Why do you want to ruin everything with new UI?

Agreeing with people who blame new UI. Yes, I have seen people who use new UI and are fine with it. They are mostly young people with the background in VS Code. However I have not seen anyone from the old users of IDEA who liked the new UI. Literally no one. The only comment they have – «we tried it and it makes our life worse». Personally I failed to start using, but tried to start at least twice. I have more than 16 years of experience with Idea, and it gave me great productivity during these years, but with the new UI it feels just as you become handless, and this feeling is horrible. So please don’t do it default. As a side option for new comers – OK, but not as a default for everyone

I also disagree with changing the UI. It took a decade to make everything work, you never ever gone put in all feature that someone liked about it by the time we will switch, for example I know users using vertical tabs is rare, but for me and the way I organize myself it is highly valued.

Now this is but just one feature. There are a lot of other features someone else likes and it is highly likely that you will ship the new UI unfinished, meaning with a ton of lacking features, meaning everyone will be pissed of by it.

It seems to be the nature of bigger companies to turn themselfs against there customers at one point. Even if the old UI technology is outdated, you could have just let the customers vote in which direction the wheel should turn, but you seem to comfortable pushing your agenda.

goulash Kivan Mih
The plan is to keep the old UI in the new versions for as long as possible until the majority of problems with the new UI are fixed.

The full list of problems can be found here. Your votes still matter, as they always have, so if you see issues that resonate with you, please do upvote them, or if you want to report another problem or request a feature, do find a moment to file a new YouTrack issue. It won't be ignored, and it will help us evolve the UI in the direction that our users want it to be evolved in.

Arina Efremova 
Arina, thank you for letting me participate, but to be honest I don't want to. I have the tool which is perfect for me. It is Intellij Idea with current UI. Why I need to participate in improving something which I don't like and don't need? The only task which I have to add to YouTrack is : "Just leave the old UI. Don't do anything". This is all I have. I don't want to deep dive into "problems and possibilities of new UI". Just because WHY I HAVE TO? Again I have a tool which is perfect. I don't need to change it and I don't have time to make something which for some unknown reason you started to develop, to make it perfect as well. Please understand it. Again to be honest, in my view it's a new product. For "Zoomers". Ok, probably makes sense. But not for us, please leave us alone.

Maybe you can give predictions how long old UI will be available? I need to know whether to extend the CLion contract for next year.

We are planning to support Classic UI at least until 2024.2. 

Nadia Tarashkevich too bad

I have tried this new UI for about a month now and it is a major step backword.  Why is there a janky shared main menu? This completely breaks multiple monitors and virtual desktops. The giant icons and empty menus make this look and feel like a toy. Stop trying to copy vscode. Stop trying to copy Mac. Keep building great tools with the great UI you've had for years. 

It will not be too late. If Jetbrains for some reason will make a bad move, I'm pretty sure, market will come with a solution for us. They have intellij community version, which is Apache2, and there will be thousands of java developers, who will seek the same convinience, which Idea had provided in the past. Ok, then someone will just make a new IDE out of  community sources and he will precisely know what Jetbrains lost and what people want. It's a market, I will not pay to Jetbrains if they will remove the old UI, so my money will be free for someone else.

>The plan is to keep the old UI in the new versions for as long as possible until the majority of problems with the new UI are fixed.

You have no idea how terrifying that sounds to some folk. You're a fixin' to take the ole' UI out behind the barn and shoot it.  

Very distressing. 

Why do UI/UX designers have to ruin everything?? If it works leave it alone, ive seen similar trends with youtube,twitter,github, reddit and even games like league of legends. Im convinced UI/UX designers change random stuff for no reason just to look busy and its so annoying. Please do not make this permanent- no one asked for it or complained, if they did please show me where..

In the old UI I was able to find anything in the new one I can hardly find what I need.

Tincumagic , please try “Shift+Shift” (double-press “Shift” button), then type what you are trying to do. For example, “Commit” or “Refactor”.

Nadia Tarashkevich as a person with the same problem as Tincumagic I could say that your suggestion is not what we expect. We expect visual behavior which was with us for years: menus, button positions, UI logic etc. With new UI you feel handless and x2 Shift does not solve this issue.

Nadia Tarashkevich It's pretty obvious jetbrains isn't listening - we don't want a dumbed down UI we can talk to or type things in a search bar to find. We want organized, intuitive settings like the way they currently exist in the traditional UI. There is absolutely no need for any dumbing down, “simplicity”, “minimification”, “modern design”, “reduction of visual clutter”, “distractionless environment”, or whatever hip thing you want to call it - we don't want it. I also don't want an AI that can do everything for me unless it's within a specific tab on Chrome that I ask it questions to for very specific things with very specifically worded prompts in order to minimize its errors - I don't want it integrated everywhere.

And I'm still so very curious how you plan to monetize jetbrains products in the future for this newfound VSC crowd you're targeting. Why would they use a paid VSC clone when they can get VSC free? We're paying for the lack of dumbification. What reason is there to stay in your ecosystem once you do just that?

