Skins to download separately, not within the setup?!

[mama]

As the MP setup grows bigger and bigger, wouldn´t it be better, to deliver the skins separately? I know that a lot of people think, MP has to be a complete "out of the box" solution, but as it reached 16MB now, maybe it´s better to split it?

At least as long as MP is under heavy development, and you download a new version every week. If it is "finished" (will it ever be?), you could offer the full package.

What do you think?

[samuel337]

If it was seperated, I reckon there should be one included skin at least so it works out of the box.

Sam

[Morten]

I'd agree with SAm, one default included skin.

Maybe in the future it one could make "skin browser", much like the one in Windows Media Player, so that it's easy for the end-user to add new skins.
It could be in the config program.
When thinking about it, it would acctually make for a nice plugin; Online browse for a skin, select and it's downloaded in the background, resets MP, if desired, and the new skin is active....

//Morten

[tomtom21000]

i´d think it is yes and no.

seperate:

# i think the maximum for the package is reached with 4 skins
# there are new skins like butcherboy´s
# there might be some like retro skin, new on from Harley etc.
so those have to be downloadable somewhere anyway.
# if you can make a download statistic you will see which skins are liked better and which ones less. So it is easier to decide if the effort it needs is worth it or not (like with metal skin).
# future: download from within mp. like firefox themes

package:

# it is nice to have a choise for the looks right out the box.

tomtom21000

[ordinary73]

Sam is right. One or two Skins should be included. More skins to be downloaded seperately. So there has to be a kind of Skin-Manager in the configuration-util to add, download, edit or discard the skins (excl. the built-in skins).

[FlipGer]

Hi,

i also tend to a separate solution. Really great would be an internal plugin, with preview and download option. So you could change the skin on the fly.

Flip.

[Harley]

Hi ,

i think 4 default skins, how it is yet ,is ok and good , because so you have difficult faces of mp included.
The Size of 16MB is not so big for such a big Programm.


Greetings 8) Harley

[MrMario64]

The problem with skins downloaded seperately is that this goes past the installer.
Meaning if you uninstall MP the skins will remain.

This means if we have made a new addition and the skin should be updated the user will get errors.
In other words, we will get loads of "bugreports" on crashing mediaportals etc due to them not using the latest version.

For this to sucessfully work we first need to implement a skin version system.
So MP can check if the skin will work.

[mama]

Or maybe only then a full package if a skin update is needed. But I think this will be at almost every release at this state... :lol:

[MrMario64]

indeed,
And multiple skins takes a lot of time to maintain.

To make a release now it's about 30 minutes to 1 hour work.
With those skins it will take 1 hour to 2 hours.
Thats time I'd like to spend on something else.

So it sounds nice, but it needs to be practical for us to as it is still our spare time we r talking about.