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> - Rounding of corners. Religion at this point > - Homogenization. JetBrains wants to be like VSCode > - Animations. Haven't seen them but it will be filled

> - Rounding of corners. Religion at this point > - Homogenization. JetBrains wants to be like VSCode > - Animations. Haven't seen them but it will be filled Seriously, HN? This is the quality that you reward with hundreds of points? Unlike the author, I happen to have used this UI for the past five months and it solves many of my longstanding gripes with IntelliJ: - Gutters are now much better at highlighting local changes, while also being less visually obtrusive. - The shaded tool window background nicely separates them from the editor - Showing the git branch next to the title makes it so much easier to understand where I am, when I work with multiple projects and branches. - Breadcrumbs in the Statusbar save some space and look much cleaner --- Also, many of the complaints that I've seen in this thread are either wrong or exaggerated: - "Monochrome icons" - Only the toolbar icons are monochrome, everything else still uses coloured icons. - "The toolbar has less icons now" - It's customisable, you can put whatever you want in there. Yes, with colourful icons. - "More Whitespace" - The vertical space from the top of the screen to the editor is the exact same. The Project view actually looses some vertical space, but only because the font size is bigger (Which you can change obviously). The spacing between the list items is the same according to a designer on Slack. - "This is just some incompetent designer pushing their agenda on us, breaking my workflow because something something trends" - go touch grass. And finally, just to be clear: no, there are no animations - everything is instant.

