The skins available for IP board are pretty universally awful

[Tom Christian]

Some people just want to complain. It makes them feel important.

Indeed.

It's a shame they have to spread their negativity and rudeness around the IPS forums :whistle:

[Mama Gail]

What does it say about someone developing Skins if they do not have the entire suite of IPS Products to test Skins on?

I have no problem with college kids making themselves beer money but I did not come to IPS to deal with students, I came here to deal with professionals and I only want to deal with IPS, not unestablished often unreliable third parties. If this was a situation where IPS knew these people and believed in their products, that the Skinning Community had at least some kind of definable standard, the Skins situation might be workable. As things are, anyone can just buy a domain, get a paypal account, then start selling skins here at IPS.

Its to bad this guy just doesnt know how to be nice.

[Terry - AKA Dumbledore]

That sounds like a perfect solution.

[Tom Christian]

Your arrogance is quite amusing.

[Chimpie]

Now you're thinking like an entrepreneur. And this is exactly how others got their start in the skin biz.

[Chimpie]

I cant believe you wrote that. The entire Forums business is based on rudeness, if we did not have rude people who could type IPS would probably go out of business with no customers. I am on my absolute best interweb behavior here, if not I would just drop the less than imaginative and very corporate "Helvetica F Bomb!"

I whole heartedly disagree with that. I run multiple communities and not one is based on, nor tolerates any sort of rudeness.

My goal is to successfully conduct my business and I have waited patiently for months to see some of the Skins Issues resolved and they have not been resolved. My end game is for IPS to make and sell a better product, not for us to have a breakup.

What are you using your community for?

[Brian Garcia]

I am on my absolute best interweb behavior here, if not I would just drop the less than imaginative and very corporate "Helvetica F Bomb!"

Sadly, there are some difficult people here where I wanted to do the exact same thing. What I have learned with dealing with customers with my current job is, you won't please every customer. Some customers want things that are too unrealistic.


I try to show these difficult customers respect and try to find a solution to their problem. Those who continue to be rude and negative towards me usually get the exact attitude. Hence the bad reputation you are receiving now. Those who try and understand why it's unrealistic tend to come up with some type of solution or idea with me in order for what they want or need to be realistic.

[Ryan H.]

and I don't even drink beer!


Like the developers have already explained on at least one occasion, there's a very good reason they don't have more default or packaged skins. For every additional skin they add, it's that much more time for skin development and testing added to each development cycle--time which prevents potentially vital updates from being released as quickly as they could [a la now]. Considering there are already people who complain about how long releases take, and that those people out number you by quite a few, I think it's fair that they limit themselves to one official skin set, just like every other web software out there that I know of.

Complaints about that default skin itself? Likely to be brushed off, but acceptable. Tact and a willingness to act understanding helps.

[Brian Garcia]

Again, Why do have to deal with anyone but IPS if I want to successfully use IPS Products? Im not asking for the world here, just for IPS itself to get off their geek defense and use some common sense. Why not make a few IPS Skins and throw them in as a bonus just like you did with Clean Cut? Just make one a simple square cornered generic style that does not scream I'm a big fat IPB3 Forum, Look At Me!

P.S. It would be very helpful if it worked and was not branded like trailer trash with a cheep tattoo.

Yeah... that's going to get you real far.

[Interferon]

Just make one a simple square cornered generic style that does not scream I'm a big fat IPB3 Forum, Look At Me!

Yep, I agree 100%.

I put this together really quick. It's obviously rough, but it is an idea of what I want. Simple, square, and can be changed by altering just a few scheme colors:

[TrixieTang]

Again, Why do have to deal with anyone but IPS if I want to successfully use IPS Products? Im not asking for the world here, just for IPS itself to get off their geek defense and use some common sense. Why not make a few IPS Skins and throw them in as a bonus just like you did with Clean Cut? Just make one a simple square cornered generic style that does not scream I'm a big fat IPB3 Forum, Look At Me!

P.S. It would be very helpful if it worked and was not branded like trailer trash with a cheep tattoo.

I can't think of any forum software that has more than 2 skins out of the box, and I've seen and used a lot of forum software.

What you're suggesting would just mean more work for IPS which would result in more time between releases and new features coming less frequently. It's fine as it is, and it's really not that hard to learn to skin it yourself if you don't like any of the skins that are available.

[Terry - AKA Dumbledore]

Now there is the true reason. You want every thing to be given to you on a silver platter. You need to learn something, life is hard and you don't always get what you wont, no matter the amount of crying you do.

[Interferon]

The point is that the default skin isn't just hard to change. It is extremely irregular, and highly recognizable. It doesn't blend at all with any website hosted on the planet Earth. It may be the ugliest forum skin I have ever seen. It isn't important that IPB provide a multitude of skins. What is important is that they provide one skin that is somewhat inoffensive, which we can customize and replace ourselves when we have the skills or resources to do so. If it looked like this, it would be fairly easy to modify and make fit into the look and feel of almost any site:
http://forums.epicgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=371

The default VBulletin skin can be altered with minor changes, and it will fit in well to a lot of different websites. The default IPB skin is...one of a kind. And that's not a desirable quality for something like this. When I bought it I assumed it would be easy to get rid of the clunky look, but that is turning out to be much harder than I thought, and so far all I hear are a lot of excuses. The degree of defensiveness and "fanboyism" here is comical. It sounds like a Linux forum. I do not have loyalty or belief in vBulletin, IPB, or any other forum system. I am a consumer atheist. I just say what I see. I chose IPB because it had superior community interaction features, but this problem is glaringly obvious.

[Mark H.]

Gentlemen.....

If you do not personally like the look of the default skin, there are a number of 3rd-party skins (both free and paid) that can be used instead.

The included default skins work properly, and while the opinions about their look and feel have ranged from "Love it" to "Hate it", they have been favorable overall.

The Community Skins continue to be developed, and as bugs are found they are worked on.



A few people in this thread are letting their emotions outrun their thought processes.

To all of you doing so: Refrain from name-calling and mud-slinging. It serves no purpose, and will get you nowhere.

It most certainly won't inspire anyone to offer yet more of their free time to make a free skin, as the Community Developers are doing.

Healthy, mature, and CIVIL debate is a good thing. Let's keep it that way, please.

[Mat Barrie]

Can you think of any forum software that ships with a big fat heavily branded dark blue skin style?

No, I can't. Even IPB ships with a dark blue skin style with no branding other than the logo (which you're supposed to change, by the way - it's the logo!)

It is rather... bulky. I agree with that wholeheartedly. And I reckon it'd be quite good if it could be slimmed down a bit (vertically - every monitor these days is widescreen).

You asked about a square skin by the way? Take a look at CleanCut. We're still waiting for it to be released (impatient foot tapping) but it seems to fit the requirement of being less rounded and curvy. The only problem I can see with it is that it's still quite big. Anyway, once it's done it actually joins the "IP.Board" skin as a default, out of the box, offering. Meeting your requirement of more than one skin by default.

[rbiss]

Does anyone make skins that come with matching homepage templates?

[Matt]

Bubba, that's quite enough, I think.

You have made your point loud and clear. We love good constructive feedback but using your opinion as a crusade has only alienated you from the community. I'm genuinely sorry you feel the way you do but we're simply not going to invest time and money into developing additional skins.

You don't have to like that or agree with it but you do have to accept it otherwise we're just reheating a stale debate.

For what it's worth, we have developed skins in house for many companies including Skype, O'Reilly and EMI. If you wanted to talk seriously about a robust custom skin for your site, then please contact sales.