Download skins page on videolan.org

[dionoea]

Hi everyone,

I've started editing the download skins page ( http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-skins2.html ) to allow sorting according to different criteria.

Available data ATM is: date added, total downloads, name and author. Should we add rating and user comments ? Other ideas ?

Comments are welcome

[AsMaX]

Great!!
Now the only missing thing is a user-friendly submission system

[dionoea]

I don't know what to do for user submission. We need to moderate submissions anyway so i think that asking users to send their skins by email is enough.

[AsMaX]

Maybe it is enough, but when you see that only 12 skins have been submitted in 2 years, there is a problem somewhere...
Apart from the fact there is no real tutorial yet, I cannot believe that only 11 people in the world were able to create a skin !

[dionoea]

Well VLC isn't as popular as Winamp yet That might explain part of it. And maybe we need to advertise the skins interface a bit more. Bigben suggested that we put a "download skins" link on the home page ... why not...

[Asim]

well... i see that there are 2 problems...

1st main problem is: the documentation... i'll be frank.. it's not exactly the best out there to put it nicely... it took me a while to understand what exactly was going on... some experimentation etc to finally get something going in terms of designing... plus it doesnt usually get updated as often...

problem 2: the links... if someone is interested in creating a skin... they'll simply be drawn away by the numerous amount of links it takes to find the "create skins" page... and the correct skins2 page at that.

submission... i would suggest a php-based submission form... where the submitted skin is put on "hold" status for developer approval... then once approved, the skin will automatically be published.

i can help out if need be... (php & mysql coding)


as for suggestions... a comments section would perhaps be nice... also... some reshuffling of the website may be required... e.g. links/formatting etc (again... i can help out with back-end stuff if need be)

- Asim

[AsMaX]

as for suggestions... a comments section would perhaps be nice...

definitely yes !

[Guest]

I think two kinds of people use VLC.
1. Those powerusers who actually use all the features of this software: filters, post-processing, network-related functions, etc. To this kind of people, skins are only a nuisance and they don't care about them.
2. Those users who are looking for a media player that will NOT be stopped by the weirdest media format ever created by man and which happens to be quite self-contained and very enjoyable. THESE are the people who'll probably like and use and therefore create some skins. But they don't know the skins are there and some are put off by the rather bland look of the default VLC install. So, if you as much as ENABLED the skins2 interface on a default install and loaded up a nice skin (like the MAC OS lookalike or the Windows Media Player spoof, or the Winamp one) I think that would bring in many users and designers

[sylvain.jaboeuf]

Hi guys, I am writing this post cause I just love vlc, It's definately my favorite media player and I am hopping to see it replacing all the crappy other ones including the very bad windows media player.

But I must admit that vlc deserves to look much better
I would strongly suggest not to underestimate the look and feel which is often the case when you are a developper (being myself in the sw industry, i know what I am talking about).
Actually, this is the main reason why most of my friends/family are reluctant to switch....

So here are a few suggestions:

-> SKINNABLE INTERFACE BY DEFAULT
advanced users who dont want the eye-candy can just remove it in the prefs... even though, I don't know anyone who is reluctant to good looking sw if it does not slow down your system. (good example: iLife: powerful and slick).

-> MAKE IT VISIBLE/ATTRACTIVE TO ART DESIGNERS
- a specific 'look and feel' section in the website
- a specific 'look and feel' section in the forum
- provide graphic designers some visibility
graphics designers will be all the more encouraged to contribute since u give their art work some visibility:
higlight their names and work (like a possibility to add a web link to advertise their work) in the website AND in your software such as providing a menu item 'about this skin' when clicking right on the skin.

-> MAKE IT EASY TO CREATE/PUBLISH SKINS
that is not the fun part, but a comprehensive documentation on how to create skins seems to be the minimum to get arts designers involvement.
It should be addressed to an audience that dont know much about coding.
(I have seen the current one but it might be interesting to have some feedback from the graphic designers --- maybe a specific topic about that in the forum? what are their needs about documentation? is it understandable?, easy to create? etc..)

publication should also be made easy,i have read in this forum about an "upload skin" button and php form, sounds like a great idea.

-> ORGANIZE A SKIN CONTEST TO CHOOSE THE DEFAULT VLC SKIN
that will bring in some new skins and involve art designers in the project.
most of open source projects do it that way and many graphic designers contribute...
it might also be a good idea to look at their email in other OSS site and contact them to get their involvement.

-> CHANGE THE LOGO AND NAME?
that might just be my personal point of view but neither the name nor the logo are very attractive... It's even worse, sometimes, I get the feeling of being pushed back from opening a file showing the vlc icon, it takes some effort to think back "no, this is the great vlc sw... keep opening the file"... what a shame isn't it?
once again, a voting contest might be a good way to bring in some new creative stuffs.

Those are just a few raw ideas about how to improve the look and feel, I am definately not exhaustive and not mentionning the usability since it's already pretty good.
I am not trying to be hard on the team. This is just aimed to be a construsctrive critique.
Once again I really love vlc, I just hope that it would look as good as it is powerful.

Sylvain

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Hello,

Just a remark, there are still some problems with skins, especially about animated icons... But well.

Then, this is MY point of VIEW, and not all the team.

-> SKINNABLE INTERFACE BY DEFAULT
I don't know if it is a good idea. We are changing the GUI for version 0.9.0 of VLC, and it will be less ugly
But a good idea would be to give the choice during the installer.
Configuring the Win32 installer is not very difficult since it is a script.
I don't think anyone in the team will be against this idea.

