XWiki Skins?

  A XWiki Skin is used to customize the interface of a XWiki Enterprise instance.

What are the components that define a XWiki Skin?

  A XWiki Skin is composed of:

• Velocity templates
• CSS stylesheets
• Javascript files and
• Images

  All these components are stored on the server that hosts the XWiki Enterprise instance, inside the webapps/xwiki folder.
==How to change the Skin== ===A. The default XWiki Skins===
  A XWiki Enterprise instance contains by default a list of Skins like: 

• the albatross Skin
• the toucan Skin
• the colibri Skin and
• other skins ( the full list of XWiki Skins that are included in your XWiki Enterprise instance can be found on the server filesystem, inside the webapps/xwiki/skins folder )
   ===B. The usage level for a XWiki Skin===
    A Skin can be used at different levels:
• for the entire XWiki Enterprise instance ( if there is no Skin set other levels, the pages will use the global instance Skin )
• for a space inside the XWiki Enterprise instance ( it has a higher priority then the instance level Skin )
• for a specific user (it has a higher priority then the space level Skin) and
• for other custom levels that can be created by modifying the Velocity templates from inside the Skin ( for example, a Skin can be set for a specific page, for a specific group of users and so on )
  ===C. Changing the Skin===
  To change the Skin, the user must have administrating rights. In the case that you have these rights, make sure that you switch to the Advanced mode in your profile, to enable the advanced options on the top main menu.
  ====1. How to preview a Skin  applied on a page====
      To check how a page looks on changing the Skin, you can add a parameter named skin to the page URL. For example, to preview the wiki main page on using the toucan Skin, use the following URL: http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome/?skin=toucan . If you want to preview the page on using a Skin document named MySpace.MySkinDoc, use the following URL: http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome/?skin=MySpace.MySkinDoc .
  ====2. Changing the Skin at instance level====
      Each XWiki Enterprise instance contains a document ( Skin Document ) that stores the Skin for the instance. To find out which document is used to store the current Skin, the user has to follow these steps:

To change the current Skin, follow these steps:

    You can now open any page inside the wiki instance and you will notice the layout difference.
====3. Changing the Skin at space level====
    A XWiki space can use it's own Skin. For example, if you want to set as Skin for the space Main as being the albatross Skin, follow these steps:

    You can now open any page inside the Main space and you will notice the layout difference.
  )))
====4. Changing the Skin at user level====
  For example, if you want to use the toucan Skin for a specific user, follow these steps:

1. go to the user's profile page
2. edit the document's objects ( if you are in edit mode, use the right panel and choose the Objects editor, or, if you are in view mode, use the top-left menu: EDIT -> OBJECTS)
3. set the value of the skin property as being toucan
4. save the document

  Now, all the pages inside the instance will have the toucan Skin applied on them for that user.
 
==How to create a new Skin==
To create a new Skin, you must have access to the server side of the XWiki Enterprise instance.
  To create a new Skin, you have to create a new direcory inside the webapps/xwiki/skins folder and then add Velocity templates, CSS stylesheets, Javascript files and images inside it. For example, if you want to remove the logo from the header of the pages, follow these steps:

1. inside the webapps/xwiki/skins folder, create a folder named myskin
2. change the Skin at instance level and set it as myskin ( see the section C-2 for more informations about how to change the Skin )
3. open any page in view mode and you will notice that myskin layout is the same as the albatross layout ( this happens because on having no Skin set as the Skin, the default Skin is considered to be albatross )
4. change the global template:
   • copy the webapps/templates/global.vm template and paste it inside the myskin folder
   • to remove the logo, modify the global template under the new Skin and delete the line:
     <img src="$!logourl" alt="XWiki" width="200" height="70"/>
5. save the template
    
     Open any page in view mode and you will notice that the XWiki logo is not displayed anymore.
     Congratulations! You have created a new minimal XWiki Skin.

==How to override a Skin==
To change the Skin, the user must have administrating rights. In the case that you have these rights, make sure that you switch to the Advanced mode in your profile, to enable the advanced options on the top main menu.
  An alternative for creating a new Skin is the possibility to override an existing Skin. The advantage of overriding an existing Skin is the fact that you don't need access to the server filesystem in order to modify the files used by the current Skin.
  To override a Skin, you have to use the same document that is used to store the Skin.
===A. Creating a Skin document===
You need to have the advance edition mode activated to access the object editor. Please refer to PageEditing for more information.
To create a new Skin document, follow these steps:

  ===B. Working with the XWiki.XWikiSkins class===
  The base element in overriding a Skin is the XWiki.XWikiSkins class ( http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/XWiki/XWikiSkins ). In order to modify the templates or the files used by a Skin, you have to work with the properties of this class.
  By default, the Skin class contains a set of properties that allows you to override some of the templates and files used by the Skin, and it also allows you to set the name of the logo displayed in the header of the interface.
  To override other templates or files, you have to add new properties to the Skin class. For example, if you want to override  myfile.vm ( or myfile.css, or myfile.js ), follow these steps:

  ===C. Using a Skin document===
  To use a Skin document, follow these steps:

1. go to the Skin property from inside the Administration interface
2. set the value of the property as being the full name of the Skin document
3. save the preferences
    
    ===D. Overriding the Skin components===
     Let's add a "HELLO," before the username on the top right menu, not by modifying the global.vm template on the server, but overriding it inside the Skin document. Follow these steps:

  Now, open any document in view mode and you will notice the nice "HELLO," before your username.
  Follow the same process in order to override Javascript and CSS files ( http://localhost:8080/xwiki/skins/colibri/myfile.css ).

  ===E. Adding new components to the Skin===
  If you want to add new files to the skin, like CSS  or Javascript files, you have two options:

• attach the files to the Skin document and reffer them by their URL, or
• add new properties to the XWiki.XWikiSkins object from inside the Skin document, and refer them by their name

  For example, if you want to add a new CSS  file to the Skin, named mynewfile.css, follow one of these set of steps:

  OR

  Open any document in view mode and you will notice that the stylesheet is now applied.
 
 ===F. Using images in a Skin document=======1. Changing the logo====
    For example, if you want to add an image named myimage.jpg as being the logo for the current Skin, follow these steps:

1. attach the image to the Skin document
2. edit the document's objects ( use the top-left menu: EDIT -> OBJECTS )
3. use the XWiki.XWikiSkins object and set the Logo property as being the name of the attached myimage.jpg
4. save the document

    Open any page in view mode and you will notice that the logo is now changed.

2. Adding images to the Skin interface

    To add images to the interface, attach them to the Skin document and use them in the CSS  code. For example, if you want to use myimage.jpg as background image for the pages inside your XWiki Enterprise instance, follow these steps:

1. attach the image to the Skin document
2. choose one of these actions:
   • add a new CSS  component to the Skin, name it pagebackground.css and add a reference to it from the style.css component ( see the section E for more information about how to add new components to the Skin )
   • override the mybaseskin.css component ( where mybaseskin is the name of the current Skin - for example: albatross.css, toucan.css or colibri.css )
3. paste the following code inside the CSS  component:
   body{
    background-image: url($xwiki.getSkinFile("myimage.jpg"));
   }

  Open any page in view mode and you will notice that the the background of the page contains your image.      
  Have fun taking advantage of the power of XWiki Skins!

Further reading

• the XWiki Data Model
• using the Skin Editor Application
• edit only one object