Why do you want to ruin everything with new UI?

Answered

The existing UI is awesome, why are you messing with it and ruining your product?

I like the old textual panels, they are compact and descriptive, I can organize them to my liking. I don't like these large icons and I do not understand what do they mean. I need to click and guess to find a panel I want. I don't like the amount of space these panels take.

I don't like that hamburger popup menu. Who gave you idea that a smartphone style popup menu is a good idea for a desktop product?

I'm sure that third-party plugin developers won't be dedicating much effort to own icons with consistent design, so all these panels will look like a crap zoo of ugly icons of different shapes and sizes.

I've been using JetBrains products since 2004 (ReSharper) and 2009 (IDEA) and you're destroying everything.

Find another way to occupy yourself, put your hands off the existing UI, no one asked you to do it, so just don't do it. Don't fix something that isn't broken.

If you want it to look like VS Code, then I will rather cancel my subscription and switch to VS Code. At least they have a larger community for the same iconish UI.

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164 comments

Bond Han in the past it was true. But currently if it is the case up till now, all this situation should be considered unbelievable by your management and the status of the previous UI should be reverted to the first class citizen in Idea. Previous UI is not “old”, it is something JB could be proud of. As simple as that. Words are not helping here as much as actions do.

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  • 5 days ago: 49 Ratings (7,652 Downloads)
  • today: 90 Ratings (13,537 Downloads)
  • thats +5885 users or average +1k per day for classic ui.
4

I've been a subscriber for a long time and several times new updates made me consider unsubscribing. But “new UI rolled out for everyone and no, you don't have a choice AT ALL” means “yeah, I won't extend my subscription AT ALL”.

Luckily, my perpetual license allows me to use 2024.1 version, which does not include mandatory changes to UI. Sadly, it also means I don't get to run ts files directly, but I've been working like that for years, so I'll survive.

Thanks for making good software, at least initially. I'll stick to a good version I know. Or, at least, last known okay ish version I know to work at acceptable level. Thankfully, atrocious performance of the previous update has been fixed.

5

As user that needs to deal with both remoting and multi-language in the same project I'm very aware of the deficiencies of the platform. It can't even compete in that regard with VS-Code out there in the market of people that don't value (or even know at all) the virtues of IntelliJ IDEs.

So I absolutely get something "new" had to be done. I haven't checked but I hope part of the "new UI" actually is a re-make of backing technology and architectural support that allows to properly implement remoting and multi-language in a competitive manner.

Speculating here, but I'm assuming(hoping, really) there are two changes on going here, that for some reason were not decoupled and that's the "error" in my opinion.

1. Backing tech/arch rewrite required to support new competitive features that otherwise would leave them out of the market sooner of later.
2. Functional/visual/experience/whatever you want to call it redesign to look as close to VS-Code as possible

"1." is necessary by all means, without a shadow of doubt (I hope it's part of it, otherwise the whole thing didn't make any sense at all from the beginning!)

"2." is not really necessary to achieve “1.”. Even If you need to entirely re-write <whatever layer> on top of the changes in "1." they could have chosen to keep the classic metaphors. So I assume this is a marketing decision and the rationale is "we want to attract the new coders influx and they all nowadays seem to start by using VS-Code, so let's make our products look familiar". Not that I know of course, but seems the obvious thing to think in lack of any other explanation.


My take is:

People that will value the virtues of classic JetBrains IDEs either were using them before or are the kind of people (serious, professional, ethical, capable, etc) that value productivity over "familiarity" anyway. <- Classic experience is a + for both.

People that are not interested in such virtues and don't even see the difference won't migrate from VS-Code to JetBrains just because it looks similar. There's no incentive for them. Period. And any newbies ran by such people will be led to VS-Code as well.

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That's why I think the move ("2." here) makes no sense, besides the fact that affects "me" in particular.

You are not going to grab market-share from VS-Code by looking like VS-Code and you are not going to get a market-share bigger than VS-Code's ever, period. So I would focus on having the market-share you *actually* can have. And for that, In my opinion, the best move is to keep differentiating from your competitor rather than trying to look like it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is in my view the only chance for JB to survive is to keep focusing on growing market-share from "quality coders" and leave the "low quality ones" to VS-Code. And if I'm right, then the whole new UI move was useless. It only had the effect of making people like "us" spend more time adapting our neurons to the new UI for no benefit for anyone.

This is all respectfully and I can't tell for sure, of course. I don't own the market. Future will tell.

Me, I guess eventually I'll have to submit to the "extortion" and get used to the new UI, because the other IDE's are worse anyway. Though you never know, probably there's someone out there that "understands" us and is already building something better. World isn't static…

 

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It's fine to create another UI if you feel the need to copy VS code for the script kiddies, but forcing it on your paying customers is quite a stunt. The day the “classic” UI is not supported anymore I will not support you anymore with the money of my company.

