News Plugin

Thanks for your replies guys. I'd like to comment on the last two posts, firstly to bbfi. (BTW, I didn't just like your skins - I love them. and with the AWS thing figured out, I think they work quite well for me. For my DesktopX Weather object, I ended up sourcing an XML feed from weather.com and I'd love to try porting it to here once the improved 'Fetcher' is released.)

Most of these skins are written by users of TLB. We do it for the challenge, love of it, or whatever reason we have. Since, it is a hobby and we do not get paid for it, perhaps we do not produce the skins with everything needed for individuals who do not have our aptitude in programming. This, of course, is an over site in our eagerness to create something that we feel is really good and useful to others. But, as you mentioned, the lack of documentation, updating, trying it out with different areas or operating systems, or whatever, is beyond our limited capabilities (at least mine).

As I mentioned with the example of DesktopX Objects, they are entirely free and created by users for love of the project. The only ones making money there are Stardock (and they are keeping the fees quite reasonable). The difference there seems to be more interaction with the end users, engaging them in the testing and documentation process, and having them reach out when things change like XML/RSS feeds or something in a new release. I'm only suggesting the same for this community and wondering how to go about helping in the process if I can. One thing the Board admins may consider is creating separate topics for each plugin, rather than lumping 'em all together - it makes it easier for a new user to find the appropriate forum. (Also a more current update of IB would be a help; they've fixed many bugs and improved the search capabilities since 3.0)

Also, how does one go about creating skins? What is the process and what do the settings in the ini files reflect? There doesn't seem to be anything on them in the FAQ or site, and if it's in the forums then it's seems buried pretty deep. This is another one of those things that lend to the 'outsider perception' I mentioned before; like it's a secret club or something :p knowing the process will not only help to educate users to create skins and grow the skin/plugin base but would also help people to understand how to proceed if things don't go as planned. True, the forums are supposed to accomplish this partly but if I read your quote right then you (and others) are already overworked - taking some of the forum support tasks off your hands could only help in giving developers more time for productive pursuits like documentation and updates, right?

For CNN News to work you need the CNN skin from the skin library page. This needs to be placed in the Weather Monitor folder under skins. Also needed is a provider file found below which we are unsure if you have or not. This gets placed in TrueLaunchBar\Plugins\Weathermon\Providers. Then click on the TLB and select New and then select Weather Monitor and name it CNN News. Then from the properties window in the Skins section select News - CNN. In the Provider select CNN News. In the URL place this: http://edition.cnn.com/. In the Use in skin place these in this order:
Headline News
Headline 2
Headline 3
Headline 4
Updated
Headline 5

Then select Ok and see if it works. If it does not please post here again and more specific help will be on the way!

To QSection - Thanks so much, those simple instructions did the trick! Someone should cut and paste them into a text file and include it in the skin's zip file; it'll go a long way to preventing the same questions. BTW, I still cannot locate your DK News skin in the file library - am I missing something or is the library ?

Thanks to both of you for your time and efforts as well as the discussion. I hope users appreciate the type of people that appear to make up this community and will join me in supporting them!