Coding Pre-made Skins

[Morrigan 1,826]

While I know that you can always replace images etc on a skin, when looking for a new skin do you have a preference on whether the skin has pre-made graphics in it or if they have place holders to tell you where the graphics go?

[VirusZero 176]

I don't normally use premade skins (I normally just make my own) but if I were going to use a premade... I'd rather it had all the finished images there so I could see how it'd look. This way I would have a good idea of how it would look so I'd know roughly what to expect if/when I had to replace any images. I mean placeholders are ok if nothing else, but they don't really show how a finished skin would look.

[Icewolf 258]

I prefer place holders. I can code simple sites, as I've been doing that for years, but I have no clue as to how to go about doing it for a forum, tumblr, livejournal, etc, as you have to know all the coding tags that each platform uses. I can do simple edits on a template, like changing colours, font sizes, etc.

 

The problem with pre-made graphics is that they don't always match the subject of your site (a problem which I've come across countless times when looking for a template to help me with making fanlistings, which is another hobby which I do sometimes.)

 

I've never really seen the point in offering skins (and other web templates) without place holders because the coder usually doesn't want people changing graphics they've used, and I think it needs to be more flexible. It's quite frustrating to come across a template or skin which you like the layout of, but then find you can't use it for your site because it doesn't match the subject of your site. It's probably not very good either when you come across a board which has the same graphics as yours because people might think you've copied/stolen their graphics, or it doesn't give your site a unique look.