Skinning Portal?

from WinCustomize Forums
I just had an idea,

Do any of the current skin sites have public 'backend' files either in PHP or ASP that we can access?

I know Deskmod used to have one, and I thought DeviantART did as well, but I can't find it anymore... What about winCustomize and the others?

Basically if all the major sites created one, someone could fairly easily create a fully functional Skinning Portal, with things like 'last 10 submissions' and 'featured skin' for each of the sites... all in one place, it would be very convenient and easy to check, and it could also spread the bandwidth a little more equally among the sites.

Also, the Portal would not be real-time, it would be slightly delayed and all the relevant data would be cached locally, as not to produce a constant reload of the sites pages, which would effectively be bandwidth theft.

If popular, other features could be added over time... for example, if the site admins agreed, imagine merging all the news posts from all the sites together into one ultimate skinning scene news page, and linking off to the perspective sites to check out the full stories... the wealth of news would be second to none, and would be seriously handy in my opinion.

It's just a quick idea, but I might consider setting something like this up, and even if I can't get access to any PHP or ASP Backend files, I will do it through PHP Parsing of the New Submissions and News pages etc...

These are the sites I had in mind:

- winCustomize
- DeviantART
- LotsofSkins
- SkinBase
- Customize.org
- Winamp.com (maybe)

Any ideas or issues regarding this would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks.
4,562 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
The only theoretical problem I see is that those sites might resent having a "portal" site get all the users while their sites end up paying for the bandwidth.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
That is true Frogboy, however it could be done so that you wouldn't be able to download directly from the Portal.

The user would have to visit the skin's page and download from there, hence bringing in the user to browse the rest of the site etc...

The Portal would mainly be for users who would like a quick 'overview' of the current state of the community, news, latest downloads, featured skins etc... all in one simple glance.

... so at the end of the day it might actually lower bandwidth across all the sites if people just want a quick look at what's new out there, therefore saving them wading through all the sites everyday like I often do, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

It's a bit tricky, I know, and it would all depend on the admins of the various sites, speaking as one of those admins yourself Frogboy, how would you feel about it?
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
www.desktopian.org has the same news portal from across a range of sites, I'm sure everyone knows that But personally I like this idea, one made especially for skin sites, one that also includes top downloads and such... if such site will ever exist, I will be a regular visitor.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I had the same idea, so I asked jark if DevArt had a backend, and here it is: http://www.deviantart.com/backend

I have no idea on the other sites though. I merely wanted to put the latest headlines from skins sites on my site as an experiment (but the server fucked up the fopen(), stupid f2s server).
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Dezina has backend.php file, currently it just lists news for various skinning topics, tho' daresay I could extend it to include other things.
http://www.dezina.co.uk/backend.php
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I do have a backend file for the featured skin. However I'm not quite ready to make it public yet because I a may need to change the format (Creating this for another site). I also plan to create a back end for Top Skins and Newest Skins as well. When they are ready to go public I will announce them.