Directory Template tutorial?

Has anyone ever put together a tutorial on how to put together a template for any of the popular directory scripts?

I realise designers would not welcome it, but im sure there are a few individuals with some basic skills who would appreciate the rest being explained, to code it all up etc.

Anyone considering it? i mean a detailed tutorial, think of the benefits, the fame.

Heres maybe something worth thinking about, even though template designers may not welcome a tutorial, is that releasing templates for the sake of backlinks isn't such a great idea anymore, and many have complained of the many directories that share the same templates and so if some have the freedom to design their own, with the help of a detailed tutorial, then think of the benefits to the directory biz, much more uniqueness, more positive interest.

Maybe more than one person could put this together and the group who contribute to the tutorial at least get recognition for it.

A positive contribution to the biz, shifting away a bit from the old way of doing things, think of the variety in designs that could come about, less design duplication.

Breathing life back into this business too, what do you think?

 

Did you ever consider to be a politician?

I guess I could do a really detailed one, but I am not really big fan of internet fame(Or better to say my girlfriend isn't. She prefers when I have money to take her out.)

I have few ideas. If David from PHPLD agrees to sponsor this with some money and other people who are interested agree to give me featured links for 2 of my sites for example-I might be interested.

Otherwise I wouldn't spend 10 full days to write something I needed 4 years to master and all that for fame. I need to pay my bills too

Still, maybe someone else is fame hungry

 

There's plenty of life in the business, certainly for phpLynx it hasn't been better. I can't speak for other scripts though.

I ran this question by a few designers who've done phpLynx templates and they were against it for one reason only, and quoting one, "fame is for fools", it doesn't put food on the table. People already want everything for nothing as it stands, making it easy for people to make templates would be more likely to result in the invasion of the quick buck crew or whatever its called.

 

Maybe this could result in some more money meaning more nights out for your girlfriend

Well if david would be interested in sponsoring this and maybe some others can get involved in this and id happily give you featured listings on 4 directories of mine, im sure if enough people want this that you could possibly get some financial gain and directory listings and whatever else from this.

Understandable and a good point that its a substantial amount of work but i hope you will take this into consideration and others with the same skills too to do this.

Also i feel that there will always be the folk who will prefer to have you design anyway, because they prefer getting someone skilled or because of a lack of time, and i dont think that this would take away from anyones business in designing directory templates.

 

How can you say it wouldn't take away business from designers? You get one or two quick learners (and there are plenty of them about) they will see the instant potential to make a fast buck and slam out templates left, right and centre, this would leave the people who rely on designing templates for a living out in the cold. As for backlinks why do you think the avivadirectories of this world stopped sponsoring them

Sounds like desperation from certain quarters imho.

 

By the way, she is a belly dancer. I always wanted to say this in public

Honestly speaking, and without any kind of hate or complaining I think he should be the one to hire somone to do this. It doesn't have to be me, it can be anyone(maybe someone of script creators).
Complete community contributed with free mods and templates and even PHPLD team is releasing sponsored themes for their own script where you have to pay to get link removed.
That should explain do it for free part I am talking about.
Again, I don't mean anything bad when I say this. It is business and I understand.

Nah, it wasn't about financial gain form those links. I meant more like some way to say thanks for effort that needs to be put into this.
We are all still friends, right?

Honestly I would really enjoy doing this. I had this idea for few years now, but with all project I have right now(both personal and for clients) I am not sure I can get 10 days to have fun with it.
I would rather spend 10 days on some beach with belly dancer - Joking

Last thing that was on my mind is someone is going to take my business. After all, it is very well known that writing tutorials is good way to show people what you know and it attracts more clients-in every niche or business.
Another thing, people who want to jump into directory design niche are welcome. There are enough money for everyone here. Actually I am starting my own "Rich Jerk" site soon with pictures of belly dancer and me on yacht
Seriously, in Templates section of DP people are not expecting to pay more than $60-$100 for coded template and I don't consider people who sell those a competition to be honest.
Also, PHPLD is not my world. During this time I learned more than PHPLD and I can code any script (made for humans and not encoded) so I am not afraid of competitors in any way.
To make a conclusion from all I wrote-I would really like to do this, even for free as I am not some greedy bastard, and maybe I will sometime, but I am doing this job full time and living from it.
Let's be realistic-those who would profit from this directly or indirectly should be the ones to put some time or money into this. Not the ones "I will work for fame" and leave my paid job to get some reputation points on forums.

Hope you understand what I am saying and agree with me.

Marko

P.S. This is the longest post in my life. I bet no one will read it.

 

I did, and thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm a "Rich Jerk!"

 

It would really be a great contribution to those interested in learning the basics. I really hope someone can find a way tor write a tutorial and share it with everyone.