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I'm really torn. I honestly hate the new UI. I program mainly in Java and have been a personal license holder for the past 8 years I believe. If I'm going to have to learn a new tool it might as well be VS Code (instead of a paid copycat version). i had played around with VS Code to do some quarkus programming but it was so limited and crappy compared to Intellij. I guess i'll just write the last 8 years off as sunken costs and bite the bullet and learn how to navigate VS Code. terrible day for me. not sure what my company is going to do. we haven't had a requirement to move to new versions but a lot of people did when there was the intellij github token issue. hopefully, not all the devs will feel like i do.

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“Classic UI is available via plugin https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/24468-classic-ui (free)”

The complete assertion actually is:

"The classic UI is available as a plugin in JetBrains Marketplace. Starting with the 2024.2 version, you will see a popup with the link to the plugin, or you can find the plugin in Settings | Plugins.

We plan to support the plugin for at least one year, which means that we will test and release it with every major IDE release. We will evaluate the new UI adoption rate and feedback, and based on this information, we will decide how long we will continue to support the classic UI.

Unfortunately, the Classic UI plugin won’t work correctly with Gateway and when running the IDEs remotely."

Where the last sentence actually means you are not fully supporting the classic UI already.

Actually, in my particular case, remoting is paramount. And I've spent uncountable hours in good will fighting all the problems and learning all the hacks to make the Gateway thing work through all buggy and flawed versions ever since. Why? Because not using my preferred IDE(now “classic UI”) was unacceptable for me. I thought I'd  rather deal with Gateway's bugs than to adopt VS-Code.  I wish someone advised this before I've spent all that time.

 

 

4

Having classic UI as a plugin is nice and all but:

  • why not make new UI a plugin and keep classic UI by default?
  • plugins don't have a good track record of being updated regularly, many die untimely death. Unless it comes as a part of base software, I don't consider it to be a part of base software. Imagine if Windows came with a command line interface and launched terminal by default, and graphical user interface was a plugin. In 2024. But hey, it's free!

I'd appreciate if you moved all your AI functionality and new UI into plugins instead of making them the default for all users. Seems right at home - optional, experimental feature for users who want to try something new (those who are bored, basically).

Anyways, I'll be sticking to an older version using my perpetual license till I figure out whether I want to switch to VS Code, which won't drop upgrade and support in a year or two, or so I hope. Unlike outdated versions of webstorm, I'm afraid.

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How about plugins for this new UI?

I agree with everything in this original post.

On top of that, our custom plugins dont work any more. Plugins had the ability to add icon buttons to the Navigation Bar. Those buttons done appear anywhere in this new UI. How can we update our plugin to add icon buttons anywhere in this new UI? Where is the documentation on how to do that?
 

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Trying to figure out why a message I posted yesterday is in this state. Nothing even remotely offensive, or out of line nor off topic there.  Scratching my head.

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The NEW UI sucks 

 

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Agree wholeheartedly, I hate it and so does majority of experienced leads/seniors that I work with. 

The new UI is simplified to the point that it's tailored for newcomers and inexperienced users that cannot appreciate the old UI due to their inexperience ← do you see the irony ? 

Removing texts and replacing them with icons ? Hiding essential drop downs ?

We are building a software and making a living, not creating minecraft and roblox mods.

You are fixing something that was not broken in a manner that negatively affects your product. 

The plan is simple, make new ui default, provide old one as plugin until everybody just bites the bullet and eventually stops complaining when they will inevitably stop supporting the old UI.

 Classic corporate nonsense 101….

What you are trying to do is equivalent of adding bluetooth, RGB lighting and laser pointer to a HAMMER that is used for building houses. Nobody asked for it, nobody likes it.

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The old UI is the product of the engineer, and the new UI is the product of the designer.

Only engineers know what engineers need.

I would recommend my colleagues to use it before, but after the new ui becomes the default, I will never do it again.

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Also, that's really disgusting and disrespectful behavior :

  • before we're all had a new ui as an option for last few years, classic ui was a default
  • now we have the only new ui by default and no option for classic ui

Instead of offering smooth transition for people from classic ui to new ui they are simply wiped it out. Maybe JB was thinking that people will try to re-adapt but instead many of them simply googled how to bring it back or read pathnotes and discovered the plugin.

Instead of having my cup of tea at the morning and start coding when update happened i spent some of my time on googling and reading official notes about these changes. JB your bad marketing cost me wasted time and bunch of bad emotions.

It was literally “download new idea” which i installed, which picked up all settings except the UI. IDE completely ignored my environment.

You know that you can't do the things to people that way, Nadia Tarashkevich Yaroslav Bedrov Jeffrey Reynolds ?