matsemann 4y ago
Personally I'm not "rewarding the post with hundred of points", but I've upvoted because I share the sentiment and want JetBrains to really consider each change they make: Is it for change's sake, or because it's actually better?
- mcluck 4y ago
  What makes you think that they haven't already considered it? It's rather offensive to assume that a group of UX professionals decided to take on a massive overhaul just for fun. Given UX has never been a major priority at JetBrains, it implies that they decided it was valuable enough to spend the time and money on this. I just can't imagine this was done on a whim
  - matsemann 4y ago
    Because the new UX feels more geared towards looking like VSCode, than actually improving things.
  - jdbernard 4y ago
    This isn't really JetBrains fault, but the track record of products making full redesigns is bad enough that we do tend to assume that the priorities, values, and considerations of UX professionals run contrary to developers/users priorities, to the point where the result is often less useful/ergonomic than what it replaced. To be fair, this tendency to prioritize your own values above those of your users is not unique to designers. For example, Linus' insistence that kernel developers "don't break userspace."
    - bornfreddy 4y ago
      > For example, Linus' insistence that kernel developers "don't break userspace." Wait, what? Is that meant as a counterexample?
      - Retric 4y ago
        He wouldn’t say it so often if developers didn’t break userspace.
        bornfreddy 4y ago
        Gotcha.
  - Olreich 4y ago
    I think you would be shocked at how often UX designers get greenlit to make a refresh based on vague things like the current code base being hard to use or keeping up with the Joneses of other products or just to have new marketing pictures that look "modern". The default assumption that this effort was made without proper consideration is right more often than its wrong. Maligning the devs? Not so much. Wanting them to show their work and explain why they think looking more like VSCode is a good idea? Very much so.
- p2detar 4y ago
  I’ve got about 3 invitations from JetBrains‘ UX team just this year, about discussing UI in their products. Never took part in any, because I lack the time and motivation, however, they do seem to make the effort to get developer feedback, before making grand changes.
jsmeaton 4y ago
I’m glad someone else called this out. “I imagine it’ll suck but I haven’t used it, and they’re breaking the UI for the wrong reasons”. Such a quick transition from imagining someone doing something and then getting angry at your own imagination.
- knaekhoved 4y ago
  You can identify visual design changes just by looking at them... that's kind of the point
albertopv 4y ago
IS this new UI going to solve slow indexing problem? I mean, real problems, the ones that really block our work?
- kmlx 4y ago
  is the new UI somehow blocking solving the problems that you mentioned? no. companies can work on multiple things at once.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    People working on the new UI are not working on other products. These are not the same people who work with indexing, but these could be people who work on decoupling UI code etc. while indexing is improved.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  Zero trolling. Can you give a real world example of slow indexing? If you work in a /more/ dynamic language like Python, Perl, Ruby, JavaScript, it is very difficult to write a fast, accurate indexer. However, for /more/ strictly-typed languages like C, C#, Java, Scala, it is much easier to write a very fast, accurate index. (Leave aside C++ as it is so insanely context dependent, but LLVM has made amazing work of it.) Some anecdata, three times in my career, I have worked on massive 1M+ line of code Java projects -- single repo. The initial Apache Maven download of dependent JARs plus indexing might take one hour or so. After that: Lightspeed. Yes, I do agree: When you are forced to invalidate your indexes, the next restart is painful. More anecdata: One of my current projects is Python 3+. The indexing is much slower and less accurate. Plus, we use lots of binary libraries (compiled native code), which seems to trigger indexing on each restart. But whatever, get a 5GHz machine, give IntelliJ 16GB of RAM and let it run. In 2022, are there any serious alternatives besides a Titanic-sized IDE for enormous complex codebases? I don't see any that average developers (myself) will use. Last point to mix big IDEs with C++: Visual Studio (as much as a cringe writing anything positive about Microsoft) is a phenom platform. For years, it absolutely dominated C++ IDEs. IntelliSense was mind-blowing in C++ and force multiplier that was unmatched for many, many years. It is still very impressive to me. I am sure they feel JetBrains' CLion biting at their heels!
iampivot 4y ago
This one caught me out; - "The toolbar has less icons now" - It's customisable, you can put whatever you want in there. Yes, with colourful icons. I was wondering where the back / forward buttons were, but realised after a while that they can be put back in, just with some configuration.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  Most of the time if some UI requires you to configure it, it's a badly designed product. With very very few exceptions.
lucideer 4y ago
> This is the quality that you reward with hundreds of points? Many read HN just for the comments, so will upvote a low-quality article with a discussion-driving headline (often without reading the article), purely to generate discussion on a topic they're interested in. It's something of a pity as articles like this with absolute garbage takes do a disservice to those users who share the sentiment for valid reasons. But at least we get to read some of those more well-reasoned arguments in the comments here.
- etherealG 4y ago
  I know it’s just 1 user, but I’d like to validate your hypothesis… I did exactly that with this article, even after reading it.
neilpanchal 4y ago
The central point of the article missed right over you. The critique is about the culture that surrounds: changes in UI for no real reason other than subjectivist opinions, design trends, fashion or what-others-are-doing, unoriginality, homogenization and frameworks, and the complete disregard for professional users and their infantilization. Furthermore, changes need to be evaluated against retraining millions of people with new UI. This part seems to be missing in the calculation.
- lucideer 4y ago
  > for no real reason This happens but stating that the Jetbrains changes fall under this category is baseless speculation. > This part seems to be missing in the calculation What makes you say that? I don't think anyone commenting here is in any doubt that needless/bad UI changes do happen in products. Noone's debating that general broad point. The thesis put forward by the article is that Jetbrains' changes specifically are an example of this trend. And it's very clear that the article is so lazily researched that none of the points listed do anything to support that specific thesis.
  - neilpanchal 4y ago
    I think these are reasons why UI has regressed continually in last 10-15 years. No one speaks up. Usually casted as “UI always changes, get used to it. Grumpy people will complain for any change. See Gmail.” I can understand why Apple changes UI: it’s a luxury/fashion company that makes computers and phones. But a professional tool needs to follow UI changes that are not justified beyond flimsy reasons? Used by millions to make a living? The onus is on designers to justify their aesthetic/fashion instincts, to justify their tendency to churn user interfaces, the tendency to turn highly functional and dense tools into fisher price toys in the name of minimalism and infantilization users.
    - lucideer 4y ago
      I agree with everything you said, but I don't see how it's relevant to my comment, unless you misread me? UI in general is regressed continually - completely agree with you there, yes. The article however is specifically about Jetbrains. Jetbrains may be regressing their UI. Perhaps someone should spend some time looking at Jetbrains' new UIs and analyse whether it does in fact constitute yet another example of regressed UI. This article doesn't do that - it makes a very lazy & exceptionally poor case.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
chrisandchris 4y ago
[...] - "The toolbar has less icons now" - It's customisable, you can put whatever you want in there. Yes, with colourful icons. [...] As someone who uses Rider, RubyMine, WebStorm (and sometimes PHPStorm) on a daily basis am worried that I now need to customize 4 IDEs (will they sync this config?). So until now I never wanted (or needed) to do that, now I have half a day work to get something I already have. I don't think that's progress. Why not make it customizable, but let the default be the current state?
- pacifika 4y ago
  With The settings repository you can share 90% of settings, as long as they are on the same platform.
grolimpio 4y ago
I have also been using it for about 5 months and won't go back to the old one. It's hard to design a new UI that will please everyone, but if Jetbrains only think about "old" developers (myself included), I believe their product won't be too attractive to the new generation. I enjoy the new monochromatic icons, I don't mind the extra gap, but I usually hide the panels and use shortcuts to access the panels.

