Total Commander

I know! I'ts not important to you who know TC ... but even today, when I visit http://www.ghisler.com/ and read this line:

Last modified on .... This page has been visited times since Dec. 18, 1996 (only counted with images set to ON).

It gives me chills! Come on, "only counted with images set to ON" ... really? It's 2015, who has images set to off? Can you even do that anymore


( sorry, Christian, ig liebe TC aber das hani mau müesse loswärde!)

I have them sometimes turned off on the phone when I only have GSM/GPRS access. Yes, the Samsung browser supports it!

Please don't do new design for visuals sake. Flat "metro-style" websites that most companies and even free forums now have are slow due to the complex so called "responsive" layout, they're incompatible with old browsers, and usually display less information.

Perhaps the sentence about images is superfluous. After all, the counter is invisible if pictures are not loaded. As long as the layout of the counter, and its size is small, I don't notice it being there (if it was a flash embed, I would mind for example).

In most browsers you can go to Preferences and turn off images or javascript, which isn't convenient to the point of impractical. I use Opera, with a button on the toolbar, which allows to quickly toggle between no images / cached only / full display for each tab. This is quite useful when reading articles with potentially offensive, shocking pictures (for example, encyclopedia articles about insects).

Please don't do new design for visuals sake.

Well in this case it would be okay just for the visual sake. But I guess this wouldn't be enough to call it a real relaunch.

Flat "metro-style" websites that most companies and even free forums now have are slow due to the complex so called "responsive" layout

Just responsive design doesn't slow down websites significantly. It's mostly poor programming that makes websites slow.

they're incompatible with old browsers

Well using old browsers is absolutely stupid for security reasons. You can always display some placeholders for old browsers if you think it's necessary.

Perhaps the sentence about images is superfluous. After all, the counter is invisible if pictures are not loaded. As long as the layout of the counter, and its size is small, I don't notice it being there (if it was a flash embed, I would mind for example).

A website counter - oh my god.

j7n wrote:Flat "metro-style" websites that most companies and even free forums now have are slow due to the complex so called "responsive" layout...

I couldn't agree more.
I'm really not against using modern CSS3 and HTML5 features, but most times they link it with a heavy-weight script-package, to load things dynamically.
Makes me think of a statement one of my Computer Science Professors made:
The Web was designed around HTML, and HTML was designed around the web, but it seems in websites today we only have 10 percent HTML left, 40 percent is CSS,
and 50 percent is scripting and objects...

Lefteous wrote:Just responsive design doesn't slow down websites significantly. It's mostly poor programming that makes websites slow.

I partly disagree.
Most of such designs want to load things dynamically, which always makes things slower.
Just take a look at today's major sites with "highly" professional design, like
http://cnn.com
and don't tell me it's not slow, even on recent browsers,
thanks to tons of scripts in the background and embedded videos.
Like I said: design is one thing, sure, but most times it's linked with dynamic loading.

Another example:
Try to compare the newer
http://cppreference.com
with
http://www.cplusplus.com
and tell me which one is more "readable" or fluent, and loads faster (not due to server response, but in terms of rendering)

Most of such designs want to load things dynamically, which always makes things slower.

I was referring to responsive design. This basically means a different layout is used depending on the browser window width. It makes absolutely sense to use a different layout for small displays or maybe an intermediate width for tablets. cnn.com does more than that. It scales images and content absolutely pixelwise. This requires of course much more processing power.

I guess noone has asked for this kind of stuff on ghisler.com. Technologically there is a lot of space between the current page and a page like cnn.com.

Before thinking about design and technology one should think about content and information architecture of the page. I think there is a lot of space for improvement and would be even more important than a visual overhaul.

What do I mean by content?

Q: Why does it take so long to launch the 32-bit version on my 486?
A: Total Commander needs to load the OLE2 libraries to do drag&drop from and to explorer, and to show context menus and property sheets. These libraries are very big, and take a lot of time and space to load. You may prefer to use the 16-bit version on a 386 or 486, since it doesn't need the OLE2 libraries. However, it also doesn't support drag and drop from and to explorer, and does show its own simplified context menus.

So it seems this section of the page is not really maintained.

What do I mean with information architecture?
Just some examples:

Total Commander, Version 8.52a, is a Shareware file manager for Windows® 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10, and Windows® 3.1.

Is this the main message that should be communicated to the visitor? Why is it so important to mention every single Windows version?

Why are all those links to other language pages so prominently listed in the navigation?
Why is the forum mentioned as a link instead of an integral part of the site (that shouldn't be a technical decision)?
Why is the wiki not linked directly?
...

I'm just saying, that if someone told me about Total Commander (a super and modern file manager which is way better than Ex*lorer or whatever) and went to visit the website ... I'd hit CTRL+F4 or CTRL+W without looking at it closer. It's just not up to date. But this is my opinion

To add to Lefteous's list: why does it take three clicks to the dowload page?

Lefteous wrote:I was referring to responsive design. This basically means a different layout is used depending on the browser window width.

I'm quite aware what responsive design means. (I just don't like the buzzword image)

The problem is that people tend to use the well-known templates for that
(I think you know what I mean, a layout from a company named G****e, that you can see everywhere now)
which link to your usual scripting packages.
I haven't seen a major site with such layout that even remotely works decent without JavaScript.

But back to topic:
Sure, the Website can be improved, but like already said:
please no new design just for visuals sake, but overhaul the whole navigational structure.
Agreed, the Website looks like straight out of the 90s (it is!), but hey,
you could even see it as a "unique selling point", from a business point of view

2milo1012

Agreed, the Website looks like straight out of the 90s (it is!), but hey,
you could even see it as a "unique selling point", from a business point of view Wink

You mean that theory that claims that intentionally designing a website in a very - let's say - unprofesionell way leads to the perception that the company behind this has its strength on the technological side...?
I don't think this is the case here. I guess the website is at the current state because of other priorities and the philosphy not to delegate too many tasks.

BTW: If you look at the source code of the html pages you'll see that they contain quite a few errors. This leads to e.g. displaying the default font on some pages instead of the intended font.

Lefteous wrote:I guess the website is at the current state because of other priorities and the philosphy not to delegate too many tasks

Agreed.
I don't think that a "slight" update, like adding valid HTML4 and a simple CSS (pre CSS3), which would still work in e.g. ages old IE6, would take much time.
It even can be done automatically by some tools. I guess I would be able to do it in only a few hours.
So there must be sth. to it, leaving it the way it is for years.

But who knows...if TC9 gets a redesign, maybe the website too...?

TC is such a good program that it can still attract new customers despite the broken shop window.

"Features in Total Commander 9.0a now include :
... Parallel port link..."

And seen in the FAQ :

"Why does it take so long to launch the 32-bit version on my 486?"

hhmmm... The program deserves better website IMHO.

Perhaps it is not the author's goal to sell more units of it?

@DjobyDjoba
here's another good one:

Features in Total Commander 9.12 now include:
* Two file windows side by side

:lol: :oops: :oops:

Now, in the year of 2020:

New:Image gallery of Total Commander with the most important functions -> https://www.ghisler.com/screenshots/en/

Sooo ... uhm, no dark-mode, yet?

No, they are good ol' Windows XP screenshots from december 2009

Ah, Windows XP! Good ol' times! ..