TWiki Skins

Skins overlay regular templates with alternate header/footer layouts; topic text is not affected

Overview

Skins are customized TWikiTemplates files. You can use skins to change the look of a TWiki topic, for example, the layout of the header and footer. Rendered text between header and footer does not change. You can also use skins to define an alternate view, like a view optimized for printing.

Defining Skins

Skin files are located in the twiki/templates directory and are named with the syntax: <scriptname>.<skin>.tmpl. For example, the Printable skin for the view template is view.print.tmpl.

Use the existing TWikiTemplates (like view.tmpl) or skin files as a base for your own skin, name it for example view.myskin.tmpl.

Variables in Skins

You can use template variables, TWikiVariables, and other predefined variables to compose your skins. Some commonly used variables in skins:

The "Go" Box and Navigation Box

The %WEBTOPICLIST% includes a "Go" box to jump to a topic. The box also understand URLs, e.g. you can type http://www.google.com/ to jump to an external web site. The feature is handy if you build a skin that has a select box of frequently used links, like Intranet home, employee database, sales database and such. A little JavaScript gets into action on the onSelect method of the select tag to fill the selected URL into the "Go" box field, then submits the form.

Here is an example form that has a select box and the "Go" box for illustration purposes. You need to have JavaScript enabled for this to work:

Using Cascading Style Sheets

The regular templates files currently do not use style sheets. Many skin developers choose to use them, it helps in separating style from content.

Example: To use a style sheet for the broadcast message, add this to view.myskin.tmpl:

<style type="text/css">
.broadcastmessage {
    background: yellow; display:block;
    border-style:solid;border-width: 2px;border-color:red;
}
.broadcastmessage strong {color: red}
</style>

Then add a div tag to the %BROADCASTMESSAGE% variable located after the #PageTop anchor or after the opening form tag:

<div class="broadcastmessage"> %BROADCASTMESSAGE% </div>

Packaging and Publishing Skins

See TWiki:Plugins/SkinPackagingHowTo and TWiki:Plugins/SkinDeveloperFAQ

Activating Skins

A skin can be activated in two ways:

• Define the SKIN Preference variable in TWikiPreferences, one of the WebPreferences, or in a user - TWikiGuest - topic.
  • Set SKIN = print

• Add ?skin=name to the URL, for this example:
  • https://moglen.law.columbia.edu/twiki/bin/view/TWiki/TWikiSkins?skin=print (for the print view skin)
  • https://moglen.law.columbia.edu/twiki/bin/view/TWiki/TWikiSkins?skin=plain (for the plain view skin that has no header and footer)

The ?skin=name URL parameter overrides the SKIN Preference value.

-- PeterThoeny - 05 Jan 2003