Since everybody seems to love PHPLD, I've made an immitation-PHPLD template set which duplicates the look and features. Demo here. It's available for download in the resources area.
Besides easy temlpate editing (as far as I remember) the big bonus of PHPLD is, that there are so many people using it, and creating & offering so much templates. It's so many that almost everybody will find something which fits his/her needs in a way with a little bit of modification.
WSN Links, by now, has one main look (I mean not only colors/images change, but also design/layout in total). So the main part would really be offering lots of alternatives how a linkdirectory could look in WSN, as a basis for users.
I know you need us to create them, as u don't have the time to do it alone.. but anyhow, I think if the WSN template collection gets filled, that would rock.
Concerning your Immitation-set: Will it be totally new built templates, different structure from what we have now, or is it just your attempt to adapt the look of PHPLD, without chenging internal tpl/php structure?
I duplicated every feature I noticed in their templates (per-category RSS, the click to sort options), and it actually didn't require modifying more than about a half dozen templates. Changed a few things like the orange to more tolerable color. Did it all in a day. Didn't bother immitating their "submit link" page or the like as I didn't see anything interesting there. And as you can see I needed an extra bar at the bottom for member options to fit them.
I don't own PHPLD so I didn't look at their actual template structure, or even the HTML source in the browser, just eyeballed it from the demo.
Starship-Trooper wrote: easy temlpate editing
Seems to be a matter of taste, several people have told me PHPLD's templates were unapproachably obsurified compared to WSN. Can't say I admired anything about the sample I was shown.
I need to make a template creation guide available in some central location soon.
For my state of customizing right now, I think it's also not possible for me to adapt it, but your thoughts might more be helpful for new customers. But I think there's work to do :
you will see that's _one_ of the main points which lets webmasters go for PHPLD - it's quite easy for them to choose between hundreds of templates/themes. So they say, "Hey, that's approx. what I would like my page to look/work like, so I go for it!"
WSN strength is, it's way more complex and customizable, more & better implemented features, but it might need more effort and needs more time to get used to it. Not so much mainstream, I might say. I chose WSN, because yours was the only one I could do everything I want with, and your support & speed in adding things is gorgeous. I knew I could customize, but it's still lots of hacking around in the templates, but for me, that's ok right now. Also, I didn't like PHPLD's selling/service structure..
So, putting it together: still more themes & templates as starting point for potential customers (take some of these sites' themes as example, or look at http://www.avivadirectory.com/ for a nice layout example), and a bigger web-wide community (easy said - but phpld seems to be everywhere, while wsn-based material/info/templates is mainly on your pages); that would totally do the trick. I think some of these points are not possible, as PHPLD does not seem to be a one man show and it took them some effort to be that popular, so now they have the folks doin lots of templates/advertising for them.
I think you'd need someone to do that theming stuff for you.. Bad your design-support went off.
I agree that we need more templates. Paul, maybe if you approach some professional template maker with the user stats and a free copy, they might be inclined to do a few templates. Instead of spending hours upon hours on tweaking it (with no good outcome of course ,) I'd rather pay $xx to have one professionally made.
Unfortunately I don't think the user stats will interest anyone, since of 1343 customers only 42 are from the last six months, and it's new customers who are most likely to be in search of template sets.
I suspect one major advantage scripts like PHPLD have is that their releases are very infrequent, so it's easy to keep a template set up to date with them.
Hopefully starting off a template collection will inspire others to join in.
Let's hope so. I can't think of a better script honestly but yeah, the frequent updates might do a trick on some. Most users usually they set it up once and unless broken...
On the templates: I know that having many of them offers great flexibility, but could that also turn designers off? Is there a way to have a Main page, category listing, link listing and then everything else with a "default" template? If the default style could be ported, 90% of the templates would not be needed for most of us.
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Comments on Template Sets
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7868
Since everybody seems to love PHPLD, I've made an immitation-PHPLD template set which duplicates the look and features. Demo here. It's available for download in the resources area.
What else would you like to see?
