Community Skin future direction??

[Fatman_do]

Ok, as the maintainer of the CommunitySkin installer, and one of the major contributors, I have a quandry.

This summer (check local listings in your area) I have been really busy. I feel I may have neglected things on the skinning front. This fall with football season and coaching, I'll have less time. I am thinking of breaking apart the plugins to be individual installs (maybe even just zip files for easier "community" particpation). I can create a master installer as usual, but any new updates would be sort of download by demand. I am trying to think of ways to avoid having to rely on one person, and improve the spirit of "community" as a goal. No, I am not going anywhere, I just don't want to be a road block.

[pz1]

Seems a sensible idea to me. I know very little of skinning, and I am not an artist, but I am certainly available as the guinea pig for beta releases
Pieter

[Hairy]

Yeah, that's completely understandable and reasonable.

Unfortunately my abilities don't extend far beyond the graphical end of things, (you know how I just love that XML editing ). Personally, I also completely underestimated the amount of time contributing to something like this takes up. So a huge thank you to yourself and everyone else on here who give so much of their time to enhancing GB. I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories but I'm beginning to believe the rumor that sub is in fact several men/alien/higher being

Suggestion: Maybe keep the Wiki for the installers and add the individual formatting to a revamped CS forum section. Perhaps add a few compatibility stickies to the CS forum - plugins/ formatting/ graphics, then beef up the support section on the wiki pointing to those posts for compatibility updates, and compatibility suggestions until updates are ready. Every now and then roll up the updates into a new version installer.

Thanks again for all your effort.

[K.S.]

I am thinking of breaking apart the plugins to be individual installs (maybe even just zip files for easier "community" particpation).

i opt for breaking apart AND avoid installs. hell, everybody who tinkers with GB-PVR should be able to unzip
that should make it easier for others to contribute

[Fatman_do]

i opt for breaking apart AND avoid installs. hell, everybody who tinkers with GB-PVR should be able to unzip
that should make it easier for others to contribute

The exact opposite is the reason for the installer in the first place. Primarily due to there not being a consistant method of creating the zip file. Some giving the whole path, others just the skin.xml file. We can work around it by making a standard for how to zip up the files.

[Fatman_do]

Yeah, that's completely understandable and reasonable.

Unfortunately my abilities don't extend far beyond the graphical end of things, (you know how I just love that XML editing ). Personally, I also completely underestimated the amount of time contributing to something like this takes up. So a huge thank you to yourself and everyone else on here who give so much of their time to enhancing GB. I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories but I'm beginning to believe the rumor that sub is in fact several men/alien/higher being

Suggestion: Maybe keep the Wiki for the installers and add the individual formatting to a revamped CS forum section. Perhaps add a few compatibility stickies to the CS forum - plugins/ formatting/ graphics, then beef up the support section on the wiki pointing to those posts for compatibility updates, and compatibility suggestions until updates are ready. Every now and then roll up the updates into a new version installer.

Thanks again for all your effort.

I was thinking of keeping the master installer on the wiki, just where we list plugin compatibilities, instead of having links to those pages, those could be links to the zip files. We can make a sub-forum for users who want to contribute zip files without having to deal with wiki editing.

[McBainUK]

I think part of the reason for 13,000 downloads of CS3 and the SkinPlugin is that it is just so easy to install and (in most functional areas) use. I think breaking up the install and forcing people to hunt for plugin specific zip files (which have no knowledge of version numbers) would be a step backward.

I am trying to think of ways to avoid having to rely on one person

I can understand why as any CS3 release is on your shoulders, any update has to wait until you've the time. So why don't we make it so that a number of people can produce a build. Put the XMLs and images ("source code") on a server somewhere and then create a "build process" which can be run on yours', mine, Hairy's or anyone's PC?

With builds being easier to do, small improvements and layout tweaks (from the Community?) could be integrated simply and easily).

Thoughts?

[Hairy]

I was thinking of keeping the master installer on the wiki, just where we list plugin compatibilities, instead of having links to those pages, those could be links to the zip files. We can make a sub-forum for users who want to contribute zip files without having to deal with wiki editing.

Defiantly a way to go, but wouldn't those zips then need to be constantly updated on the wiki so that people weren't going over old ground?

If we thought of it as offical release and beta. Keep the Wiki as the place where you get the official Community skin and Community skin plugin, and have separate areas in the forum for alterations and compatibility updates. Then a couple of times a year, roll up everything new into a new "official" installer version of CS3+Plugin. If we then rewrite the support section placing more emphases on checking which versions of plugins are supported in the official release and a link to the forum where you can request/find a compatibility update. We could also add temporary suggestions like coping the plugins skin folder from the default blue skin into CS3. I would have thought that those who use the latest versions of stuff are the kind of people who will visit the forums and get their hands dirty, and those who aren't too worried my actually update more regularly if there are fewer "official" versions released (?).

The trick would be how to layout the forum section, so that one thread doesn't sprawl and make it impossible to actually find what you might be looking for, without having too many sections and people not knowing where to start (?). If we twigged it though, then it should offload some of the formatting, make it more bite sized and perhaps encourage more members of the community to make small changes (?).

You could add another locked sticky which listed (and linked) all the individual formatting zips as they are supported by the latest official release. Then add a couple of open stickies for plugins, general CS formatting and graphics, where people could contribute. That way a few times a year the Wiki support section and the forum sections could be updated to reflect what's officially supported (effectively resetting the clock to zero, if you know what I mean).

That's me big on suggestions short on answers

[Hairy]

Put the XMLs and images ("source code") on a server somewhere and then create a "build process" which can be run on yours', mine, Hairy's or anyone's PC?

With builds being easier to do, small improvements and layout tweaks (from the Community?) could be integrated simply and easily).

Thoughts?

I don't see any reason why you couldn't do both. Re-vamp the CS forum (try and encourage more community involvement) and make it easier to build an "official" release.

But remember I'm just the "Graphics Guy", I know nought of your world of ones and zeros

[McBainUK]

add a couple of open stickies for plugins, general CS formatting and graphics, where people could contribute....Re-vamp the CS forum (try and encourage more community involvement) and make it easier to build an "official" release.

Yes to all of this.

Although I wouldn't expect to see more than 1 or 2 extra members offering to work on CS/SkinPlugin.