Heronww , please upvote IDEA-304383: the feature request to add all actions and all tool windows to the layout, so the further customization can be done by “remove what is not needed” instead of “add what is needed”. 
Unfortunately, I cannot answer the requests for removing the New UI. However, we can customize it and work on implementing every possible scenario present in the Classic UI. 

Nadia Tarashkevich  don't you think it's a bit strange? I mean you tell us to vote for some issues. Let's consider two possibilities for people who don't like the new UI: those who don't know about the issue you suggest here (thousands) and people who knows about it (20 people max). What do you expect? I appreciate democratic approach, however I want to remind you that Idea was not born in a “democratic way” - no one voted for anything. Just some very smart people came together 23 years ago and decided what MUST BE IN THE BEST JAVA IDE. This is what we as users expect. The core of the product including UI comes from mid-00's, but it's not because people are lazy to change it, it's because it was done with perfection back then and most of the things do not need change. 
I don't expect you to want me voting for anything, I expect Idea to be best Java IDE for serious usage and with new UI it's obviously not the case. So just be smart as your founders, don't make bad moves.  

Please sorry if you only understand english, but i will write in russian, cause it's easier for me and folks from JB will understand me anyway, use translator if you curious…

Две главных проблемы с новым UI, которые очень сильно расстраивают:

- Lost contrast 

В предыдущей UI'ке отдельные части интерфейса были отделены разными оттенками серого. Панели были светлее, редактор темнее, внутренняя часть окна темнее, активная вкладка имела свой отдельный цвет и т.д.

Всё это в сумме позволяло легче и проще ориентироваться глазами в UI. Так как контрастные области человек распознаёт лучше чем “текст в пустом пространстве”.

Я немного подкрутил контрастность на свой вкус, и UI сразу стал “легче” для глаз так как теперь ты на уровне “цветных пятен” видиш основные области, и уже внутри этой выделенной области сильно быстрее и проще отыскть нужный тебе элемент. 

[Pic1-Pic2]

- Contour Icons

Не все сидят на маках, не у всех мониторы с 200DPI+. А IntelliJ (и всё что на ней сделано) это десктопное приложение, а значит и иконки у вас будут 16px в размерах. И как следствие вместо читаемых иконок вы получите грязь из-за алиасинга, потому как линии в 1.22 пикселя невозможно отрендерить.

К счастью вы добрались не до всех иконок и в некоторых местах старые ещё остались.

И их преимущества относительно новых очевидны:

- Они цветные (а человек видит в первую очередь цветовые пятна и потом уже разбирает контур)

- У них есть 1 пиксельный контур которые делает их юзабельными на любой цветовой схеме

- Они полнотелые, что позволяет использовать больше выразительных свойств

По этому было бы здорово если бы иконки можно было менять паками. Скажем, старый пак иконок, и новый. Ну или кастомный пак я сам нарисую не проблема. Дайте только возможность их туда вставить…

Минорные проблемы:

- Increased paddings.

Да я понимаю что если у тебя нет контура нужно как-то отделять элементы друг от друга. Так а зачем их тогда было убирать? Если что-то можно нажать оно должно иметь тело, которое очевидно нажимаемое а не появляющееся только при ховере. Просто позвольте контролам быть контролами, не нужно превращать весь UI в суп из надписей линий и иконок. Это вредит восприятию. 

- Missing labels on buttons

Многие писали о том что не хватает надписей на кнопках по бокам. В целом я согласен, потому как возвращаясь в Rider через месяц-пол-года, ты хочешь увидеть Debugger:2, или DataBase:9, или Structure:6 а не вспоминать, и дожидаться ToolTip'ов. При чём важно тут не слово, а цифра, надеюсь вы понимаете почему.

- Too bright labels

Сделав надписи ярче а фот темнее, контрастность текста повысилась, его стало неприятно читать, так как степерь “резания глаз” повысилась. #cacaca - идеальный цвет надписей для тёмных тем, всё что светлее выглядит через-чур ярким

Послесловие:

Я понимаю что большинство разрабов видя новый интерфейс чуствуют, что что-то с ним не так, их это злит и они пишут свои эмоции тут. Но объяснить, что не так, не могут потому что они не дизайнеры. Мне довелось поработать и тем и тем, и я прекрасно вижу и понимаю что сейчас не так. Тут я только основные моменты расписал, но этих моментов ещё очень очень много.

Дорогие мои дизайнеры из JetBrains, пожалуйста прислушайтесь и сделайте хотя бы альтернативную тему, которая будет учитывать часть того что я описал. Юзабилити у новой UI'ки “такое себе”. Я посидел на най 2 дня, но не выдержал и вернулся на старую. Да, она “ощущается” старой, но при этом она удобнее как бы странно это не звучало. Потому что банально нужно меньше кликать, и “целиться” в контролы у которых есть тело проще.