Obviously there are always the pro and cons, but competition should be welcomed and not feared.

 

lol while competition should be welcomed ... which idiot businessman think that they should actually ask others to enter. Yeah if others want to enter the directory designing industry... go ahead spend the years and time learn it all and than give me and other designers competition...

It is like saying Adobe Photoshop should share all of its secrets with GIMP, so everyone can have it for free....

Be real dude.

Even if David Duval Sponsors this event you will not see me there unless I am getting atleast 1 million to write this tutorial, because in the long run... this tutorial will just eliminate the paid designer service from the face of the earth.

While you are looking to fill in the bags of the free takers ... and calling it helping the directory industry ... It is eliminating the designers and developers from the industry also.

 

In a way yes and no, it can help with work, for example i program a lot of excel, and there is a ton of how to's out there, the work i do is top end and i am happy for people if they want to waste their time learning what i have over many years to go ahead and knock them selves out, or if they cant be bothered wasting thier time then they pay to have it done properly

Most people understand you can not master every chore ( or at least they should ) and that the best option is to hire the person best suited to the job at hand.

The people that pizz you the most are thise who think they are experts at everything and try and do it themselves , stuff it up and keep knocking on your door wanting free help.

 

This question has been asked by me and few others before too.
Even Jeff agreed to sponsor the tutorial.. but ....

 

Some of the myopic folks when they do an OP or sometimes a post

 

I bet someone will do a tutorial and ask for a fee or make it available for free. While some of you think about money all the time, there are others that have other interest.

I challenge anybody to prove me wrong with following statement:

You can write the best tutorial of all time (FREE OR PAID) and you still will have enough projects to continue making money out oft templates.

 

Two things on this

To me it is always a question of time - is it worth the time for me to take whatever number of hours for me to learn the code or am I better off paying someone the $xxx that is creative and knows what they are doing? If it takes more than an hour or two of my time to learn how to do it expertly then I am better off hiring someone.... A tutorial would not help me.

The next thing is when it comes to templates I feel that the coding is secondary to the artistic ability of the person designing the template. Artistic ability can't be taught in a tutorial so again a tutorial would be useless to those without artistic ability to produce a template of quality.

I believe that there is some talent involved for those that are good at it.

A tutorial may just accomplish flooding directories with crap templates that nobody likes... Look at some of the wordpress templates out there.

I am not necessarily against it - it might be just one more easy way to tell a quality directory from the others.

 

I dont know what to say.

balkanboy thanks for any consideration anyway i want to template my dirs myself so il get to it sooner or later, if a tutorial goes ahead its cool, if not its still cool, i completely understand.

I wont reply to everyone else as the post would be huge.

 

Who said competition would be feared? Competition is something you just deal with. In the context of this thread I believe that a tutorial would certainly not be welcomed and I think the designers here all agree to that.

There would only be one winner here and that would be the directory script owner, and in some cases this privilege has already been manipulated to the max. As someone who would clearly benefit from a free tutorial to encourage people to buy our script you'd think I'd jump at the idea but I actually value the quality that would remain if its left to the craftsman. Do a tutorial and you'll have every nutter and his dog using it with poor quality graphics which would only end in yet more crap being pushed into the directory industry.

I haven't got a clue why I got so much red for supporting designers here perhaps I hit a nerve in one of my earlier threads.

 

Yeah
Nice Idea
We can create a new site on such subjects

Go ahead and Best luck for creation of such Site

Chetan

 

I don't necessarily agree with the idea that a step by step tutorial should be created. But, I do believe that as part of their documentation there needs to be more explanation from the script developers as to which template does what and a listing of the primary variables used. Drives me nuts every time I want to do something that I have to spend hours figuring out the darn variable and field names of things that should have been part of the documentation. Then again, most scripts don't even bother to provide any documentation.

All of this reminds me of that old parable ...

No matter how detailed and well-written the tutorial would be, there are still going to be people who simply do not have the skills to use it properly. Still more won't have the time.

Those who oppose this in concept seem to be forgetting that many directory owners have no clue as to how to program and would be unable to make much more than changes to the colors and fonts without totally destroying their site. As has already been mentioned, there is the entire issue of ability to be considered as well.

My opinion is that too many of the directory scripts rely too heavily on their forums and the goodwill of folks using their products to provide what should have been part of the purchase price.

I strongly support a push for more documentation.

A full guide on how to customize a directory? Would possibly make for a profitable e-book, but otherwise there first needs to be a shift from the mentality of "I've got a great program that I'm selling but I don't have the time, money, desire (insert whatever excuse applies) to create any decent documentation for it's use." to "We're selling a professional product here and as professionals we have a full set of documentation to get you started in customizing your sites."