Layout customization

Customizing the page layout

This is largely dependent on which skin you're using, how its constructed and which version of mediawiki you have. See Explaining Skins for a brief explanation of Skins.

Questions

How do I customize the Quickbar/Navigation bar?

When using the older table formatted Skin pages, the left hand Quickbar is displayed by the Skin::quickBar function.

When using the newer PHPTal formatted pages, the navigation, search and toolbar blocks are laid out in the template spec file (/templates/xhtml_slim.pt under 1.3; /skins/MonoBook.php under 1.4). Under 1.4 you can add items to the navigation block by manipulating the $wgNavigationLinks array which is defined in /includes/DefaultSettings.php. Any changes should be made in /LocalSettings.php Under 1.3 you can only add items by changing the xhtml_slim.pt file

See Quickbar for more details about editing the Quickbar/Navigation bar ---

How do I customize the logo in the top left corner?

The logo is a portlet block without a pBody section. It is identified by the p-logo id. The background image is specified by the wgLogo variable, which is defined in /includes/DefaultSettings.php. Redefine this in /LocalSettings.php to change the image. However the size of the p-logo will need to be big enough for the logo if it is not to be clipped. This is set in the stylesheet, under the p-logo style, the default setting is:

.
#p-logo {
    z-index: 3;
    position:absolute; /*needed to use z-index */
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    height: 155px;
    width: 12em;
    overflow: visible;
}

but note that a tag is on top of the logo so if you are trying to reduce the size of the logo's portlet you will also need to change the #p-logo a and #p-logo a:hover rules. The default setting for these is:

 #p-logo a,
 #p-logo a:hover {
    display: block;
    height: 155px;
    width: 12.2em;
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-position: 35% 50% !important;
    text-decoration: none;
 }

This simple customization will re-define the size of all of them at once...

 #p-logo,
 #p-logo a,
 #p-logo a:hover {
    height: 75px;
}

There is one more rule controlling the amount of space between the logo and first portlet in the side column - the padding on the top of #column-one. By default this is:

#column-one { padding-top: 160px; }

If you want to remove the logo completly, comment out the wgLogo variable. Then set the column-one padding to a small value, such as 21:

#column-one { padding-top: 21px; }

How do I change the icon in the browser's addressline?

See article How do I change the icon in browser's address-line? in MediaWiki_FAQ

How do I add a fast text editor like Wikipedia?

If you know just edit this question.

How do I add a Google Search bar to the Search Results page?

Look here: How to add Google search to your MediaWiki Search Results Page