makd511

Just found a very useful tool on the french Meizu blog site.
They have created a full skin gallery with all the skins from this site.
The viewer is in flash and present thumbnail images, click on one to view screen shot and also a link at the bottom allows you to download the current selected skin.

The site author claims to have scoured this site and collected all the avialable skind AND converted them all to the latest 2.003.2b firmware version (using the tools from this site).

i know there is already a small site running here and that DChronos was looking to make a site also but why re-invent the wheel. i have not yet downloaded any of the skins from this site and tried them yet but i will do so and see how they perform.

so, go here for the google translated version of the page and have a look, i must admit i did not realize there were so many skins out there (113 on my count).

well done to the guys in France and keep adding the skins

Link to french skin gallery

nice2know_u

Thanks for the link, good idea! Maybe someone from meizume could do the same?!

Edit: Oh i see they have collected the skins from here too! (Mines are there too, thanks!)

PoUëT

Yes !

I just discoverd this site a few days ago, and it's fantastic.

The skin gallery is awsome, and I can see that they are now available in english.

DChronos

And do they have an uploader for members to submit them, as well as descriptions?

Also, some people might not want to update their firmware to the absolute latest to use those. I'm creating a gallery in alphabetical order, sortable by creator, date, alphabet, rating, player type, and firmware version once it's done, and it will all be run by the vBulletin system the forums and gallery here use. Also, why go elsewhere when this site is the place to go for everything Meizu M6/M3 and MiniOne.

That reminds me, the gallery here will also have skins for the M3 and MiniOne, if skinning is possible with it.

I'm going to have a tools section as well as a firmware download section all built in once it's done, and already have plenty of it coded in html. After that, it's a matter of creating the php phrases and adding them into the vB system, then setting up a new section.

Mine won't look as flashy as that, but it will have thumbnails to view a simple preview, clicking on them may pop up a small window with the full animated preview that the resource editor makes (I think, haven't checked it out lately, but seen the animated previews). It will allow members to upload new skins as if they were new threads, allowing them to upload their skin, the thumbnails, a preview, and a description of the skin, as well as a rating system.

Most of this, if not all, is already a part of the vB code, so it shouldn't be too overly hard to do the hardest part: setting up a database and posting system for the skins. I just have to do some research there.

Other than that, it looks pretty nice... but like I said, I, for one, still want the 1.010 firmware so those skins would do me no good.

EDIT: Also... *DChronos

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makd511

DChronos (sorry about earlier - i have edited post.

you make some good points that a more structured database system needs to be created for these skins. The french skin gallery is really nice but it gives no indication of how many skins and if new ones have been added etc. it was just nice to see all the skins in one place, all converted to latest firmware and ready to download. i think it was you DChronos that started a thread a while back trying to keep a list of all the skins but i can guess this would be hard to maintain.

cant wait to see your skin catalog, good luck and keep up the good work

darkofdawn

Hi there people ! I'm the "french guy" who set up this blog and the gallery.

Ok, i wasn't supposed to talk at all about it on MeizuMe until someone else did but anyway if i had been, you'd still have beat me to it.

A few months ago I started to work with err0r on a php skin gallery just like DChronos has (re-)imagined it. I had an operational upload system and started working on a thumbnail and rating system too.

But look at it from this point of view :
- Multiple skin versions = multiple resource files. People are always asking skin creators to update their old skins to the latest version. Not the other way round.
- A resource file is approx. 6.5mb => upload via http is painful, for some people it's impossible (depends on the server too).
- Thus, people would have to zip or rar their skins.
- Who knows what's in the zip or rar file ? Personally I hate having lots of crap in my archive files when I DL something. Not to mention the possibility of having a wrong version of resource.bin in the wrong archive file. If the Admin uploads files, things are much more likely to be organized and bear clean, normalized names.

Making users upload their own files is pretty cool, but IMO it just makes things harder when it comes to maintain a clean, efficient skin sharing system.
And that explains why all skins are in 2.003.2b.

By the way, back then, err0r didn't want the gallery to be a full part of MeizuMe, more of a secondary site. So even though I love coding, i was not going to build an entire website coding thousands of php lines all by myself without making a living out of it.

So when I started this french blog, I thought "oh the hell with all this structured time-eating skin-sharing site, what we need is a gallery. A skin gallery". Sure, a rating / commenting form would be nice, and vB has lots of gallery plugins of this kind.

- But hey, what do people want ? Skins.
- How do they chose them ? By browsing through thumbnails.
=> ok let's make the simplest gallery there is, allowing people to quickly browse and download the best-looking skins without making a fuss. No page reloading, everything is loaded in flash and the whole application is ultra fast and easy to use.

When I began this french "gallery", I skimmed all the skin topics one by one, and downloaded / converted / translated / screenshot each and every skin. Took me a whole day, but still much less time than building an entire website, for a still pretty cool result.


I'm not trying to cast a shadow on you work, i guess we're working on two slightly different things. And I truly hope you succeed and work out something as big and cool as you describe it So keep up the good work d00d :D

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iversonjack

And we thank you for it, darkofdawn. Looks awesome!

makd511

[quote=darkofdawn;33988]Hi there people ! I'm the "french guy" who set up this blog and the gallery.