Самое ужасное в этой ситуации то, что ты знаешь что старый UI рано или поздно выпилят, а новый - стрёмный и вырвиглазный. И ни чего ты с этим не поделаешь, хотя ты этого не просил, и тебя всё устраивало.

Надеюсь у вас там есть человек разбирающийся в том как работает человеческое восприятие и вы не придёте к чему-то вот такому:

а сделаете что-то ближе к такому: 

Мне очень нравится Rider в том виде в котором он сейчас есть (и надеюсь будет неопределённо долго). Но если всё же “выпил” старого интерфейса неизбежен, найте хотя-бы возможность сделать его похожим на то что было раньше по контрастности и иконкам.

Могу поделиться с вами своим опытом построения интерфесов, если нужно. Но пожалуйста не оставляйте всё так как оно сейчас есть, оно объективно хуже чем было раньше.

So, a recap on Dec 2023:

- The new UI is ugly, unusable compared to the previous, the fonts and the spacings are terrible, the features are hidden;

- You plan to remove the classic completely. 

- You disabled all the features to customize the classic UI (you did this on purpose and you ignore the youtrack tickets). 

This is not the JetBrains I knew, developer FIRST, dumb UX designers IF NEEDED. 

I will never switch to the new UI, the classic is just perfect. And with me many others. If you will force us to do so, prepare to lose a lot of subscriptions - for the idea of some dumb manager of yours, which dreams a full icon UI and just talks with UX dumb designers, ignoring what the users want.

This is the recap at the end of 2023. 

Just got back into coding java with IntelliJ after some other infra projects (VSCode), and yes new UI seems to be a kind of hide and seek UI. I really like the traditional UI, where one have like a very functional cockpit with almost everything in place just one click away. I wrote almost, because the tab changes (now called commit) needs to be put in place again. An IDE is just by nature a complex and powerful piece of software, I really don't think that such a UI is suitable for this purpose. 
I also worked on projects where people where coding in java using VSCode and after doing pair coding with them, it was really interesting, to see how much they have to navigate to find and do stuff. I really think that the new UI in Intellij has the same flaw.  

Krzysztof Wolf , we would appreciate it if you share some examples of “hide and seek” workflow.

I'm a visual guy, and I'm not too fond of the new UI. It looks incredibly childish. I'm definitely unsubscribing and looking for an alternative to PyCharm Professional when they remove the current UI and force us to use the new one. 

I'm a visual guy, and I'm not too fond of the new UI. It looks incredibly childish. I'm definitely unsubscribing and looking for an alternative to PyCharm Professional when they remove the current UI and force us to use the new one. 

@Thomas Vanhelden, if it's possible, please screen-record some of your NewUI experience, so we will be able to figure out and address the exact problem.

@Nadia Tarashkevich, do You want me to screen-record myself using the UI so you can address its ugliness? 

@Thomas Vanhelden, please use the screen recording tool (`Cmd+Shift+5` on Mac) to capture your mouse movements when you are trying to achieve something in NewUI, and it does not work.

Nadia Tarashkevich First of all, I rarely (if at all) use my mouse in my IDE. Secondly, my complaints about the new UI are purely visual. It's tasteless and childless, to begin with. On top of that, you're failing at your job of increasing focus, because it's challenging to distinguish between elements of the UI. For example, the separations between panels are difficult to see, and I have to use a higher contrast theme to even see them at all. That may be because I'm colour-blind, but I'm sure other people have this issue as well. The current UI doesn't have this issue because there is a dedicated space for the separation instead of a thin (and almost invisible) line. 

Here's a couple more thoughts for those of us who are not liking the new UI. 

Maybe JB will see that people swap it out for the old UI (through notifications) and retain the old UI for that reason. So we're in the middle of an A/B experiment. 

Maybe JB has a completely new vision or understanding of how we will code, maybe involving AI and our voice and all the missing things in the new UI are actually experiments of some kind to see if people can get on with programming without actually seeing them  and instead remember  them so those features are then proven to be capable of being moved to “voice-activated” in the future, sort of the way you can say “navigation” to your car and not have to press (or even see) a navigation button because you remember (know) the word “navigation”. So this would be  another kind of experiment they're running I guess.  

Maybe once people are actually forced onto the new UI without any other option, but not before then,  there will be a reaction from the customer base and JB will reverse course. 

@Fabrizio Salis

Are you saying that the latest IJ release has removed the ability to use the old UI completely? I haven't downloaded it yet.  

@Thomas Vanhelden, 

> the separations between panels are difficult to see

Thank you for bringing it to our attention. We can adjust some Editor colors for red-green vision deficiency ("Settings | Appearance & Behavior | Appearance | Accessibility"), but this setting is ineffective for separators. A few more questions, so we will be able to address this properly:

1) Do you use Light or Dark theme?

2) Please specify the separators, that are an issue for you:

3) What type of vision deficiency do you have? (protanopia, deuteranopia, etc.)?