Zodiaq....that's a bit judgemental....and not realistically the case.

When [not if] a new section is added here at Wincustomize it will be because it is of significance to skinning as a whole, not because it gets many 'yes' votes in a thread asking for 'yes' votes.

If that were the criteria for hosting a new section I'm sure there'd be a lot of 'yes' votes for a Britney's boobs section as well....

None of the 'new' sections is added on a whim, in fact many can need 'back-room' discussions as to legality/rights to sponsor them.  It's not unheard of that a site may have 'exclusive' rights to host a proggy's skins, or maybe even 'issues' with a particular community doing so.

It looks like Trillian may be the next one to 'join us'....but I guess we all will see...

 

Kona...just to clarify.....DesktopX is a GUI enhancement [and popular]....and Litestep is a shell [also popular amongst the daring].....but they are two different animals whose results may be alike, but the methodology is quite different.  It is quite simple to make a LS shell infinitely more resource-hungry than any DX theme you care to imagine...[though it's also possible to keep it 'lighter', too]...

Sorry Jafo...Didn't mean to be judgemental at all.

Actually through this whole thread it was in the back of mind...Then when Frogboy posted there was an immediate reference to the DX Calendar...So that kinda confirmed it for me

Hey, here's a thought...why not have both?

Some of you guys have stolen my thunder and make some very valid points. One burning question is how do we judge Rainlendars popularity?? This is a difficult one and i am going to try to come up with some statistics of my own. Leaving figures aside - Why do i say it is popular?
1. Just look at peoples screenshots and desktop profiles
2. Look at any popular Windowblinds Skin - free ones or paid for suites - which two skins are popular requests? Sysmetrix and Rainlendar - either made by the author or by someone else with permission of the author.
In my opinion Beatnik and several other sections do not justify their existance on this site any longer and its time that the sections were re-evaluated and replaced by more popular programmes.

Brad....I am not going to enter the DX2 side of this debate at this stage as i want to try and convince you first that Rainlendar is popular and becoming more popular.......just like DX2 is and i cannot see any reason why they cannot co-exist side by side.........but i will leave this all to one side at the moment and see what more you have to say on the popularity side.

Ok........there are lies, damn lies and there are statistics but i am not going to bore everyone with figures.

Just pop over to DA and look at the Rainlendar section there. Have a look at some of the recent good quality uploads to the section and tell me the figures of total downloads so far do not show that Rainlendar is "popular". What grieves me even more is that some of the authors are great members of this site.

If we took this section out of DA and put it here on WC and compared it with the recent download popularity of some of the the other sections on WC..........well..........you work it out yourself.....Rainlendar is popular and should be here at WC - The home of the Skinning Community

Brad.........i await your reply with interest.

face it. it will not happen, reasons are up to your own interpretation.

just a short note on popularity: the majority of Rainlendar users probably does not even to bother to change the default skin. as the first thing most XP users i know in real life™ did was switching from Luna back to Classic.

Ppffffffff, it's a deaf speaking here ...

Just one other thought before i shut up.......well for a few hours anyway. Lets look at this from a business point of view. There are people out there who use Rainlendar with or without Windowblinds. Whichever persuassion they come from, if you had a section here, then you would get quite a few visitors who would realise that their desktop could look even better with Windowblinds or by getting the whole shooting match with Object Desktop. They would also be introduced to the interesting world of DesktopX. Think about it..... how did most of us get here in the first place? In the beginning i was just skulking around the net looking for a new wallpaper and what did i come across........Wincustomize......for the next hour i was mesmerized.......by some of the things you could do......i then trawled thru some of the skins and thought WOW this is amazing.......i then checked out Treetog and Alex's site Pixtudio....and fell off my chair. The wallet then came out of my pocket and the plastic came out and with the next click i was on Stardock and made my purchase.......i have been hooked ever since like most of the rest of you.

As they say - from little acorns grow big Oak trees
[Message Edited]

Leo...the 'lie' that is statistics would have you counting screenshots of Rainlender usage versus total member numbers of the site.....currently over 710,000.

Can be made to paint a quite different outcome.

However it is also quite possible that a high-profile site such as Wincustomize might easily outstrip 'popularity' numbers with Rainlender compared with even Devart....but only time 'may' tell....

#99 by Sir Hus - 9/29/2003 5:52:50 PM Again, not to be offending, but does Rainlender have BOTH a hugely popular site (WinCustomize) hosting skins AND Download.com hosting the app? Regardless of how good DX calendars are, you can't judge until Rainlender is in the same position.

What is stopping them from being on Download.com?  (And, do you think that Download.com "hosts" all apps, or do they just post a link to them? )  There is nothing stopping Rainy themselves from making a web site.  And, DX is not the only library on here.  Rainlendar skins are on DA, which is an *extremely* popular site. 

 

Everybody keeps saying "look at the screenshots section.  A lot of people are using Rainlendar."  But, most people can not tell a rainlendar calendar from a DX calendar in a screenshot.  I have had person actually comment on one of my screenshots "where did you get that cool rainlendar skin?"  when it isn't Rainlendar at all.

There was a poll up for a day (it was replaced with another because hardly anyone responded to it.)  The question was: "Do you use Rainlendar on a daily basis?"  Do you know how many people said "yes"?  4.  Yep.  4 people said yes.  About 2/3 said "NO" or "I don't know what Rainlender is".  On a previous poll (which I quoted) "If you had to pick a section that we're missing" only about 11% said "other" which would include Rainlendar.  Yes, a very few people have been very vocal on this thread, but the stats just don't show that it should be done.