-> MAKE IT VISIBLE/ATTRACTIVE TO ART DESIGNERS
Well, on the website and the forum, there are some skins sections.
So I may not understand you problem. Could you be more specific ?

About the link to some website, yes, this could be possible.
I think that the name is already present in skins. It could be more visible, ok.
I'll check that. This has to be discussed with the team.

-> MAKE IT EASY TO CREATE/PUBLISH SKINS
There is a documentation on how to make skins. It is up-to-date I think.
I think it is almost as readable as winamp's.
There is a topic on this forum to speak about skins, this is the one !

For the publication, we still need to moderate the skin, so e-mail seems to be cool for it. I am not sure that an upload script would be so much better, but if everyone thinks it is, I'll do it next week.
The team has to give his advice.

A Wiki section would be interesting ?

-> ORGANIZE A SKIN CONTEST TO CHOOSE THE DEFAULT VLC SKIN
We do agree on this one and other people in the team.
The 0.8.6 version will just be a bugfix version, but for 0.9.0, we will do a contest, as we did for the design of the website.

-> CHANGE THE LOGO AND NAME?
Well, I don't think this will be possible.
It has been discussed over and over, and many of the developers are attached to it... So I think the cone will stay.

About the name, VLC Media Player is not worse that BSplayer windows Media Player, MPlayer or Xine...

So, I liked a lot your critique (except the last point, with is the most subjective... ) so thanks a lot.

[dionoea]

As some of you might have seen the skins download page changed quite a bit recently:
* update date
* skins size
* skin pack
* minimum VLC version required
* some misc layout fixes

Do you think that anything is missing ? (Don't answer that you need a skin submission system )

[joethezombie]

How about a skin submission system?

Seriously, how about a link to the topic in the skins forum for that skin? It would make providing support and answering requests for the skin so much easier.

[dionoea]

Hum, good idea

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

How about a skin submission system?

Done. Check the website.

[joethezombie]

Hmm... I am just not seeing it???

[dionoea]

It is in the process of being activated. It should be available sometime this week end. I'll keep you informed.

[dionoea]

We've finished fixing the last few bugs in the skins upload interface. It's now available. Enjoy

[joethezombie]

Awesome! Now as soon as .9 becomes available, I'll be able to use that form for a couple of new skins I've been working on.

One other thing I can think of is maybe have a link to the skins forum in the "Create your own skin!" section.

Maybe, it could read like:

Create your own skin!

If you still don't find any skin you like, why don't you create a better one?
Don't worry, you don't need any programming skills... Some knowledge about graphics software might ease the job, though :-)
Need more skinning resources? Come join our friendly community over at the VideoLAN Forums!

[dionoea]

Done. Thanks.

[Asim]

it seems to be a bit buggy in terms of appearance...

also... with the "vlc version" i think it's better you have a drop down bar with all the versions listed... (instead of people having to write down manually)

[slythfox]

The problem I see with the submission system is that it's been over a week (almost 2 weeks, I think) since I submitted my skin, and... still nothing. My skin isn't that great, but I created it because of the lack of skins available. I wanted to give VLC users a little more choice in life.

Actually I think there haven't been very many skin submissions in the last two years because the skin documentation is confusing. I decided to give skinning a shot by using someone else's skin as a base. I know there's been talk of this, but there really needs to be some sort of full fledged tutorial.

Now for the actual download page... I seem to have forgotten what I was going to say. But I liked j-b's ideas.

[CloudStalker]

I don't know much about the submission system but in VLC 0.9.0 they've made improvements to the download system. You'll be able to go thought the simple preferences and choose between the QT4 interface and the skins interface, you'll even be able to click on a direct link to the skins page.

Aside from that there's another problem with the submission system: hardly anyone is submitting any skins! For many users, myself included, it's not easy to understand how to create a skin, and the documentation isn't easy to understand at all. I have an idea for the creation of skins that kinda involves Age of Empires II map editor. Yeah... I'll explain that one a little later.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

The problem I see with the submission system is that it's been over a week (almost 2 weeks, I think) since I submitted my skin, and... still nothing. My skin isn't that great, but I created it because of the lack of skins available. I wanted to give VLC users a little more choice in life.

Actually I think there haven't been very many skin submissions in the last two years because the skin documentation is confusing. I decided to give skinning a shot by using someone else's skin as a base. I know there's been talk of this, but there really needs to be some sort of full fledged tutorial.

Now for the actual download page... I seem to have forgotten what I was going to say. But I liked j-b's ideas.

Hello,

I am really sorry, I didn't got the e-mail about the skin, it got under the Huge SPAM mails we received. SO I just validated your skin... So sorry. I like it becaus it is so light! But you should have screamed it earlier than waiting 2 weeks

If you do a tutorial, do it in the wiki, and remember that someone is doing a skin designer.

best

[slythfox]

What about a comments page for the theme, to offer feedback (could even be a link to a thread in this forum)?
And maybe display the skin's version number?

[dionoea]

Comments on a forum thread would be a good idea (I don't want to add a whole comment system to the skins page). Should each skin link to it's comment thread? or should I just create a subcategory of the skins forum category and let the users find/create the appropriate skin thread? (The second solution would be way easier, it's actualy what they use for comments on xkcd.org)

About the version number ... yeah, we could display it. Or maybe just increment a counter each time a skin gets updated.