rules to create a skinboned

well, is there a set of rules that can guide me through creating a mesh with animated skeleton?
rules like:
->u should link all the bones into one root bone.
->u should link the mesh to the root bone too
->u cant use ikchains

etc...

is there something like this??

There are several articles about skeletal animated characters in the SupportCenter, search for "skeleton" in the knowledgebase, or click on this link:

http://www.ofusiontechnologies.com/support-center/index.php?mod_id=2&kb_keywords=skeleton

Bear in mind that the new version has improvements and fixes, and some points noted in the articles will be not needed (as adding all bones to the skin mod)