Please don't change the GUI as they suggested!

[Sarris]

Greetings;

I read the Total Commander Review on Softpedia today and I registered on the forum to state that no matter what they suggest, please don't change the GUI.

I've been a registered user for years (since the days of WC), and TC is one of the few truly usable programs that I can rely on to stay static from version to version.

Thank you for your hard work & diligence Mr. Ghisler, you have created a great program.

Regards;

Sarris

[MVV]

Don't worry, Mr. Ghisler won't change GUI cardinally, at least w/o options that allow returning to previous behaviour.

[meisl]

Could you please post a link to that review?

[Sarris]

Since I'm new, the forum won't let me post the URL.

But, its "h t t p / / win dot softpedia dot com", and it's the first review on that page.

[meisl]

Yea thanks, could have seen it.
Here's the full link.

It still gets 4 out of 5 for the GUI, so I don't see a reason either to change anything

[Bluestar]

To be honest, I can see a reason to change the GUI a bit - even though I love that as it is. I can only see reasons to change it.
Too many freeware 'competitors' have gotten a somewhat cleaner & more sophisticated GUI these days (even though most of them are not as function-rich as TC is).

For new users, the installer could ask if a new GUI should be used or not (default: new).
If an existing installation can be found, it could keep using the old style, but the user could switch to the other one anytime he/she wants to.

Some things TC lacks of atm, but would be pretty cool additions (some of them wouldn't even be such a hard thing to implement):

• Show system drive with an icon requested from the OS itself (example: MyCommander | Multi Commander | Double Commander | xplorer2) by default
• Luna-style / Office2007 theme for controls (* optional, could be enabled by default only for new users) [screenshot1 / screenshot2]
  (see the gui of MyCommander, which looks awesome imo - SpeedCommander's one is not that bad either...)
• Quicksearch box on the left-bottom side of the Settings dialog (to see all related category for a given keyword [wfx, packer, ftp, etc])
• Much more freedom for the user to organize the UI - allow moving tabs under the panes, menubar/icon bar into the bottom/left/right side of TC, etc. Total Commander should be totally customizable.
• Redesigned Configuration dialog with much more (currently) hidden entries, which only exists in the Help file and the whatsnew documentation
  (to show the user the TRUE power of TC) [a Basic / Advanced / Expert (o) radiobox switch would probably be needed in that dialog, to filter out the possibly unnecessary options for the user based on his/her skills and needs]

TC could easily get much more new users by using a more cleaner & newish design - without the need to rearrange the whole GUI.
There's a lot potential in it...

[JohnFredC]

Over the years I have pretty much given up on improvements of the TC UI for mouse users. This is a keyboard crowd, hereabouts.

Because of this, I have switched to another product for the everyday ad hoc stuff, keeping TC for the jobs that require its power and reliability (still plenty of those!).

That "other" product allows me to configure the GUI essentially any way I like:

See here

Mouse-friendly GUI features to note (all of which are user selectable/defeat-able):

• · Symmetrical placement of folder trees.
  · Favorites trees (both sides if desired)
  · "In-panel" Quickview, one each panel, place on any margin
  · Multiple user-defined toolbars with custom placement
  · Customizable toobars for each file panel
  · Customizable center toolbar (my favorite feature)
  · Extension column in first position (on left of file panel)

So, would I wish TC was customizable in this manner? Of course.

But I have been using TC for almost two decades now and don't expect that the majority of TC users care a whit about such mouse-friendly niceties. So I don't hold my breath.

And it doesn't really matter anyway. Nothing wrong with using more than one product to accomplish similar tasks. I always come back to TC for the "hard stuff".