Remotely Hosted Themes - Good Idea or bad idea? Opinions wanted - More info inside

[BMR777]

Hello All,

As many of you may know, I run the free MyBB forum hosting site WebringAmerica. I also have a mod, the MyBB Multiforums Mod, which allows anyone to start their own free MyBB forum host.

Anyway, as I was developing my MyBB Multiforums mod, I got an idea, an idea I want to share with you all. Since with my mod hosted forum admins cannot upload images for themes to the server (it is a security risk to give users FTP access), I thought, what if users didn't have to upload images to use a MyBB theme, what if all they needed to do was import the theme's XML file. So, with some help, I modified MyBB so that a theme can be imported, even if the theme doesn't have a directory in the "images" folder on the server.

What this means is, I can now have a forum on one server and yet I can have all of the images for my themes on another server.

What I am wondering is, first off, other than for people who want to be MyBB forum hosts and would use my mod, would any of you like to see MyBB themes sites where the images are remotely hosted so you don't have to put them on your server?

Also, I was wondering for those of you who make themes or run MyBB themes sites, assuming the number of free MyBB forum hosts like WebringAmerica and CreateMyBB increases, as well as other people like or need remotely hosted themes (say for reasons such as server space, bandwidth, etc), would you consider remotely hosting themes you design in addition to offering them for download?

Those of you who remember the old InvisionFree themes site will sort-of know what I am thinking of here. On InvisionFree, because forums were locked down, users could only import CSS files to their forums, not upload images, so all the themes for InvisionFree had to be remotely hosted somewhere. My mod works in a similar way, but allows imports of XML files through MyBB's themes system.

I want to get opinions on this, as well as potentially find out if there is anyone out there who would want to run an InvisionFree Themes sort of site for MyBB should the number of free MyBB forum hosts and demand for remotely hosted themes increase.

What do you think?

BMR777

[Alex Smith]

It's what ipbfree did I don't know why you couldn't. I mean they have pretty much all their themes hosted imageshack and what now.

[Imad Jomaa]

I personally like my themes and images hosted on my server, yet again I like to host my own site too. However, if they have a free hosted forum, I don't see why they wouldn't mind having theme images hosted elsewhere as well.
Best Regards.

[BMR777]

Thanks for the comments. I'm also trying to find out though if anyone who has their forums hosted on a normal server, like with CPanel hosting on a free host, would also find remotely hosted themes useful, or if this is only something that applies to people on sites like mine and CreateMyBB.

For instance, someone with not a lot of space or limited bandwidth on their server might find it useful?

Thanks,
BMR777

[Imad Jomaa]

As I said, I host my own sites so I can host a theme. Otherwise, a person who hosts for free would like a theme hosted for free as-well.
Best regards.

[pepotiger]

(07-11-2008 11:37 PM)BMR777 Wrote:  Thanks for the comments. I'm also trying to find out though if anyone who has their forums hosted on a normal server, like with CPanel hosting on a free host, would also find remotely hosted themes useful, or if this is only something that applies to people on sites like mine and CreateMyBB.

For instance, someone with not a lot of space or limited bandwidth on their server might find it useful?

Thanks,
BMR777

I used to host my themes/images on remote image hosts since three years a go I think, whene I was using a free host with very limited bandwidth..

[Alex Smith]

Oh! You want to know for non-multihost too. Well I like having them on the same server as my site so well they won't just disappear randomly or when I meet a bandwidth limit.