WinCustomize in 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011 by Island Dog | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Tomorrow (Monday) begins the official first day of 2011 work for many of us here. Aside from having my wisdom teeth removed last year, I didn’t take much time off so I tried to make the most of this break and stay offline for much as I could. I was able to do that because of the great staff we have here – Jafo, Hankers, WOM, DrJBHL, HG_Eliminator, Snowman, Lantec, and the other names who are escaping me right now. They truly are the best to work with and I personally appreciate everything they do for the site and skinning in general.
Getting back into work mode one of my first goals for 2011 is to make WinCustomize even better than it is. Site traffic has declined over the last year or so as skinning is moving back to its niche “roots”, and getting more people involved here and download/submitting is a top goal. Looking back at Win98 and WinXP when I first got involved into skinning, Windows was terribly bland and skinning was almost a necessity. Now that Windows is more physically attractive skinning has also gone from just changing the look of Windows, to changing how Windows looks and how to boost ease of us and productivity. This is not a bad thing in my opinion, and an app like Fences is the best example of what I’m talking about.
Taking lots of things into consideration I made a short list of things I’d like to address in the first half of 2011.
- Address lingering site issues. WC 2010 is brand new, but there are still some issues that need to be worked out. Yes, the delete skins button is one of them.
- More/better tutorials. Skinning isn’t necessarily the easiest thing to do, but it’s definitely not impossible. We need better tutorials and a better way for new and old users to find and use them.
- More contributors. We have a great core group of skinners that submit to WC, but more would be even better.
- More content. Mobile wallpapers maybe? Any other apps that can be skinned that should be added? Let me know!
Community is important as ever, and looking at our user groups here it was a fantastic decision to bring on board DrJBHL as our article/news poster for WC. He has been doing a phenomenal job at keeping WC users up to date with the latest tech and PC news, and I think doing this is a great move to broaden appeal to new users. In trying to address the tutorial content we definitely more people to contribute. Over the years I have written what seems like a countless amount of tutorials, but many are outdated and there are many others on WinCustomize that are more “experts” at specific apps than I am. If you would like to dedicate some time to helping update/write tutorials, once again let me know.
Getting more people over to submit to WinCustomize has been more difficult. Many just don’t know about the site, and others I have spoken with just don’t have the time to submit to multiple sites which is understandable. We “recruited” some people this year who are well known on other sites like DA who just didn’t realize that WC gets millions and millions of visitors each month. WinCustomize is a great way to expose yourself (no pun intended) and since we do obviously focus more on customization, it can be easier to get your work noticed. I’d like to see what the interest is in some type of referral program. Introduce an artist to WC and once they become a regular contributor a reward is given. Thoughts on this? Would you take part?
Well I think I have rambled enough, so let me also take this opportunity to thank you for your support in 2010, and I know 2011 will be even better than last year was!
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Reply #62 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 2:58 PM
That is #)(&(*#^ awesome!!!! 
Thank you Spencer!!!! You could knock me over with a feather right now. I'm naming my next child after you! 
And thanks to whoever else had a hand in this! 
And thank you Brad as well!
If there's anything I can do to help with the move by all means let me know!
Reply #63 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 3:02 PM
JK, bud.... And here I was thinking you'd name it Doc - k?
Spencer: You are GOOD! Thanks, Brad! 
Thanks to everyone who had a hand in helping!
Reply #64 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 3:29 PM
Let me also say though that we don't have the capability of moving items from one gallery to another. If there are users who want to re-upload skins to that gallery, then we can work together so you can preserve your download counts and such. More info will be coming.
Reply #65 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 3:56 PM
Thanks again Spencer and let me know when we can do this and how we can preserve the count. I'm assuming we would reupload from oldest first to newest last.
Reply #66 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 4:28 PM
Congrats to Ods, Madmins ...... um ... Mods and Admins for the OD Background Gallery. A real winner.
(Shameless trolling I know) 
Reply #67 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 4:42 PM
Thank you very much everyone involved as it's greatly appreciated.
Reply #68 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 6:26 PM
just an idea ... 
only few months ago, finally, the new OD 2.0 version became true and finally the "only docks gallery" it's coming soon !
as it's seems that also the docks skinners decisions will be relevant on creating the gallery let's consider about a completely new ObjectDock (2.0) Background gallery !
I mean why not to leave all the old docks made for the previous OD 1.9 version just where they are ?
or even better in the other case, not simply reupload the old docks in the new gallery but update them for OD 2.0 ?
this is just an idea, what is your opinion ?
Reply #69 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 6:36 PM
Because that would defeat all some of us worked for in getting a gallery for just dock backgrounds...I have over 450 sets of docks invested in this that I would like to see unburied. 
And from what I've seen so far old docks work fine with either version of OD. And if you read what ID wrote we will have to reupload all docks to the new gallery regardless. Get onboard! 
Reply #70 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 6:47 PM
Yes....when it's in place....simply let one of us know when you're re-upping a background and we can do the numbers update and/or remove the old upload.
When that's happening...you'll need to provide skin names [not links- they don't go anywhere 'useful' for the mods to access].
All good things come to he who waits.....
Old age....rigor-mortis.....
"Madmin" ....I kinda like that.....
Reply #71 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 7:27 PM
..........................
Reply #72 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 8:48 PM
When that's happening...you'll need to provide skin names [not links- they don't go anywhere 'useful' for the mods to access].
Will do! Thanks Paul!
Reply #73 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 10:13 PM
Let me say moving docks is not mandatory by any means. If you want to leave them where they are, fine by me. I suspect only a few skinners are actually going to take the time to move old docks.
At least going forward there will be a dedicated space for them.
Reply #74 Thursday, January 13, 2011 1:01 AM
Docks in their own category is a great idea that has been a long time coming; that's going to make life a lot easier. It was docks that got me interested in skinning in the first place, and functionally, they are still the most useful things to me in the skinning world. (And thanks WG for your always excellent work).
Reply #75 Thursday, January 13, 2011 2:34 AM
opps ... I didn't added: "just an idea but not my opinion "
yep I'm ready and I'll be really glad to get onboard ! it will be a quite long but in the end well worth work and not only for we skinners !
thanks in advance !!
Reply #77 Thursday, January 13, 2011 7:08 AM
A question. You asked for more apps that could be skinned. I mentioned Weather Pulse and I found that Glary Utilities can also be skinned. There is an option to change skins in the UI. Is it possible to include apps such as these? Do you need to contact their Admins for permission? Just curious.
Reply #78 Thursday, January 13, 2011 8:44 AM
https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/objectdock_backgrounds
New submissions can go here. If you are wanting to move then we will need to form a plan.
Reply #80 Thursday, January 13, 2011 9:00 AM
"If you are wanting to move then we will need to form a plan."
Jafo suggests we circle the wagons......
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Reply #61 Wednesday, January 12, 2011 2:47 PM
ObjectDock Background gallery coming soon.