“Uncle crae, is it true that you know all there is to know about computer arts in general and skinning in particular? Isn't that a bit of a bold statement, seeing we have yet to see a single skin made by you? And what's wrong with us newbies asking all kinds of questions regarding skinning and the like? Don't say you've become 1337 all of a sudden! Damnit, just because you were here before us doesn't mean you can diss us like that. Don't look down on us!”

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Now now, young tyke, that's a bit of an exaggeration. No, you see it's like this. I and many with me have been around in this skinning scene or community or whatever you may wish to call it. So over the years I and the likely-minded have acquired what to youngsters such as you might seem as Infinite Wisdom.

Fact is, skinning is all very simple.

Oh, there you go again, Uncle crae. Prancing around on your high horse. You know it is hard. Why can't you just help us out.

Sorry tykes, but it really is not all that hard. Just like building a websites isn't all that ha– no wait, wrong example. Anyway, it is all a matter of disecting existing skins and figuring out what bitmap does what and how it is all connected in that textfile or .ini-file or whatever.

Oh yeah, Uncle crae, if that is so, why don't you explain to us how we can create that WinAmp3 skin? Or why this here LiteStep theme thing isn't doing anything? It doesn't even have an .exe, for christ's sake!

Do you always try to fly a plane before you've learned how to walk, young tyke? Patience is key. You don't start out with encyclopedeas when you want to learn how to read, now do you? Start out with simple apps like quickNotes or skinMem and such. DOn't start with the likes of WindowBlinds and WinAmp2. It'll wear you out.

But Uncle crae, even if we want to start out with these things, we still have questions. We don't know how this all works and what we should do. We downloaded this .zip package the other day, so, like, what are we supposed to do with it?

What? Are you stupid or something? You know you can always ask questions on the boards and such. Or even better, mail the author. They don't bite (certain individuals aside, that is).

If that is so, Uncle crae, how come that none of our questions we have posted at various places have been answered? And if we do get a response, it's usually mockery and people making fun of us.

Hmm, might those questions have had highly descriptive titles such as “help!”, "I am a clueless newbie” and “hello”?

Yes, exactly! Why?

Oh nothing, just a hunch. You see topics as such aren't exactly very captivating or exciting. Not quite the incentive for the experienced meber of this nich to pop over and see what's going on.

See? There you go again. The only thing you do is ridicule us, while you could have just as easily answered this very simple question of ours!

Oh really? Do I look like I'm on the paylist of Company X to play helpdesk or something? Have you checked out some of the other forum topics? The odss are nine out of ten that you'll find the answer there. Do you really think “we” have nothing better to do than to wait around for TruckaJoe the Clueless Newbie to ask a question that has only been asked like sixty-three times today already? Do I look like a broken record?

But…

Hush. Point your eyes in this direction instead of wasting your breath on a pointless retort. Now I agree that there is a definite lack of information for those who are new to skinning and want to find out how to use things or how to create their own. Then again, maybe not. It might help if each skinner would stick a readme.txt in his or her .zip-file explaining how things work. But then again (again) skinners are lazy bastards and they figured things out themselves, so why can't you?

We could continue this way forever, but it isn't really getting us anywhere. What each site should need is a faq where new blood can find out the nitty gritty of things. Unfortunately most of the faqs I have seen (on the rare occasion that a site has on) consist of explaining various site related issues and nothing about usage and the like. Not very helpfull. Mind you, I might be wrong here, what on earth would I need a faq for?

Somewhere last month, I figured: “what the hell, I'll whip up a faq and get this over with”. A list of frequently asked questions on general topics, all related to skinning. Mind you, nothing specific, just generic stuff. In the future this may change. Have a peek over here:

http://www.teknidermy.com/faq/

It's split up into four parts. #users focussed on new users and answers questions like what skins are and how to use them. In the future this section might be expanded with answers to questions like “which program is better, X or Y”. Remember, this is just a start.

#skinners answers questions for those interested in creating their own skins. #devs will try to give some pointers to developers interested in making their apps skinnable. Don't think I can be of much help here though, other than point people to skinnables.org. Finally, #about deals with useless trivia regarding the faq.

Let me repeat some of that useless trivia here, knowing that no-one will read those bits. I may have started this faq and I may be planning on maintaining it, but that does not mean that I plan on doing everything alone. If you want to help out, be my guest. If you know frequently asked questions and their respective answers, pass them along to me and I'll add them.

Also, things like this only work if people know they exists. So if you come across a question you think is covered in the faq, drop the url so people know it exists. I stuck it up at the simplest of urls possible (http://www.teknidermy.com/faq/) for that reason alone.

To quote whoever it was (damnit, who stole my Reggae tapes!), I think “we've got a good thing going” here. With the proper care and attention, this might prosper and help all the young tykes out a bit. Not to mention rid our boards of those annoying repetetive questions, so we can focus on more constructive things, like flames and posting what we are listening to (currently: Immortal – Blacker than Darkness, switching to: Arcturus – Master of Disguise).

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“Umm yeah, Uncle crae, we checked out that url of yours and, well, it contains letters. A lot of them. You don't expect us to read those do you? Why can't you just answer one simple freaking question, you arrogant bastard! Hey fuck this, we don't care about this anymore. We've deleted all your skins. This graffiti style is so passé. They suck anyway. You suck. Your music sucks. Teknidermy sucks. So there.”

— craeonics, July 5th 2002