With this CSS code, users can optionally display the navigation sections from the third (right-side) column in the first (left-side) column, like already done at 1339 to 1100 pixels of browser width.

1339 to 1100 pixels

The site is visible in two columns. The site navigation sections on the right side of the content area move to the left side below the existing sections.

Less than 1100 pixels

The site is visible on one column. The content area fills the entire screen space. Categories appear at to the bottom of the page, where they are on Vector and Monobook .

The site navigation sections are collapsed into a top navigation bar with text labels, and currently shown and hidden using JavaScript, rather than pure CSS, as implemented in the Skin:MinervaNeue using :checked.

Less than 851 pixels

Below 851 pixels, the responsive design of Timeless adapts to mobile phone screens.

The text labels on the navigation elements above the content area (e.g. "Page", "Discussion", "Edit", "Edit source", "View history") are not shown to save horizontal space; only the icons are shown instead of both.

The site navigation sections are collapsed into a top navigation bar with icon labels.

CSS snippets

These code snippets can be used to customize the skin's appearance, by pasting them into MediaWiki:Timeless.css as a MediaWiki administrator, into one's own user space CSS as a regular user, or into a user skin browser extension as a visitor.

Indefinite content width

Regarding criticism of limited content widths, using this CSS code snippet, the width of the center (content) column and the blue middle line of the colour bar above it extends indefinitely with screen width.

/* Indefinite content width */
@media screen and (min-width: 851px) {
    .color-middle-container,
    .ts-inner { max-width: none; }
}

One-sided navigation menu

Using this code snippet, the elements of the right-side navigation menu (#mw-related-navigation) will continue to be displayed in the left column (under #mw-site-navigation) like they do on 1100 to 1330 pixels of browser width even beyond 1340 pixels of browser width, for users who prefer a one-sided navigation menu as known from the skins Vector and MonoBook .

The code also works in combination with the limitless content width code from above.

/* One-sided navigation menu */
@media (min-width: 1340px) {
  #mw-content-block {
    display: block;
  }
  #mw-content,
  #content-bottom-stuff {
    margin-left: 14em;
  }
  #mw-content-wrapper {
    float: right;
    margin-left: -14em;
    width: 100%;
  }
  #mw-related-navigation {
    width: 14em;
    padding: 0 1em 0 0;
  }
  div.color-middle {
    margin-right: 0;
  }
  .mw-wiki-logo {
  	display: inline-block;
  }
}

/* Align top colour bar with page columns */
.ts-inner {
  padding: 0 0 0 1em;
}

/* Re-aligning bottom logos */
#footer { padding-right: 1em; }

Modernized fonts in top bar

The following CSS code adds a set of modern sans serif font types (including fallback fonts) to the currently serif fonts (Linux Libertine, Times New Roman, etc.) of the user name and top-bar navigation menus displayed between 852 and 1100 pixels of browser width.

/* Top bar font modernization */
#mw-header *,
#mw-site-navigation *,
#mw-related-navigation * {
    font-family: 'Segoe UI','Segoe UI Emoji','Segoe UI Symbol','Lato','Liberation Sans','Noto Sans','Helvetica Neue','Helvetica',sans-serif;
}

/* Avoid cutting off letters with descenders: g,j,p,q,y */
#personal h2 span {
    height: 1.5em;
    position:relative;
    bottom:0.1em
}

/* Triangle position patch */
#personal h2::after {
   position: relative;
   bottom: 0.5em;
}

Highlight section title upon navigation

This CSS code snippet highlights the last section header upon navigation to facilitate returning to it when scrolling through a long document.

.mw-headline:target {
  background-color: gold;
}

Legacy patches

Users and remote interface administrators of older MediaWiki installations with an early and lesser mature version of this skin can retrofit these patches of code to counter shortcomings in appearance in the mean time:

/* Width optimization: Prevents too narrow appearance on mobile phones */
@media (max-width:850px) {
  #mw-content  { padding: 0.5em 0.5em 3em; }
  #firstHeading { width: 100%; }
  #mw-header-container { padding: 3.75em 0.5em 0.35em; }
  #site-navigation h2 { left: 0.5em; }
  #p-logo-text { left: 3em; }
  #user-tools h2 { right: 1em; }
  #site-tools h2 { right: 4em; }
}

/* Table of contents indentation patch (retrofits header level indentations if missing) */
#toc ul ul {
  margin: 0 0 0 2em;
}

Configuration

The following are only supported in MediaWiki 1.34+

$wgTimelessBackdropImage (string, default 'cat.svg')

Set it as you would $wgLogo to an appropriate background image. Recommendation is an svg set to 500-750px wide: svg for HiDPI support; the size can really be whatever, but where that will result in a similar behind-content look as with the default cat.

For a background to potentially also work unmodified with other background-colour themes if and when they are later implemented, a transparent single-colour image is recommended, with 20-50% opacity black/white, where the alpha values of the b/w parts are likewise around 10-50/255, as this should allow it to work on most anything that isn't pure white/black.

Examples (which actually don't follow the above recommendation and thus probably won't work on dark backgrounds): Timeless backdrop (wiktionary).svg and Timeless backdrop (metawiki).svg

$wgTimelessLogo (null|string|array, default null)

Special logo rendering, allowing for custom logos for Timeless specifically (such as a square logo version without the wordmark in order to avoid duplication with the header). Also provides slightly better HiDPI support than using $wgLogoHD, as that only works for 135x135px logos, and scales all high-res logos down to this size.

Can be used to point Timeless at a File uploaded onwiki (remember to protect the file if using this) simply by providing the file name, or you can specify the logo path details manually using an array.

To reuse a $wgLogo and $wgLogoHD already set for a nominally 160x160px logo, but where the HD versions also come out the right size:

$wgTimelessLogo = [
	'1x' => $wgLogo,
	'1.5x' => $wgLogoHD['1.5x'],
	'2x' => $wgLogoHD['2x'],
	'width' => 160,
	'height' => 160
];

To use File:Cows.svg uploaded onwiki:

$wgTimelessLogo = 'Cows.svg';

• Note that uploaded logos work best as svgs or as 2x- or higher-sized rasters, and will be scaled down for each target resolution. Obviously this approach requires file uploads and thumbnailing to be enabled.
• Recommended nominal sizes probably around 135px to 165px.

$wgTimelessWordmark (null|string|array, default null)

To use an image instead of the default Linux Libertine serif text for the header banner wordmark. Same usage approach as $wgTimelessLogo.

So the English Wikipedia might use Wikipedia wordmark.svg, like so:

$wgTimelessWordmark = 'Wikipedia wordmark.svg';

Or specify an array of each resolution version, plus the dimensions, per above (more likely with them, frankly).

• If not using an uploaded file onwiki, specifying the dimensions is required.
• Recommended nominal size up to 200px wide by 38px tall.

Note that Timeless supports wordmark and HiDPI logos set in Manual:$wgLogos , so just using that is recommended if you have no particular reason not to. In particular the site title rendering may or may not require a wordmark image to render correctly, as the styles for the text title are basically just guesses that will not always work. Other options to make the wordmark render correctly include:

• Setting some custom css in the wiki's Timeless.css, such as no-wrap or a different font-size value
• Setting a different display string via changing the contents of the timeless-sitetitle message