Though the thread is a little older already, the topic is still relevant.
striker_69 wrote:Come on, people! You're talking like you're working on a 486 machine with 64 MB RAM!
In a modern world, why, why keep trying to make a program fit on a single disk thereby sacrificing many other features that might have been welcome by many??! As if we have only a few hundred megs on our hard drives. Why keep distributing the software on a diskette, when CDs are being used more and more? (well here I must correct myself - according to a recent interview, Christian is going to distribute new versions on a CD).
It's become (in my opinion) a bad habit of living in bliss. HDs have become so cheap, CPUs so fast that we don't care anymore. Just because the hardware isn't the limiting factor any more for the most parts, we shouldn't abandon the principle of modesty.
Look at it from a new, contemporary perspective: every calculation needs energy. Every useless calculations wastes energy. It's as simple as that. I don't need fancy, 3D-accelerated animations when I alt-tab (or an operating system that requires half a Gig of RAM for itself, for that matter).
Computers are getting faster and faster, but strangely they take the same time to boot (or even more) as they did 10 years ago.
striker_69 wrote:There are people who would like bigger buttons, cleaner UI, whatever, either due to convenience or due to disability (short sight, etc), bigger fonts, etc.
In that case they would want it system-wide. And to that respect Windows hasn't really been a shining beacon anyways.
striker_69 wrote:Older people like the functionality, but some of them tend to have UI that looks like Windows explorer.
Then they should use Exploder. Many advanced or defining functions of TC don't even work with an explorer-like layout, like two single keystrokes to copy a file (F5, Enter). It's a different paradigm.
striker_69 wrote:Having skins would solve all those above mentioned problems.
And create new ones. From non-standard behavior (like keyboard focus or window borders) to security concerns (hello Anti-Virus-Companies, why do all those virus scanners need to be skinned). Just to name one, every once in a while there is discovered a new overflow in some graphics library making it vulnerable to manipulated images.
striker_69 wrote:give them skins like : origianl, xp, vista
Again, if the user wants a skin, he would most likely want it system wide. It's my guess that a considerable number of TC users belong to a group of people that prefer efficiency and a homogeneous environment. Think of the mess both on your screen and in your memory if every one of your tools comes with an own skin engine.
The only thing I might change about TC's default look is the font - using bold sans serif may be a safe thing to do because it's available on _really_ all Windows versions, but it makes TC look like an outdated Win3 app, too.