Why do I need all PortableApp icons and lots of other files that would never be required if I just work with English? Could not teh download package be made smaller and the installation faster if just the required files are included?
New: Kanri (Oct 9, '24), Platform 29.5.3 (Jun 27, '24)
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The full set of icons is used within the app store when you go to install new apps. They only contain the 16 pixel variants so are only about 1KB each. It's faster to install them with the platform and then just get the new ones you don't have when you check the app store (when a new app is released after you already have the platform as will happen later today or tomorrow with the next new app).
The set of languages are just 55 text files and only a little over 1MB total.
In total, if you excluded all files except English and eliminated app icons in the app store, it would only save you 2MB.
One small issue is that even though the app icon files are tiny and install in no time on a hard drive or a modern USB 3 flash drive with a fast controller, a slower flash drive controller can take a while to save them all. To counteract this, when you do a platform update, you get a smaller installer than if you download it from the website. The current update installer only includes 25 app icons instead of 373. It only includes the ones that are new or changed since a few versions back. It also does the same for the locale files and the theme files. So, instead of 660 files, you get 102. We'll even be shrinking it down a bit in future updates to improve performance.
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