Why TC is dreck(ish) - and ways to improve it
Posted: 2017-12-06, 16:46 UTC
This has been piling up for a long time...
Using monospaced font is convenient, particularly in Multi-rename tool and Synchronize directories (size and date are formatted in the same manner).
Prooflink (screenshot):
https://imgur.com/a/MrAXB
TC lets you employ such font via the Dialog Box font option in the Configuration menu - nice! However, that also affects the whole UI, including the configuration menu itself and text in the buttons everywhere, which looks just lame. Why is not it possible to separate these font settings onto file lists and UI elements themselves - that's a mystery.
After years of doing my backups with TC (Sync dirs tool), I finally and sadly switched to different software for such purposes (not advertising it here, of course) that offers obvious functions that TC's synchronization tool is somehow missing: explorer menu on right click, filters, copying / moving files directly from sync dialog, folder renaming. Ok, I understand that TC is not a specialized backup / synchronization software, but being unable to rename a folder while synchronizing, whereas renaming a file is possible - that's really incomprehensible.
And finally, TC is not offering portable installation. Ok, I'm aware of the moving to USB stick tool, and possibility of extracting the CAB file from the installer and then modifying the INI-file... But why such an oldschool software as TC lacks the capability of proper oldschool portable installation without all this tinkering - that's again a mystery.
...Don't get me wrong, I'm not just trying to bluntly criticize TC - overall, it's a good decent product. If everything was as decent as TC is, the world would have been a better place. Still, TC is lacking some obvious polishing at some obvious aspects.
P.S. Probably some of you remember that Total Commander was originally named as Windows Commander, and was renamed some time ago. But what was the real motive behind the name change? I'd take a shrewd guess that the reason was ... its abbreviation. Now it's the well-known TC, and back in the day it used to be, emmm.... WC. Nowadays people work in TC, but before that it was like 'I work in WC all the time'. Can you imagine?
Using monospaced font is convenient, particularly in Multi-rename tool and Synchronize directories (size and date are formatted in the same manner).
Prooflink (screenshot):
https://imgur.com/a/MrAXB
TC lets you employ such font via the Dialog Box font option in the Configuration menu - nice! However, that also affects the whole UI, including the configuration menu itself and text in the buttons everywhere, which looks just lame. Why is not it possible to separate these font settings onto file lists and UI elements themselves - that's a mystery.
After years of doing my backups with TC (Sync dirs tool), I finally and sadly switched to different software for such purposes (not advertising it here, of course) that offers obvious functions that TC's synchronization tool is somehow missing: explorer menu on right click, filters, copying / moving files directly from sync dialog, folder renaming. Ok, I understand that TC is not a specialized backup / synchronization software, but being unable to rename a folder while synchronizing, whereas renaming a file is possible - that's really incomprehensible.
And finally, TC is not offering portable installation. Ok, I'm aware of the moving to USB stick tool, and possibility of extracting the CAB file from the installer and then modifying the INI-file... But why such an oldschool software as TC lacks the capability of proper oldschool portable installation without all this tinkering - that's again a mystery.
...Don't get me wrong, I'm not just trying to bluntly criticize TC - overall, it's a good decent product. If everything was as decent as TC is, the world would have been a better place. Still, TC is lacking some obvious polishing at some obvious aspects.
P.S. Probably some of you remember that Total Commander was originally named as Windows Commander, and was renamed some time ago. But what was the real motive behind the name change? I'd take a shrewd guess that the reason was ... its abbreviation. Now it's the well-known TC, and back in the day it used to be, emmm.... WC. Nowadays people work in TC, but before that it was like 'I work in WC all the time'. Can you imagine?