Help:Comparison of skin features
From Wikia Help
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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) | 
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| Editing tips and widescreen editing available |
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| New editor available |
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| Link suggest available |
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| Add Images tool available |
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| Video Embed tool available |
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| Advertisements load last |
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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 |
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| Flyout navigation system |
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| Prominent search box |
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| Top banner with re-organised personal and Wikia links |
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| Page bar tabs/links represented with icons |
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| Community widget with last two edits and personal links |
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Navigation customization
| Monobook | Monaco | |
|---|---|---|
| Customizable sidebar links per site |
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| Customizable toolbox links per site |
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| Customizable sidebar links per user |
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| Customizable toolbox links per user |
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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 |
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| Jade (green) theme available |
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| Image independent for skin customization |
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| How to design site-wide custom dark themes without causing problems for light themes of that skin (e.g. WoWWiki) | 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:
- Users find content easier using fly-out menus - less people leaving after looking only at the main page.
- More editors - people finding deep content are more likely to edit than just read.
From [1], 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."