Hi
thanks for making yourself known and well done for all the effort.
This gallery is great and extremely useful but there are just a couple of this i would like ti know.
what order are the skins in, are they listed chronologically or just a random list and when new skins are added do they appear at the start of the thumbnails or are they on the end.

many thanks for the gallery, excellent work

darkofdawn

Skins are listed by date added => last skins shown first.
If two skins were added on the same date, sorting is by alphabetical order.

PS: i've added an english paragraph on the page so no need to go through google translation anymore => http://fr.meizublog.com/skins/

makd511

thanks for the English translation and downloads darkofdawn - excellent

Erag0n

So greate.... Thank you

DChronos

I think your idea is really great, dark, though as of now, people aren't doing anything organized when they upload. They're doing the same thing they would be doing on the system I'm trying to create, except right now, they are uploading to individual scattered threads ordered by the last post, some without thumbnails, and as I stated once already, some people don't want to update their firmware just yet.

It's still very cool that you did that, though, and it looks beautifully designed. Mine is going to be a lot simpler and look just like a part of this site. As for updating skins, if people would like a skin updated, they could request it, or... well, an elaborate idea is to have each skin converted into each firmware version back to 1.010, but yeah... waaay too elaborate. I might be the only one opting to stick with that firmware, and I can already convert to anything I'd like.

Hmm... wait a sec, if the resource editor can convert skins between any version, that would make things a lot easier.

Anyway, dark, I can get all the basic stuff figured out, but maybe later on when I get there, you could help me figure out how to set up the uploading system as well as the database system for the skin gallery section. Could you?

For now, this is a screenshot from one page I have pretty much done, aside from a few changes. Did that last week, and been on and off a bit. Created the images myself, except the MiniOne... still don't know if skinning is possible with it. If this works, it will organize the whole thing and get rid of the need to use all these scattered threads for skins. They'll still be uploading their skins just the same as they are now with the attachments, and weather they use the uploading system or use attachments, one still does not know what is really in the zip or rar files, get my drift? Just a general warning to all to scan them before opening.

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Marque

That's wonderful blog!!

I love it

:D :D

darkofdawn

Hey DChronos,

Have you actually coded this page or is it only a dummy picture made in photoshop ? If you could add me to your msn (see my profile) so we can talk about this... I have a huge idea but don't know if it will be possible.

Thanks everyone for your support, I appreciate that very much.

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DChronos

The page is fully functional and all links go to where they go here in the forums, except the skins link, which has nowhere to go for now and is just for looks.

I tore apart all the code and deleted everything except the basic page shell and coded the center in html to work, and created the M3 and M6 images in photoshop. I used the MeizuMe stylesheet to get the look to be like that.

After I code it in html, all one has to do is create a new directory inside the vB control panel, and create a new basic page, then add the html into new php phrase templates, so that the basic page is processed and the php phrases are replaced by the html in the template.

I already built this page, and have built a list page and have the designs for other pages for firmware and the skin description. I'm making it a list instead of a browser at the moment so that skins can easily be sorted by way of stuff, and a person can see a good deal of info about the skin before actually viewing the page for it.

I'll add ya this weekend and we can chat about it then, ok? I'm pretty good at html now, unlike when I originally had the idea when I started the skin list here in the first place. I was originally going to make a normal offsite html page and error was going to make a subdomain for it, though that would require someone to manually upload and code new pages for descriptions, make thumbnails, and other stuff. After taking a look at the vBulletin demo and getting my first look at how cool php is, and how I could just create a page inside this forum that error could run like part of the site, and would let people upload their own stuff and let the vB system create the pages automatically, I decided to rip into the code and create one from the stuff here. It's pretty easy, actually, once you know what style class does what to the view. I just look at the code and find that out.

Like I said before, the only hard parts are: coming up with the uploading and database stuff, and then adding it into the vB system, and creating the php codes. I've done some searching into this, and I know it's entirely possible. The only drawback is the fact that the biggest source for help in coding it, vBulletin's forums, doesn't let me see anything in code tags without being an owner of a vBulletin key. that's the only thing holding me back for now, not seeing what other members have done, or any code help. I have seen and found out myself how to make a basic page containing the header, navbar, footer and copyright info. That's what I started with when I coded the rest.

Anyway, I'll add ya this weekend, cause right now, I'm kinda busy thanks to fair week at work... 10 hour days suck so much... Also, the part I bought from plg6067 had better arrive tomorrow so I can continue messing with the M6 parts to try to get one working again somehow... getting really PO'd that it wasn't here already on Tuesday.

darkofdawn

I'm sure Php and setting up a DB won't be much of a problem, I've been doing it for years now. We just have to talk about it, work out a db structure and all.
See you this WE then.

theblackstripe

wow really great, your site!

Thx for it, I've found some nice new skins.

Thanks!

RedstarNYC

Thanks so much for this site. I really appreciate it.