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I think they think they can nikitasius and that they don't even need to apologize or being polite.  They don't even try to sell you in.  I'm still amazed about the “attitude” here: https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/8872880708370/comments/20776142336786

Which I read as: “Shut up, we don't care anymore about what you say, here's your second class alternative and I don't even feel the need to clarify that it really doesn't fully work”.

It's almost like they think they are entitled to school us or something at this point.

 

 

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Cancelled my subscriptions. We'll see by the expiry of my current licenses whether I'll renew or not, depending on how this whole thing ends.

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Gabriel Moreno Brc i'm agree with you. The functionality exists in the IDE as is. But after being “activated” via plugin it ruin experience for anyone who use the plugin like in your case (i.e. gateway issue).

Nadia Tarashkevich what do you suppose to do to fix the issue your company made for the clients? I can help you:

  • fastest & client friendly solution is to bring back classic ui into settings
  • slowest and non-efficient solution is to invest the resources and fix the issue
  • disrespectful is to ignore the issue while you have fastest & friendly solution
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“If you want it to look like VS Code, then I will rather cancel my subscription and switch to VS Code.”

- I fully support this opinion. If there is no support for the classic design in the new versions, I will cancel my subscription. 

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Sergey is absolutely right. The new UI is awful and no one asked for it. Especially not the long time users. 

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The “classic” {/great!} Jetbrains UI is absolutely the key to my long-time love affair with the JetBrains ecosystem.  PLEASE KEEP THE CLASSIC UI FOR EXISTING PRODUCTS.  Intellij, Pycharm, etc.   If you can't be bothered to do it for the new tools, that's one thing. WHY ARE YOU DUMPING YOUR EXISTING USER BASE???

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I'm still amazed about the “attitude” here: https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/8872880708370/comments/20776142336786

Which I read as: “Shut up, we don't care anymore about what you say, here's your second class alternative and I don't even feel the need to clarify that it really doesn't fully work”.

It's almost like they think they are entitled to school us or something at this point.

Sorry, but I think this is unfair to say that we do not care. We respect and listen to our users and react to the constructive, actionable feedback and criticism. Feedback we got greatly helped us make the new UI better - we have fixed more than 2,000 bugs and made many improvements for the new UI. Your feedback was one of the main drivers for this work.

I'll reiterate a bit on my point, mentioned above, that we continuously work and have to balance between the introduction of new features and UI improvements (including making the UI less cluttered and more clear) with the habits and accustomization of our users. The world is changing, and to keep innovation and move forward, some changes have to be made.

Having said that we realize that UI/UX changes are one of the most crucial for users and we try to make the change process as sooth as possible. We started working on new UI in in 2021 including the internal testing phase and announced it to the public for the preview in May 2022. And now we continue evaluating your feedback to fix remaining issues and pain-points. 

This thread becomes hard to follow and distill specific issues from comments. I would appreciate if anyone wanting to report an issue would start a separate thread or file an issue to YouTrack for us to address it. I appreciate your understanding. Thank you.

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Andrey Dernov  as for me this thread seems very easy to follow. All the people in this topic (and hundreds of thousands not participating here) are straightforward in their feelings and needs.

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Andrey Dernov 

we continuously work and have to balance between the introduction of new features and UI improvements

Well, it doesn't looks like. Wiping option for classic ui from settings aren't balancing but an ultimatum.

Your feedback was one of the main drivers for this work.

Aren't mine. I will never approve vscode approach.

The world is changing, and to keep innovation and move forward, some changes have to be made.

bruh, vscode was made 9 years ago. You're bit slow in IDEA on such useless ideas that you're started only 6 years after the world has changed.

This thread becomes hard to follow and distill specific issues from comments. I would appreciate if anyone wanting to report an issue

Have you ever tested existing functionality before removing toggle from settings and moving it into the “plugin” on prod? You want people do your (=JB) job. Kind of “we're did what we did, but if something doesn't work.. oupsie, please report!”.

Hell no. That's your job, you're paid for. So do your job. You're pushed in prod commits that aren't being reviewed nor tested. Now you assume the consequences of your (=JB) acts.

 

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Andrey Dernov 

You may think in all honesty you are right or not. What you don't do is argue with a customer about how a customer feels.

At the minimum one would expect your post starts with “I'm sorry you feel that way” and then the rest. But no. Right from the beginning centered on how you guys feel rather than on us: “Sorry, but I think this is unfair to say that we do not care”. Poor guys… those evil customers that want to get satisfaction in exchange for their money. How dare they…

 That's impressive and tells me all I need to know about current state of things in JB. 

For the sake of completeness:

. None you said changes what I think(and that's self-evident) about the attitude in Nadia's post which is also technically “lying” if you just compare to the previous post on the subject from you guys, that I quoted.