And, I would also appreciate it if people would get off the bandwagon of saying that sections aren't here because Stardock would have competition. If that were the case, there would be only Stardock products on here as quite a few of the sections "compete" with our products (like MP3 players (competes with DX), Sysmetrix (competes with DX), Dashboard (competes with Pocketblinds) , Kewlpad (competes with Object Edit), Nextstart (competes with ObjectBar)....)

Jafo.....exactly the point i was making hence why i did not want to quote figures however in my humble opinion my statement regarding DA will stand up to scrutiny. Just look at some of the "recent quality rainlendar skins" on DA and then see how many downloads there are for each one in such a short space of time. That, for my money, gives you a true idea of how popular Rainlendar now.....at this moment

And lets face it a Rainlendar section on this site would be far more popular that Beatnik, Kewlpad and several other sections on here.

KG.......morning ma'am

The polls did not give Rainlendar a chance - and with general apathy towards voting in the polls what did we or you expect.

Please look at DA and check out my statement and then tell me that Rainlendar is not popular.

Surely then we could say that ***if*** a Rainlendar section was introduced to WC then it would be more popular than at least half a dozen sections on this site which are just wasting valuable space and serving no useful purpose.

I am sure you realise that i can back this up with figures and i am happy to do so, if required.

You guys have failed to make your case.

Jumping up and down insisting something is popular without any evidence is not very convincing.

If Rainlendar was popular, it would be very easy to prove. Instead, we see screenshot counts (a dozen per week maybe?) used as evidence?

It's also rather sad to see those who are apparently incapable of putting together a compelling case for their position resorting to the tried oh "Let's blame Stardock." Because ya, you can imagine Stardock sweating it out about Rainlendar. Sheesh. Half the sections on this site compete with something Stardock makes and usually a lot more directly.

We don't think Rainlendar is currently popular enough to justify a section on WinCustomize. There is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Rainlendar has more than a tiny (but very vocal) audience at present.

Prehaps over time it will grow in its user base and then we can revisit that issue.  When the most popular rainlendar skin found on the net has fewer than 2000 downloads, then that certainly indicates that the program doesn't have a very large following that is interested in downloading more skins.

Ppffffffff, it's still a deaf speaking here ...

Brad.......who is jumping up and down????? I'm not - i hope i am trying to make my/our case in a mature and adult manner.

If you think we have not made our case then you have not bothered to check out what i have said about the DA aspect. Neither have you done your homework on download statistics on what i would call "redundant" sections.
If you think that my/our evidence is based on screenshot counts you certainly have not bothered to read anything i have said.

At no time have ***i*** jumped on the so called Stardock product bashing side to this debate and furthermore that has been limited to only a few comments so please less of the melodrama and focus on the point in question.

Finally do you really consider that the like minded people that have bothered to say their piece on this thread are "tiny but vocal". I am beginning to think you have no read this thread at all and have totally misjudged your reply. >

Sure, Rainlendar is not very popular : on the last 20 screenshots (from very different people) there's only 14 who are with a rainy's skin ...

I should be interested to know how many clicks are done on the Polls vote reported to the numbers of main page seen ....... (0,0000X % ??? sure thats significiant ... )

... and shit !!! All those who asked in this thread for a Rainy's section will get a bad rate to their next uploads !! NAAAAAAAAAAAA

MontyXP, don't worry, you still can upload your collection there [email protected]

The silence is almost deafening

Hello Leo how are you?
Fine i suppose
What are you doing here?
Just hanging around
You look a little sad
I am - i think i have hacked off the boss
Well never mind - perhaps he will forgive you?
Nope - i think he will wring my neck when he gets hold of me - oh! better hide here he comes now

On skinz.org [mk 1] I once had THE MOST POPULAR CD Stomper skin....of anywhere in the world on any site......it had just over 2000 downloads......but I'm willing to bet most people here haven't a clue what CD Stomper ever was.  It very definitely wasn't 'popular' [otherwise mine wouldn't have been 'top']....

A section for Sysmetrix was added here because of its clear indication of 'potential' as it's designer had/has a steady program of feature-adding and improvement......a very worthwhile addition to the site.  I'm personally not sure that Rainlendar is quite the same....yet.

Requesting/discussing the possibility of new sections is fine....but from the outset Wincustomize.com was not going to host each and every skinnable app's skins, but generally be a 'load carrier' for the more 'successful' or 'popular' ones.

At one time, Kjofol was possibly the second most popular Music player to WinAMP...[it's designer/s moved on to the WA3 project so Kjofol was dead in the water]....but no section here.

And then there was/is Sonique....buggy as heck, but some of the most beautiful skins ever thunk up....now displaced by Media Player and the skins the likes of 'the Skins Factory'...no section for that, either, as development stagnated.

ICQPlus....we have those..but people are moving away from ICQ to Trillian.....so perhaps the latter 'should' be next to be taken on.

Maybe, too....Rainlendar will show universal 'significance' [not just with a fan base] but more 'generally' with the public and it'll be included too.

Presently the Jury is out....

So what's Trillian? Never heard of it... Other than it being the name of the girl out of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Jafo.......OK.......so why have we still got sections for Beatnik and Kewlpad to name but two. Forget the history of why they were put on the site in the first place - why are they still here now when they could be replaced by a more popular programmes?

Fuzzy.....Funnily enough thats what my thoughts were but i did not wish to appear flippant when we were told earlier in the thread that maybe Trillian is going to be the next section on WC. I wonder what would happen if someone started a thread simlar to this one but used the subject matter as Trillian whether it would get the same support as Rainlendar has had. I doubt it but it seems like Brads got his own ideas on the way forward so who am i to argue.

Leo... This is what happens when some people are biased and love other products than Riany.

However I do not agree with Brad, we never see eye to eye on most things.

I know it is tough but the Rainy section will have to wait until late 2007 or maybe 2010.