Forum:Mobile skins and native apps

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This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon bar. 23:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I learnt today that by the year 2014 more webpage visits/hits/accesses/what-have-you will be done by mobile phones/tablets then by web browsers. Given the future it would be nice if we had a mobile skin. I know wikipedia is trialling one, but that is more geared to the content pages rather than discussion pages. Also it would be nice to have a WIGO native app. Anyone know how to do these? - π 03:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

They say app-hacking is as easy as "1, 2, 3" these days, which is more than they said of the not-insurmountable task of setting up a Linux installation, so I might look into it (no promises). ListenerX^TalkerX 06:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

1. Go to preferences, Appearance
2. Select MySkin
3. Click save
4. Click the Custom CSS link next to MySkin
5. ????
6. PROFIT! -- Nx / talk 08:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

LMAO Nx. The Symphony of Punk ^{Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!} 14:03, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah but that would be a "mobile" skin all the time, so a) it wouldn't work for non-registered users and b) registered users would need a separate mobile account. Something ought to be done server-side, eventually, like mw:Simple mobile skin auto change. We could design our own mobile skin. Blue (is useful) 17:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Writing a simple skin-switcher extension that detects mobile and selects the mobile skin is a piece of cake. Writing a mobile skin is not. -- Nx / talk 17:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

That's true, but none of the existing skins really work for mobile. Writing our own would be challenging but not insurmountable, especially if we take a minimalist approach and/or modify an existing mobile skin like this one. Blue (is useful) 17:47, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Can't you just copy what Wikipedia has done or something? F_lucked^{talk to me :D} 17:21, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

WP's mobile site doesn't support page editing, so I doubt it would be very useful here. Blue (is useful) 17:31, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

(ec) No, because it's a completely separate thing written in Ruby I think, would be too much work. -- Nx / talk 17:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I hope you like ugly, because that's all we have, apparently.

Will a mobile skin make our articles less hideous on tiny screens? Because that bugs me every time I edit from my phone. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 06:28, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Although I would not edit the Wiki from a phone, Wikipedia's mobile version certainly makes it easier to read articles from one. ListenerX^TalkerX 06:41, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the difficulty of writing a mobile skin should prevent us from doing it. It would clearly do a lot to move RW forward as internet usage paradigms progress. Blue (pester) 22:58, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you volunteering to bell the cat, then? ListenerX^TalkerX 03:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I could work on a template from which to derive a CSS protocol. I'll admit I'm not very familiar with MediaWiki skins in PHP at the moment, but I could probably pick up on it. Blue (pester) 20:22, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

You don't have to. All that you have to do is take the unskinned output (that's MySkin), and write your own css (and js). -- Nx / talk 20:24, 2 December 2011 (UTC)