Pattern skin

PatternSkin is developed to provide a CSS based default look and feel for TWiki - flexible and W3C-compliant. Its layout and color scheme are designed to provide a nice, clean and productive editing environment. For use in corporate or perhaps in personal websites it should be fairly easy to tune the looks or even create a PatternSkin-based new skin.

Screen Shot

Supported browsers

PatternSkin has been tested successfully on the following browsers:

• Windows
  • Internet Explorer 6.0, 5.5 (note: Explorer 5.0 is not supported: will function but shows visual quirks)
  • Mozilla/Firefox
• Mac OS X
  • Safari 1.2
  • Mozilla/Firefox
• *nix
  • Mozilla/Firefox

Installation

Note: You do not need to install anything on the browser to use this skin. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the skin on the server where TWiki is running.

Note 2: PatternSkin is included with TWiki by default. Use the following instructions only if you are upgrading PatternSkin.

• Download the ZIP file from the Skin Home page (see below)
• Unzip PatternSkin.zip in your twiki installation directory
• Test if installed: /bin/view/TWiki/PatternSkin?skin=pattern
• For skin activation see TWikiSkins

Troubleshooting

If you have set the SKIN variable setting to pattern and you still don't see the layout as on the screenshot, a few settings in may have been disabled.

Check these variables here:

• TWIKILAYOUTURL = /pub/TWiki/PatternSkin/layout.css
• TWIKISTYLEURL = /pub/TWiki/PatternSkin/style.css
• TWIKICOLORSURL = /pub/TWiki/PatternSkin/colors.css
• SKIN = pattern

If TWIKILAYOUTURL or TWIKISTYLEURL don't give a value or point to non-existing files, check in TWikiPreferences that the following variables do exist and that they are set to on:

	* %TWIKIWEB%.PatternSkin settings:
		* Set TWIKILAYOUTURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%TWIKIWEB%/PatternSkin/layout.css
		* Set TWIKISTYLEURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%TWIKIWEB%/PatternSkin/style.css
		* Set TWIKICOLORSURL = %PUBURLPATH%/%TWIKIWEB%/PatternSkin/colors.css

If this still does not work, contact the administrator who installs skins.

For further troubleshooting and feedback, go to TWiki:Plugins/PatternSkinDev. Report bugs in the Support web.

Creating your own look

It is easy to tune the look and feel of PatternSkin by changing the color and space (margin, padding) settings in the Style Sheet files.

You may also choose to radically change the look and create a PatternSkin-based new skin. This is easier than to create a skin by writing new template files; you can concentrate on how things should look instead of what elements should get displayed.

See for practical details: PatternSkinCssCookbook
The CSS classes that PatternSkin uses are documented in PatternSkinCss.

Customization

See: PatternSkinCssCookbook

Further reading

• PatternSkinCssCookbook - Practical information on how to change the looks of PatternSkin
• PatternSkinCss - A reference to used CSS classes

Skin Info

Description:	Provides a CSS based default look and feel for TWiki - flexible and W3C-compliant
Screenshot:
Base Name:	pattern
Skin Author:	TWiki:Main/ArthurClemens
Skin Version:	15 Oct 2005 (v2.0.0)
History:
28 Aug 2004:	v.2.0.0 - DAKAR RELEASE VERSION
28 Aug 2004:	v.1.0.9 - CAIRO RELEASE VERSION
08 Aug 2004:	Initial version (v1.0.0)
Dependencies:	TWiki:Plugins/TwistyContrib (automatically supported by Dakar)
Skin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/PatternSkin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/PatternSkinDev
Download:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/PatternSkin

Related topics

• TWikiCss
• WebBottomBar
• WebLeftBar
• WebLeftBarExample
• WebLeftBarPersonalTemplate
• WebLeftBarCookbook
• WebTopBar
• AdminDocumentationCategory

See also Further reading on this page.

Other skins:

• TWikiSkins
• TWikiSkinBrowser

Feedback

Leave remarks, suggestions and other feedback in TWiki:Plugins.PatternSkinDev.