matsemann 4y ago

Personally I'm not "rewarding the post with hundred of points", but I've upvoted because I share the sentiment and want JetBrains to really consider each change they make: Is it for change's sake, or because it's actually better?

mcluck 4y ago
What makes you think that they haven't already considered it? It's rather offensive to assume that a group of UX professionals decided to take on a massive overhaul just for fun. Given UX has never been a major priority at JetBrains, it implies that they decided it was valuable enough to spend the time and money on this. I just can't imagine this was done on a whim
- matsemann 4y ago
  Because the new UX feels more geared towards looking like VSCode, than actually improving things.
- jdbernard 4y ago
  This isn't really JetBrains fault, but the track record of products making full redesigns is bad enough that we do tend to assume that the priorities, values, and considerations of UX professionals run contrary to developers/users priorities, to the point where the result is often less useful/ergonomic than what it replaced. To be fair, this tendency to prioritize your own values above those of your users is not unique to designers. For example, Linus' insistence that kernel developers "don't break userspace."
  - bornfreddy 4y ago
    > For example, Linus' insistence that kernel developers "don't break userspace." Wait, what? Is that meant as a counterexample?
    - Retric 4y ago
      He wouldn’t say it so often if developers didn’t break userspace.
      - bornfreddy 4y ago
        Gotcha.
- Olreich 4y ago
  I think you would be shocked at how often UX designers get greenlit to make a refresh based on vague things like the current code base being hard to use or keeping up with the Joneses of other products or just to have new marketing pictures that look "modern". The default assumption that this effort was made without proper consideration is right more often than its wrong. Maligning the devs? Not so much. Wanting them to show their work and explain why they think looking more like VSCode is a good idea? Very much so.
p2detar 4y ago
I’ve got about 3 invitations from JetBrains‘ UX team just this year, about discussing UI in their products. Never took part in any, because I lack the time and motivation, however, they do seem to make the effort to get developer feedback, before making grand changes.

jsmeaton 4y ago

I’m glad someone else called this out. “I imagine it’ll suck but I haven’t used it, and they’re breaking the UI for the wrong reasons”. Such a quick transition from imagining someone doing something and then getting angry at your own imagination.

knaekhoved 4y ago
You can identify visual design changes just by looking at them... that's kind of the point

albertopv 4y ago

IS this new UI going to solve slow indexing problem? I mean, real problems, the ones that really block our work?

kmlx 4y ago
is the new UI somehow blocking solving the problems that you mentioned? no. companies can work on multiple things at once.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  People working on the new UI are not working on other products. These are not the same people who work with indexing, but these could be people who work on decoupling UI code etc. while indexing is improved.
throwaway2037 4y ago
Zero trolling. Can you give a real world example of slow indexing? If you work in a /more/ dynamic language like Python, Perl, Ruby, JavaScript, it is very difficult to write a fast, accurate indexer. However, for /more/ strictly-typed languages like C, C#, Java, Scala, it is much easier to write a very fast, accurate index. (Leave aside C++ as it is so insanely context dependent, but LLVM has made amazing work of it.) Some anecdata, three times in my career, I have worked on massive 1M+ line of code Java projects -- single repo. The initial Apache Maven download of dependent JARs plus indexing might take one hour or so. After that: Lightspeed. Yes, I do agree: When you are forced to invalidate your indexes, the next restart is painful. More anecdata: One of my current projects is Python 3+. The indexing is much slower and less accurate. Plus, we use lots of binary libraries (compiled native code), which seems to trigger indexing on each restart. But whatever, get a 5GHz machine, give IntelliJ 16GB of RAM and let it run. In 2022, are there any serious alternatives besides a Titanic-sized IDE for enormous complex codebases? I don't see any that average developers (myself) will use. Last point to mix big IDEs with C++: Visual Studio (as much as a cringe writing anything positive about Microsoft) is a phenom platform. For years, it absolutely dominated C++ IDEs. IntelliSense was mind-blowing in C++ and force multiplier that was unmatched for many, many years. It is still very impressive to me. I am sure they feel JetBrains' CLion biting at their heels!