. A given customer's satisfaction is not subject to judgement or opinions. Is a fact. May be relevant or not for your organization depending on the critical mass of how many are dissatisfied vs how many are happy + potentially new customers adopting the solution. That's up to you guys. I don't know the numbers. But anything else is irrelevant.  Words don't make up for outcome. If the final outcome is the one I'm satisfied with I'll stay if not I'll leave. Just common sense. 

. Innovation isn't the problem. I don't need to be schooled about how the world changes. I was the first one saying something had to be done to adapt to world's changes. I just think it's not what you did and that what you did doesn't work in my favor.

. “This thread becomes hard to follow and distill specific issues from comments. I would appreciate if anyone wanting to report an issue would start a separate thread or file an issue to YouTrack for us to address it.”. Got it: There's no point on writing here, never was.

I'm done here. Best regards.

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And now we continue evaluating your feedback to fix remaining issues and pain-points.

Here's my feedback: the new UI is a huge pain point for me, I want the old UI back as an option. I don't mind people who want to use the new UI, but don't be Apple who just removed the headphone jack for profit innovation. You'll be the loss innovators by alienating your loyal, paying customers.

Well, if loyal customers mean nothing to you, I guess I can learn the new UI directly from the people who made it - from VS code itself, at least I won't have to PAY THEM for the “privilege”.

It's kind of funny how you expect people to pay you to experience pain. I thought you were in a different kind of business. Oh well. It was a good program, thanks for everything, bye.

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Money, money, MONEY MONEY MONEY!!

JB is it a correct safeword i'm screaming or you won't stop hurting your customers?..

 

3

I'll happily pay an additional yearly small fee to hire someone to maintain the old UI. With the amount of downloads on the classic UI plugin as little as $10 should easily do the trick.

-4

Erva15 you wanna customers to pay JB and to pay someone else/JB for an old ui as an extra? You're kidding?

If to use company's product i need to pay extras to make it as it was before and the issue is just a marketing/leaddev crap or whatever, i will cancel it.

There are no “if you want as it was you must pay us more” cause it will be more and more extras. They can change global sub cost and see how it will affect everyone. But do not target group of customers who need their IDE as it was before: handy & efficient.

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The world is changing, and to keep innovation and move forward, some changes have to be made.

No, no they really do not. There is literally nothing forcing you to make changes. “Innovation” is not some fundamental cosmic force. 90% of the time when someone says “innovation” in the context of UI, it actually means one of two things: “investors want increased engagement/profit” or “there's a new fad that we simply *must* follow”

To wit: what have you actually innovated? You've done nothing more than rip off VSCode. There is nothing new, unique, or innovative. It's the same bland, inscrutable, boring, actively hostile, and useless UI that most garbage-tier software uses nowadays. You've brought *nothing* new to the table.

Feedback we got greatly helped us make the new UI better - we have fixed more than 2,000 bugs

You mean you *created* more than 2,000 bugs for no good reason and spent unknowable amounts of money and developer time fixing the new bugs you've created instead of actually improving the software. This is not a point to be bragged about.

Having said that we realize that UI/UX changes are one of the most crucial for users

Have you ever considered that the old UI was perfectly fine and did not require any changes? Why can't the new UI be a non-bundled half-working optional plugin? Do you care more about new users who aren't giving you money yet, or old users who have been paying you for years?

including making the UI less cluttered and more clear

Do you know what's more clear than an unlabeled heiroglyph? Text. We've gone from a useful amount of information density to nothing at all. Programmers work with information. We have pages and pages of text open all the time. Why would someone who works exclusively with text be afraid of labeled buttons? Utter nonsense. “Clutter” is not some cardinal sin, nor is showing the user *any amount of information at all*. A dense UI is a *good thing* when your job is information. Programmers need easy and immediate access to information and common functions. Programmers do not need to waste their time hovering over inscrutable icons hoping a tooltip will show up. That is a huge waste of time.

Jetbrains IDEs were best in class. Period. Now we have the exact same slop that every other software house is pumping out. Why should I pay $200 a year for this software when I can get the same awful experience from VSCode for free? Seriously, give me one reason. I can even get ReSharper on VSCode. If there's no difference, why on earth should I pay you anything?

I'm a professional. I rely on these IDEs as a tool to do my job and feed my family. If you're going to make my job harder for no reason, there's really no point in continuing to pay you. I'd be far better off using Eclipse, or just emacs. I certainly won't be recommending Jetbrains products to anyone, much less convincing my boss to buy licenses for the whole office.

Honestly at this point Jetbrains is just the VSCode we have at home. Worse performance, worse UI, and very high cost. Hell, you're even forcing “AI" on users just like Microsoft. It's normal and expected for Microsoft to show this level of disdain and disrespect for users. I expected far, far better from Jetbrains.

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