What do you want from this site??

[BLOWHARD]

Well, lets see, wealth, power, women, hair for my bald spot...

OH! You mean within reason?

Seriously, I get everything I could want. People who speak the same language, skinner language I mean. A place to show my work, see other people's work, ask questions and answer them. What more could anyone ask of?

[monguse]

On the idea of the search engine:

I don't feel that any site could hold all of the skins, however, it would be pretty neat to have some kind of registration area were skinners could post their DATA and where their skins are hosted. Hence no bandwidth issues other than searching and returning links.


So for example our site featuring the 57th BW [www.warwingsart.com]

If a user were to come to "Simmers" and type 57th BW or 340th BG they could receive hits for all web site(s) containing SKIN(S) that host the search. Think of it as a web ring search.

They say need is the mother of invention, how true.

I constantly search for skins for our maps (Historia on Hypperlobby) those that want to fly the real thing need to have a series of skins not just one. So, off I go and burn countless of hours until I deceide just to skin them because I can't find them. It would be far easier to search rather than to rifle through a site that has all variants in one site.

I had chatted with Serval a while ago on skin and server needs, think of it of that show "What not to wear" but in reverse. If a map will host a historical map with skins dl it's only right to show were skins could be found.

For instance, here is my feeble attempt.

http://www.gozr.net/iocl/viewtopic.php?t=679

As you can see it's manual and not very easily maintained.

I don't know if this is something worth persuing, the work in it's initial beggining could be slow but in time once the database is populated the only thing required would be for every skinner to come here and populate their data.

BTW, I'm not the only Historical nut out there. I hear them all the time on comms, "Where can I find more than one of these" they say.

Something to ponder.

'Guse

[Hunhunter]

Well I wont say too much but this idea of a skins directory has got ole Adlabs quite excited. He's just gone off to Tracey Island to run it thru his creative think tank. What he is suggesting is surprisingly simple.....as long as the site software will support it and the boss ok's it. No promises, but watch this space

[FARaveN]

more feed backfrom the top skiners to posted skins so us noobs know were there skins could use work. even if they are not il2 skins

[monguse]

HH and Adlabs

Cool, love it - I might be able to add some tech as I'm a techie too.

You guys can PM me anytime or find me on IM. Serval has my data.

As far as what I would love to do compared to the time I have, is slightly tilted to, I have no time. It's either skin and fly or work then work some more. I'll take the first option.

I can create an XML file containing everything I've done to date. Let's talk about the structure so you can import the stuff quickly.

[RAF_Loke]

How about a page with links to skin sites?
Not meaning that YOU should go out and hunt "hunhunter" every skin site down. But maybe people could either add their own page or request it to be added to the page?!

[adlabs6]

In my current idea, skinners add their info to the database just like IL2Skins was. We've got a search system, it should give a decent result, but not amazing flexibility. I'll test that later today.

[monguse]

Ubi has a sticky
http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums...3/m/4441003492

The problem is that the sites are not descriptive enough, they are by artist name. Now, the plus is I've been to almost all of the sites and have a feel for who has done what. The problem is that one still has to rifles through everything.

For instance, I'm searching skins for P40's of the MTO. Flying Legends has them but I have to sift through 84 (not many this time) but still have to search for more on other sites.

For the historical nut and the Campaing builder it would be much simpler to search by a distinct FG, FS or BG, BS, or JG.

I'm willing to put effort into simplifying this because I've been doing it the hard way for about 4 months.

[turnipkiller]

Wow this sounds like a good idea. We would need to have a standard for skin file names for it to work well though yes? (I think that's what you were talking about earlier monguse?)

[adlabs6]

Well my idea is simple... create an entry in our "glossary" section for authors to add a name, description, and link to where the skin is at (and maybe thumbnail image or links to images they host themselves) and form a database. Then it's searchable, and shows the newest releases too.

This is actually very easy to adapt. We may have a sample version soon to test.