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I’m really dismayed by the lack of Invision Power Board 2 skins. Not only are there very few available, but those few are generally poor, dated or lack creativity (lots of ‘default’ IPB 2 skins in different colours and icons - whoopie).

Maybe it’s just me and just recently coming off PHP-Nuke, for which there are thousands of free and commercial themes (and I’m NOT talking about all those commercial ‘web site template’ sites). Arguably it is Open Source and IPB is not, and the themeing system for Nuke is two or three generations behind IPB (making it much easier to create them), but I would have expected there to be more made by Invision Power Services and bundled with or available separately for IPB.

I supposed they leave it up to the end-user to craft their own. Now that’s fine, but as with most other webmasters, I suspect, I am generally busy and fully involved with the ‘nuts and bolts’ of my sites and am not all that creative or artistic. I would rather buy a pre-made skin than spend the time to make one myself. But, I also do not wish to spend thousands of dollars to have a custom skin made.

This begs the question, is there not then a healthy after-market for IPB skins? Appearantly not, as if there were I would not be writing this and would happily be sending my Visa to some skinning site for a selection of their fine wares.

As it turns out, I have purchased several skins from the one of only four, yes FOUR, commercial IPB skinning sites that have any selection whatsoever. Perhaps 30 unique skins between them. Not much selection.

For for anyone looking for IPB 2 skins, your options would seem to be:

• theskinnery.com - NEW (previously skins.phoenixclan.biz) - Commercial. Now these guys got it going on! If you visit one skin site, make it Phoenix Rocks. And thanks to the anonymous visitor who gave us the link.
• skins.invisionize.com - Free, nothing spectacular but about the biggest repository around.
• transversestyles.com - Commercial, reasonable selection and quality is above-par (vRocking is danm nice) - one of the few good commercial sites.
• invisionskins.com - Hello! Why do you even bother?
• jasidog.com - Two Free skins but top-drawer overall - wish there were more I’d even pay for them! Two of the available four listed on invisionskins.com.
• nbsdesignz.com - Perports to offer commercials skins but few and dated. Free gallery is a :yawn:
• plausiblepixels.com - Commercial. A handful of decent skins that were free but have since been removed - pitty.
• crustygeek.co.uk - Around 25 free skins of varying quality. Getting better but definately not in the same league as Phoenix Rocks.
• 1lotus.com - Commercial. Few but stellar, in my opinion. Make more James damn it! 100% CSS for those interested.
• extremepixels.com - Commercial. Few but above average. Them and transversestyle.com update so infrequently I don’t know why I bother to bookmark them.
• ibunique.com - Commercial. Same old story, poor selection, dated, few updates, etc., etc., etc. Another useless bookmark.
• invision-it-all.com - Commercial. Reasonably priced and some fresh ideas - worth checking out. - toast

Note: More Invision Skin sites here.

Or, of course, expect to pay $500+ to have someone create a custom/exclusive skin for you.

Now, I’m sure I’m looking to get flamed and all respect to the many folks who worked long and hard to produce and offer their skins on these and various other sites. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few jewels in this group, but seriously, someone enlighten me. Why are there so few decent IPB skins or skinning sites? Is it the steep learning curve in IPB 2? Is there simply no market for them (I don’t believe either for a second)? Should I quit my day job and start one to fill the void? Am I smoking crack? What gives? Perhaps it’s time to switch to vbulletin?!

:Perplexed:

Update: If you’re running the default IBP skin you can easily change it’s colour and font styles using ForumStyle’s Skin Generator. Gives you copy and paste css. Doesn’t tell you what version of IPB it works for. I’m assuming 2.x based on the dates listed on the intro.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 8th, 2005 at 10:28 pm and is filed under Invision Power Board, invision, ipb, skins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.