Skinning community? CSS Gallery?

DanielSchulzJackson

Thanks for the compliments re: the skinning / color schema, @422! Is there a skinning community, or rather, a "sticky" thread for each popular theme where people post their versions of custom.css for others to use and tweak? Perhaps this is something that should go on VanillaSkins.com as well?

Perhaps it should be a topic category?:

Questions, Feedback, Developers, Community Skins, Localization, etc.

422

The only area on here is the themes downloads area.

We have tried to get people involved and we even offered to support their efforts by posting links to their forums on our site.

No one has ever taken us up on it, furthermore, you cant share your css publically on commercial themes. For obvious reasons, but happy to start a area for people to showcase their forums.

We are very highly ranked on google and get a ton of traffic.

Example:

1. vanilla themes ( 4 from 7 million )

2. vanilla skins ( 1 from 7 million )

3. forum themes (3 from 1.5 billion )

So we are always happy to promote people from the community as long as its reciprocated

422

The only area on here is the themes downloads area.

We have tried to get people involved and we even offered to support their efforts by posting links to their forums on our site.

No one has ever taken us up on it, furthermore, you cant share your css publically on commercial themes. For obvious reasons, but happy to start a area for people to showcase their forums.

We are very highly ranked on google and get a ton of traffic.

Example:

1. vanilla themes ( 4 from 7 million )

2. vanilla skins ( 1 from 7 million )

3. forum themes (3 from 1.5 billion )

So we are always happy to promote people from the community as long as its reciprocated

DanielSchulzJackson

So I can't even share the custom.css? Doesn't that require purchasing the theme before it's useful for anything?

Anyway, yeah, with or without sharing skin files, showcases are definitely great, I think they're really important to help people get a sense of the software and what it does.

422

If you create your own theme, then yep you can share the css. Providing it isnt based on a commercial theme. That would deplete our uniqueness and we would be no more lol.

As for showcasing, yep. Its been asked, but not enough ppl can be bothered.

A lot of users cme on here to take, and dont add value or attribution. They just snatch and run.

If 20 plus ppl wanted to showcase thir forums, id happily setup a new site specifically for that purpose.

DanielSchulzJackson

Hmm. I clearly don't know what I'm talking about, but perhaps that's true for someone else as well. And bear in mind I'm coming from a perspective of adding value here, so forgive my nOoBery:

Here's what I would think; you could POTENTIALLY allow people to share their own versions of Custom.CSS; and others, seeing that if they buy your theme, they have a host of Custom.CSS options to slap onto it; would be more likely to buy your theme. For example, what MySiteMyWay does with their "skinning community". I would not have bought their Awake theme if I couldn't have tossed so many different CSS skins over it easily.

I'm realizing that perhaps what's wrong with this train of thought, however, is that legally you can't protect PHP, right? you can only protect CSS? If that's what's the case, then my argument is hosed, because by making the CSS free, you make the whole theme free, since the PHP is already free. Is that true? If it's true, then how does MySiteMyWay do it? Perhaps the way they set up their "skins" is that they aren't the full, raw CSS file or something? perhaps core elements of CSS, like structure and so on, are all set, and user-created "skins" are just tweaks on a couple color/image/font/size choices. Yes, that's probably it. Which would be tough to implement and would require whole other application layers (the "skin creator").

So perhaps tough, perhaps feasible, perhaps great value-potential, perhaps not. Heck, if you can't even get people to accept your offers to link to them, there's no way a "skinning community" would work!!! My goodness... :-/

422

No you cannot protect css. We have toyed with a php fired css using variables but it didnt really work very well.

I had toyed with creating a skinning tool, which allows users to custom design a temp,ate in realtime. But i still gotta earn money, nd something like that would take weeks to complete and cost me 000's in dev time.

I may create it