Downloading resources

[kakashi]

Here are a few ideas related to the downloading of online resources for Coollector.
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Looking at the skin selector form i realize that the public skins tab shows way more information than the installed skins tab including screenshots which i find really awesome.

I think that the installed skins tab could be rendered unnecessary if you had a installed/uninstalled skins filter or filter shortcut button (like you have for owned videos) in the public skins tab.
- I guess the filter would be stuck on 'installed skins only' when there's no internet.

Visual cues such as image buttons or borders (and the rest of your usual box of tricks) could then be used to ensure that the current skin, installed skins etc. are easily recognizable, and clicking an installed skin could then replace the combobox in the installed skins tab when selecting skins.



An example of one of the many ways that this could work... (installed/uninstalled filter nor shown)
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Something else to consider: A similar window could be used to display supported export formats and web templates including txt, ipodnotes, raw xml, raw json along with a variety of custom web page templates based off json or xml. Exporting to a wide variety of formats and creating beautiful graphical layouts would then be as simple and as easy as using the skin system. I expect that this would be one way to make it easy to distribute user created web templates.
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What do you think?

[(cool) Hector]

the public skins tab shows way more information than the installed skins tab including screenshots which i find really awesome.

Yes, the public skins have a screenshot, which is not the case of the skins that you create or modify.

I think that the installed skins tab could be rendered unnecessary if you had a installed/uninstalled skins filter or filter shortcut button

As soon as a skin is installed, it can't have a screenshot, because maybe the user has modified it. It's impossible to check if a skin has been modified or not, because it's impossible to know if an image has been replaced by another.

txt, ipodnotes, raw xml, raw json

ipodnotes support will be dropped in a few days. It'll be only txt, xml and json.

A similar window could be used to display supported export formats and web templates

I'm afraid my vision doesn't go this far. For the moment, all I know for sure, it's that in a few day I will implement the export to xml and json. The stage after that would be to transform them into html. I know that with xml, I can apply an xlst transform. With json, I don't really know how it works, maybe you could tell me. What's great with xslt, is that I just have to include the xslt file at the beginning of the xml file to make it appear as an html file. I think I can even use some javascript to create a combobox to switch between several xslt transforms.

Like I said, I don't have a clear idea about those next stages. First, I open the box. Second, I look what's inside

[kakashi]

Keep tossing ideas at the wall and eventually one might stick...

ipodnotes support will be dropped in a few days.

I was wondering why that was there...

[(cool) Hector]

Keep tossing ideas at the wall and eventually one might stick...

Exactly. I have no doubt that we're going in the right direction, but there are so many option, I still don't have a clear picture in my mind.

Baby steps... First, export to xml and json. Second...?

ipodnotes support will be dropped in a few days.

I was wondering why that was there...

Legacy. I think it goes back to before the first iPhone was even released.