Skins are customized template files. You can use skins to change the look of a %WIKITOOLNAME% topic, for example the layout of the header and footer. Note that the renderd text between header and footer does **_not_** change. You can use skins also to define an alternate view, i.e. a view optimized for printing.

A skin file is located in the `twiki/template` directory and has a name like `<scriptname>.<skin>.tmpl` or `<scriptname>.<topicname>.<skin>.tmpl`. For example, the `print` skin for the `view` template is <code>view<font>.print</font>.tmpl</code> (red color added for clarification).

A skin can be activated in two ways:

- Define the SKIN preference variable in [[TWikiPreferences]], one of the [[WebPreferences]], or a user preference. I.e.
  - Set SKIN = wikiwiki <br />**Note:** Who has time to create the classic `wikiwiki` skin?
- Add `?skin=name` to the URL, i.e. for this topic:
  - <http://www.dementia.org/twiki//view/%WEB%/%TOPIC%?skin=print> (for the print view skin)
  - <http://www.dementia.org/twiki//view/%WEB%/%TOPIC%?skin=plain> (for the plain view skin that has no header and footer)

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

-- [[PeterThoeny]] - 20 Jan 2001 <br />