PhpStorm 2024.3: "Old UI" not available anymore?

Hi Bjoern Fw ,

The new UI became the default one in 2024.2. Please see these two blog posts for details:

• Announcement post: https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2024/07/08/the-new-ui-becomes-the-default-in-2024-2/.
• More details on how to configure new UI in the old-style manner: https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2024/10/bridging-the-gap-between-the-classic-and-new-uis/.

If adjusting the new UI in accordance with your needs doesn't work for you for some reason, consider installing the Classic UI plugin in Settings | Plugins: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/24468-classic-ui. Please note that it has some limitations.

Interesting, that maybe with PHPStorem 2024.2.5 which I used before, motsly probably I had the Classic UI plugin installed and maybe it got lost when upgrading to 2024.3.

Anyhow, I downgraded now to 2024.2.5 again and everything works as I want it to.

Let's see how long this version suffices. Hardly any dev wants the new UI, funny it's forced to us. This is something for managers, not for devs. 

I get what they're trying to do (the minimalist interface is probably based in UI/UX research and it's likely easier to use), but many devs like myself have spent too much time trying to learn the “classic” UI and we've become power users with it.

I don't appreciate coming into work with tight deadlines brewing, randomly running PHPStorm updates so I can continue to use some “out of date”, disabled plugins, restarting PHPStorm, and getting a new UI installed without warning. I'm really glad there's a Classic UI plugin to allow the rollback.

To Jetbrains: I strongly recommend that the update process has a modal that says, “We updated your UI because it is the default going forward and will not be supporting the old UI anymore. If you want to roll it back again, there's the Classic UI plugin available. We recommend learning the new UI to be prepared for when the Classic UI plugin is no longer supported by its developer."

I agree with both Bjoern and Bryan, the new UI is undermining productivity. I upgraded today from 2024.1.x to 2024.3.4 and it is just a disaster.

I think what JB wants is to be more attractive to new users, hardcore full-time devs, and does not really care about those who like me use IDE occasionally among other tools. We just want to jump in, implement some business logic in the fastest manner possible and switch to the next task.

As long as Classic UI works it should be tolerable, but I disabled the auto-prolongation of my license just in case.

Thank you Bjoern Fw for raising this topic!

Thanks God its possible to switch back to classic view! 

Please continue maintaining this “Classic UI” plugin.

I can't believe the new UI I see is the intended one. No professional would want to work in this UI. The Tabs are much bigger than they need to be and the screen is full of large blank spaces. Their use is unclear (what the hell does “No Structure” mean)? And if there's no structure. why take up half the  left sidebar with the structure box? I haven't found any way to hide the structure box.

Worse yet, when stuff overflows any box, I can scroll up and down with the scroll wheel, but the scroll bar is useless. I can't grab the tab and drag it up or down. I can't use the left-right scroll bars at all, so much of the information I need is inaccessible.

There's no hover-help for many of the icons, and often, clicking on an icon triggers a different icon.  

The code area, where I live, is tiny with huge blank areas to the right of it and below it, and there's no obvious way to make the code area bigger.

Each item in the  project list now takes up three lines, instead of 1, and the extra two lines contain information I have no use for, so I have to scroll (with the wheel) forever to jump to another project. 

Everything I do seems to jack up the memory used.

The note about the classic UI plugin ("Please note that it has some limitations") is terrifying to me.