Skins to download separately, not within the setup?! (2 Viewers)

Skins separately

  • I don´t care about this

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    347

mama

Portal Pro
May 31, 2004
334
0
Germany
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?
 

Morten

Portal Member
November 29, 2004
28
0
Norway
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

Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • April 22, 2004
    1,226
    120
    Germany
    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

    Portal Member
    October 9, 2004
    28
    0
    Berlin, Germany
    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

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • April 27, 2004
    2,658
    115
    48
    Leipzig, Germany
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    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

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • May 7, 2004
    2,053
    1,993
    Germany
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    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

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • April 22, 2004
    822
    1
    50
    Home Country
    Netherlands Netherlands
    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

    Portal Pro
    May 31, 2004
    334
    0
    Germany
    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

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • April 22, 2004
    822
    1
    50
    Home Country
    Netherlands Netherlands
    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.
     

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Top Bottom