iampivot 4y ago

This one caught me out; - "The toolbar has less icons now" - It's customisable, you can put whatever you want in there. Yes, with colourful icons. I was wondering where the back / forward buttons were, but realised after a while that they can be put back in, just with some configuration.

dmitriid 4y ago
Most of the time if some UI requires you to configure it, it's a badly designed product. With very very few exceptions.

lucideer 4y ago

> This is the quality that you reward with hundreds of points? Many read HN just for the comments, so will upvote a low-quality article with a discussion-driving headline (often without reading the article), purely to generate discussion on a topic they're interested in. It's something of a pity as articles like this with absolute garbage takes do a disservice to those users who share the sentiment for valid reasons. But at least we get to read some of those more well-reasoned arguments in the comments here.

etherealG 4y ago
I know it’s just 1 user, but I’d like to validate your hypothesis… I did exactly that with this article, even after reading it.

neilpanchal 4y ago

The central point of the article missed right over you. The critique is about the culture that surrounds: changes in UI for no real reason other than subjectivist opinions, design trends, fashion or what-others-are-doing, unoriginality, homogenization and frameworks, and the complete disregard for professional users and their infantilization. Furthermore, changes need to be evaluated against retraining millions of people with new UI. This part seems to be missing in the calculation.

lucideer 4y ago
> for no real reason This happens but stating that the Jetbrains changes fall under this category is baseless speculation. > This part seems to be missing in the calculation What makes you say that? I don't think anyone commenting here is in any doubt that needless/bad UI changes do happen in products. Noone's debating that general broad point. The thesis put forward by the article is that Jetbrains' changes specifically are an example of this trend. And it's very clear that the article is so lazily researched that none of the points listed do anything to support that specific thesis.
- neilpanchal 4y ago
  I think these are reasons why UI has regressed continually in last 10-15 years. No one speaks up. Usually casted as “UI always changes, get used to it. Grumpy people will complain for any change. See Gmail.” I can understand why Apple changes UI: it’s a luxury/fashion company that makes computers and phones. But a professional tool needs to follow UI changes that are not justified beyond flimsy reasons? Used by millions to make a living? The onus is on designers to justify their aesthetic/fashion instincts, to justify their tendency to churn user interfaces, the tendency to turn highly functional and dense tools into fisher price toys in the name of minimalism and infantilization users.
  - lucideer 4y ago
    I agree with everything you said, but I don't see how it's relevant to my comment, unless you misread me? UI in general is regressed continually - completely agree with you there, yes. The article however is specifically about Jetbrains. Jetbrains may be regressing their UI. Perhaps someone should spend some time looking at Jetbrains' new UIs and analyse whether it does in fact constitute yet another example of regressed UI. This article doesn't do that - it makes a very lazy & exceptionally poor case.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

chrisandchris 4y ago

[...] - "The toolbar has less icons now" - It's customisable, you can put whatever you want in there. Yes, with colourful icons. [...] As someone who uses Rider, RubyMine, WebStorm (and sometimes PHPStorm) on a daily basis am worried that I now need to customize 4 IDEs (will they sync this config?). So until now I never wanted (or needed) to do that, now I have half a day work to get something I already have. I don't think that's progress. Why not make it customizable, but let the default be the current state?

pacifika 4y ago
With The settings repository you can share 90% of settings, as long as they are on the same platform.

grolimpio 4y ago

I have also been using it for about 5 months and won't go back to the old one. It's hard to design a new UI that will please everyone, but if Jetbrains only think about "old" developers (myself included), I believe their product won't be too attractive to the new generation. I enjoy the new monochromatic icons, I don't mind the extra gap, but I usually hide the panels and use shortcuts to access the panels.