Join Amazon Prime and get unlimited Free One-Day Delivery. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
14 used & new from £20.98

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
MediaWiki Skins Design
 
See larger image
 

MediaWiki Skins Design (Paperback)

by Richard Carter (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £24.99
Price: £23.74 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £1.25 (5%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Usually dispatched within 1 to 3 weeks.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

11 new from £20.98 3 used from £40.11

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with MediaWiki (Wikipedia and Beyond) by Daniel Barrett

MediaWiki Skins Design + MediaWiki (Wikipedia and Beyond)
Price For Both: £43.88

One of these items ships sooner than the other. Show details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

MediaWiki (Wikipedia and Beyond)

MediaWiki (Wikipedia and Beyond)

by Daniel Barrett
4.0 out of 5 stars (2)  £20.14
MediaWiki Administrators' Tutorial Guide

MediaWiki Administrators' Tutorial Guide

by Mizanur Rahman
2.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £23.74
Battlestar Galactica - The Mini Series [2003] [DVD] [2004]

Battlestar Galactica - The Mini Series [2003] [DVD] [2004]

DVD ~ Edward James Olmos
4.4 out of 5 stars (126)  £4.87
Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 248 pages
  • Publisher: Packt Publishing Limited (24 Aug 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1847195202
  • ISBN-13: 978-1847195203
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 19 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 33,450 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links

  (What is this?)
DotNetNuke Skins-Modules
   www.DyNNamite.co.uk    DyNNamite DNN Skins, Custom Designs & Custom Module Development 
Php Layouts
   www.homestead.com    Build & Host a Website in Minutes Using Our 2000+ Templates. Try Free 
Free PHP Security Scanner
   www.acunetix.com    Check your PHP scripts for vulnerabilities with Acunetix WVS. 
  
 

Product Description

Product Description

In Detail


Wikis are a great way to collaborate and share knowledge online. MediaWiki is a popular and powerful wiki engine, powering some of the biggest wiki sites in the world - including Wikipedia, the biggest and most famous wiki of all.


If you have a MediaWiki-based site and want to tailor its appearance, then this book is for you. MediaWiki Skins Design shows you how to fully customize the appearance and interface of your MediaWiki-based wiki. You will learn how to change every aspect of your wikii's appearance to produce a MediaWiki site fully tailored to your requirements.


The book provides full details of how MediaWiki skins work, and the necessary template and CSS customizations required to completely alter MediaWiki's appearance. Using this book, you will learn to develop rich, attractive, and friendly skins for MediaWiki.

What you will learn from this book?


  • Understand the architecture of a MediaWiki skin: how CSS, PHP, and image files work together to create a particular look.
  • Customize all aspects of your wiki's appearance: the article display screens, the editing screens, the fonts, images, layout and colors.
  • Integrate your wiki with services such as Twitter, YouTube, and features from your own website.
  • Make your wiki more user-friendly: use interface design to encourage edits, make articles more readable, and make the wiki easier and more fun to use.
  • Create print style sheets for your wiki, making it easy for users to get hard copies of wiki pages.
  • Incorporate JavaScript and AJAX features into your MediaWiki skin, providing faster edits and greater usability.
  • Ensure your skin is compatible with the major browsers, including the popular but badly behaved Internet Explorer.
  • Deploy your skin to a live MediaWiki server, and see how to distribute it to other MediaWiki owners.
  • Study existing MediaWiki skins, and find out why the default skins aren't great for your wiki.

Approach


This book takes you step by step through customizing your MediaWiki skin. It is full of practical examples of MediaWiki skinning techniques, and clear explanations of how MediaWiki skinning works.


The early chapters go through each element of a MediaWiki design, showing the CSS and PHP tags necessary to customize MediaWiki's appearance. Later chapters look at ways to further enhance your design using extra graphics, JavaScript, AJAX, dynamic CSS, and more.

Who this book is written for?


This book is aimed at web designers or wiki administrators who want to customize the look of MediaWiki with custom skins.


The reader will already have a MediaWiki installation that they are targeting with their skin. It might be their own installation, or they might be a designer developing a custom look for a client. The book does not cover setting up or using MediaWiki, except features specifically related to skinning.


The book assumes that you are familiar with CSS and HTML, but no prior knowledge of PHP is required.



About the Author

Richard Carter


Richard Carter started as a freelance web designer working in Leicestershire during his gap year. After meeting his business partner at Durham University, he co-founded Peacock Carter, a Newcastle-based creative partnership specializing in web design and development and corporate identity.


Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
Check a corresponding box or enter your own tags in the field below
mediawiki
design

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

MediaWiki Skins Design
76% buy the item featured on this page:
MediaWiki Skins Design 4.5 out of 5 stars (2)
£23.74
MediaWiki (Wikipedia and Beyond)
24% buy
MediaWiki (Wikipedia and Beyond) 4.0 out of 5 stars (2)
£20.14

 

Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
5 star:
 (1)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Customising MediaWiki made easy, 19 Sep 2008
By Mr. Roy E. Carter "Roy Carter" (Celsum Technologies, Leicester UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
"MediaWiki Skins Design" is a well-written, informative book that first explains to the reader what a MediaWiki site is, and why they would wish to change its appearance or "skin" to suit their particular application, and then the author proceeds to explain methodically how to go about customising the functions and look of your own site. There are many examples and illustrations, sadly not in colour but, however, adequate for their purpose.

A worked example is provided, together with a very welcome Troubleshooting section. Additionally, a guide is provided on integrating your MediaWiki application with social networking sites such as FaceBook and Twitter.

All in all, this is a very useful book for the student, beginner and professional.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
4.0 out of 5 stars Broad scope, for beginners and pros alike, 5 Nov 2008
By Mr. Guy D. Carberry "Guy Carberry" (Buckingham, England, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
The book is aimed at web developers and designers who want to customise the look and feel of a standard MediaWiki installation. Carter recognises that most people will find the default theme, monobook, rather dull. Whilst it is used fairly effectively on the Wikipedia site, it soon becomes tiresome after the third or fourth MediaWiki powered site you visit. Carter ably demonstrates that following a few simple steps will put you well on your way to stamping your own identity on your wiki. My personal aim was to make our MediaWiki wikis use Open University branding and web styles and standards. The steps in this book made it a breeze.

The content of the book perhaps goes over and beyond the call of duty. Whilst it covers all the things you'd expect: layout, headers, navigational systems and other user interface elements, I wasn't expecting to find an entire chapter on integrating the software with social networking sites. Still, it was a nice surprise and actually incredibly useful. There's also a nice appendix on troubleshooting browser issues which includes fixes for the ancient Internet Explorer 5. Some might consider this sort of stuff outside the scope of the book. Indeed there are plenty of dedicated CSS and HTML web design books to thumb through at your local Waterstones but it's a nice touch that serves to indicate that the author really does live and breathe MediaWiki and web design.

The entire process of creating a MediaWiki skin in covered in relation to the book's case study, a fictional theme called JazzMeet. From planning (purpose and audience) through design (html, css, javascript) to development (php). Key subjects such as usability, information architecture and the various page states are well documented.

One personal irritation. A default install of MediaWiki calls the homepage Main Page and it's not obvious how you change it to something more useful. As hard as I searched within this book I still couldn't find the answer. Maybe this is out of scope of a book on Skinning MediaWiki as opposed to administrating MediaWiki but as a designer it's a task I find myself performing with each and every new install. I want the homepage to announce itself as something more meaningful than Main Page. This is a minor annoyance though as a little searching on the web will find the answer.

MediaWiki Skins Design offers a nice structured approach to creating a usable, customised template for your wiki. You can happily skip the chapter on decorative touches if you're a designer by trade and try your hand at some of the more complicated stuff. For anything you need to know that isn't in the book there's the official MediaWiki documentation. If you just want a practical step by step guide book to creating MediaWiki skins then this is the book for you.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]

   


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Feedback


Health & Beauty at Amazon.co.uk

Elemis Resurface and Renew Skin Care Gift Set of 4 Products
From soap to shavers, massagers to mascara, stock up on your daily essentials or truly pamper yourself.

Discover Health & Beauty

 

Beauty without the Beast

Olay Regenerist Daily 3 Point Treatment Cream
From au naturel to party glam, we have all the best names in cosmetics and skincare.

Discover Beauty at Amazon.co.uk

 

Up to 53% off Braun Series Shavers

Braun Series 3 390cc Clean & Renew System Rechargeable Foil Electric Shaver
Get in touch with your smooth side with Braun Series shavers, now with Gillette blade technology.

Discover Braun Series at Amazon.co.uk

 

Treat Someone

Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

Learn more about Gift Certificates

 
Ad

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.

Continue Shopping: Top Sellers
The Girl Who Played with Fire
Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Host
The Host by Stephenie Meyer

amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates