Hello, I am currently working on a web site, that requires each user with a username and pw to be able to customize the website, such as bgcolor, button titles, button pictures, which news modules to display and what not... I was wondering how gamedev does this? (as with the different skins being able to be applied) What I was planning on was just making a table in a database with things like user, bgcolor, button1_title, button2_title, button1_pic, ... and then on each load, check the database and display the right things. Is this the best way to do such a thing? Or it would it be better to use some sort of xml thing or some other idea? Thanks

I'd say write a number of different CSS style sheets that users can choose between; store in their profile (or a cookie) which one they've chosen, and have your pages link to the appropriate one.

Mark

Definitely use CSS. As Mark said, you would store a the user's current skin preference in their profile which would be used to select the correct style sheet for rendering time. Another option would be to dynamically build all of the links to your buttons, images or other skinned content. I'd prefer the CSS route over this one (less work) but both are equally valid options.