Experienced
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Jan 06, 2007
Total Topics: 33
Total Comments: 84
Besides easy temlpate editing (as far as I remember) the big bonus of PHPLD is, that there are so many people using it, and creating & offering so much templates.
It's so many that almost everybody will find something which fits his/her needs in a way with a little bit of modification.
WSN Links, by now, has one main look (I mean not only colors/images change, but also design/layout in total). So the main part would really be offering lots of alternatives how a linkdirectory could look in WSN, as a basis for users.
I know you need us to create them, as u don't have the time to do it alone.. but anyhow, I think if the WSN template collection gets filled, that would rock.
Concerning your Immitation-set:
Will it be totally new built templates, different structure from what we have now, or is it just your attempt to adapt the look of PHPLD, without chenging internal tpl/php structure?
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7868
See for yourself. Demo at www.wsnforum.com/linksuserd...esdir=templates/simplicity and download at scripts.webmastersite.net/w...?action=displaycat&catid=1
I duplicated every feature I noticed in their templates (per-category RSS, the click to sort options), and it actually didn't require modifying more than about a half dozen templates. Changed a few things like the orange to more tolerable color. Did it all in a day. Didn't bother immitating their "submit link" page or the like as I didn't see anything interesting there. And as you can see I needed an extra bar at the bottom for member options to fit them.
I don't own PHPLD so I didn't look at their actual template structure, or even the HTML source in the browser, just eyeballed it from the demo.
easy temlpate editing
Seems to be a matter of taste, several people have told me PHPLD's templates were unapproachably obsurified compared to WSN. Can't say I admired anything about the sample I was shown.
I need to make a template creation guide available in some central location soon.
Expert
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Aug 19, 2005
Location: England
Total Topics: 391
Total Comments: 1303
TBH Paul, it doesn't effect me as I don't use the script for just links but everything, and have my own completely different layouts/styles.
Jill
Experienced
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Jan 06, 2007
Total Topics: 33
Total Comments: 84
For my state of customizing right now, I think it's also not possible for me to adapt it, but your thoughts might more be helpful for new customers. But I think there's work to do
If you take a look on these pages:
http://www.phpldtemplates.org/
http://www.freephpldthemes.com/
http://www.phpld-templates.com/
etc etc
you will see that's _one_ of the main points which lets webmasters go for PHPLD - it's quite easy for them to choose between hundreds of templates/themes. So they say, "Hey, that's approx. what I would like my page to look/work like, so I go for it!"
WSN strength is, it's way more complex and customizable, more & better implemented features, but it might need more effort and needs more time to get used to it. Not so much mainstream, I might say. I chose WSN, because yours was the only one I could do everything I want with, and your support & speed in adding things is gorgeous. I knew I could customize, but it's still lots of hacking around in the templates, but for me, that's ok right now.
Also, I didn't like PHPLD's selling/service structure..
So, putting it together: still more themes & templates as starting point for potential customers (take some of these sites' themes as example, or look at http://www.avivadirectory.com/ for a nice layout example), and a bigger web-wide community (easy said
I think you'd need someone to do that theming stuff for you.. Bad your design-support went off.
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 13, 2007
Total Topics: 16
Total Comments: 37
I agree that we need more templates. Paul, maybe if you approach some professional template maker with the user stats and a free copy, they might be inclined to do a few templates. Instead of spending hours upon hours on tweaking it (with no good outcome of course
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7868
Unfortunately I don't think the user stats will interest anyone, since of 1343 customers only 42 are from the last six months, and it's new customers who are most likely to be in search of template sets.
I suspect one major advantage scripts like PHPLD have is that their releases are very infrequent, so it's easy to keep a template set up to date with them.
Hopefully starting off a template collection will inspire others to join in.
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 13, 2007
Total Topics: 16
Total Comments: 37
Let's hope so. I can't think of a better script honestly but yeah, the frequent updates might do a trick on some. Most users usually they set it up once and unless broken...
On the templates: I know that having many of them offers great flexibility, but could that also turn designers off? Is there a way to have a Main page, category listing, link listing and then everything else with a "default" template? If the default style could be ported, 90% of the templates would not be needed for most of us.