One of the main goals is to engage the community more in what goes on here day-to-day.  We'll be working to bring new and interesting skinners to everyone's attention.  We'll be taking steps to ensure this is a more welcoming place for someone new to skinning.  A new emphasis will be placed on getting better help resources to the community.  And we'll be working to highlight community work and projects a lot more.

This article is focusing on what we're doing from a content and community perspective.  At the moment we can't say much on the technical refresh, but definitely expect to hear more about that as we get closer and closer to the unveiling of WinCustomize 2k7. 

So here's a taste of some of the fun and interesting content you can expect to see in the coming months:

• Skinner of the Month
  Every month, we'll be picking out a different skinner from the community to profile.  These will tend to be lesser known skinners who show promise and deserve some recognition for the contributions they're making to the site and skinning as a whole.
• Community Interviews
  At least once a month, we'll sit down with a member of the community and ask them questions about their work, their views on skinning and computing in general etc.  You'll even be able to submit your own questions.
• Tutorials
  One of the areas we lack in currently is the tutorials section.  While we have many excellent articles in there at the moment, such as RomanDA's DesktopX Widget tutorials, there are still many gaps we need to fill.  The best place for these articles to come from is from the community who uses the tools on a daily basis.  I will be in contact with skinners in the next few weeks polling for interest in writing these articles.  But even if you aren't contacted and want to write one, please drop me a line, I'll be more than happy to work with you.
• "How I Did This"
  This is different from a tutorial, which steps you through the technical process behind building a skin, icon set, cursor etc.  What these articles will be, are a look at the creative process behind the works.  Instead of focusing on the "How" of building a UI element, we'll be taking a peek at the "Why"
• Contests/Competitions
  Starting soon, we will start running periodic contests and competitions here on WinCustomize.  They will range in size from small tasks like designing a limited icon pack around a central theme, all the way up to large suite and multi-category competitions like the GUI Championships of years past.
• Pick of the Week
  Every week, members of the moderator team will toss out what their favorite submission for the week was, be it a cursor, a wall, WindowBlind etc.  This will hopefully encourage more people to submit their work, or existing members to try and refine their work a bit more in hopes of getting included in this weekly feature.
• All-New Skinnable Look & Feel to WinCustomize
  This is both a technical improvement and new content.  Part of WinCustomize 2007 will be a much more customizable interface that will be faster than ever before.  Expect more details on this bit in particular in the coming months.

There will of course be more content coming your way in the form of more news, maybe some product previews and perhaps, if you're all really good, we'll preview some of the new site as we get it pieced together.  Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for news on the 2006 GUI Championships!  That'll be coming up really soon!

Something else to keep an eye out for is a revival of the Under the Skin podcast, hosted by our very own DoctorNick and CerebroJD.  We're the only customization community out there that has its own podcast!  Be sure to check it out, and I'm sure they'd welcome community participation.  So if there's anything going on here on WinCustomize or skinning in general that you want to talk about, give these guys a ring.  The show really depends on regular community participation!

We want WinCustomize to be a site you come to each and every day for news, articles, contests and more.