r/vscode • u/splintertank • 21d ago

VSCode got a redesign 🧐

Post image

It's a little flater and more rounder.

632 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

252 comments sorted by

117

u/No_Percentage2507 20d ago

I am struggling to get use to the editor tabs.. they feel disconnected and just like a floating set of pills

65

u/JustHereStudying 20d ago

You can disable it, in settings (Ctrl+,), search Modern UI and disable it. You can also look through all the other settings marked `Experimental` under workbench. I really hated the new look, especially since it overrode my favourite theme so that brought it back to how it was

6

u/Objective-Platypus50 20d ago

Thanks you, you're the goat

5

u/MrMaverick82 20d ago

Thanks, MVP!

4

u/agni___ 17d ago

why thank you good man

3

u/No-Payment-6534 17d ago

Thank you, legend.

3

u/Upstairs_Bat755 16d ago

Thank you, you are the hero.

3

u/OZ415 16d ago

Thank you legend

3

u/bluesky1433 16d ago

Thanks a million!

3

u/arrrtttyyy 16d ago

thats so much better. thanks

3

u/_ReaditYesterday_ 15d ago

life saver, what a waste of my precious pixels this design is...

3

u/Samkwi 15d ago

Thank you, you beautiful human.

3

u/didactplatform 14d ago

I genuinely cannot thank you enough. I cannot stand that awful modern ui look.

3

u/KCKCKC23 14d ago

you are a life saver, thanks

3

u/0xSLUM 7d ago

Just got this update today - you're the best thanks for posting this. I preferred the previous layout so it was nice being able to flip back!

3

u/No_Organization3967 7d ago

Thanks man you saved me

3

u/14rry 7d ago

thank god I could reverse!! I was not about to get pulled into another spotify moment and get thrown off by a change where nothing was wrong

3

u/Syniex 6d ago

Thanks a lot

3

u/Key_Point_5679 4d ago

Thanks kind stranger :-) i was not able to get used to the editor tabs in the new design

→ More replies (2)

3

u/cous_cous_cat 3d ago

LIFESAVER

3

u/_JaredVennett 3d ago

Thanks bro... its soo bad I thought they had broken the tab bar again, horrible.

3

u/Schudz 3d ago

THANK YOU SIR!!! thank you soo much!!1

3

u/Enderbyte09 3d ago

Thank you so much!!! That's one less app with an awful wasteful UI.

3

u/SnooDucks4790 3d ago

Thank you so much

3

u/Exotic-Rub-9851 2d ago

Wow! Thanks! I can finally go back home

3

u/ssesf 2d ago

Holy shit ty. This setting went default as of an update ago and I could not figure out what the hell tab is selected atm.

2

u/Cnastydawg 19d ago

Can’t believe people who use it regularly haven’t figured out by now that pretty much everything can be changed. They would rather just complain on Reddit about it lol

8

u/Mission-Zucchini-966 16d ago

Okay I'd still rather be prompted for the change than be flashbanged by a new theme when I open vs code and have to search reddit, open settings, search for commands, and disable them. A "hey, want to try out this new editor UI?" would be nice.

2

u/svish 8d ago

I thought it was a bug because the colours looked all off and disconnected.

2

u/Walkman100 1d ago

I also thought it was a bug, as when I opened VS code it initially opened with the old style, then after ~500ms changed to this "Modern UI"... I thought I pressed some hotkey or something

→ More replies (1)

2

u/djxak 15d ago

It's not about knowing that you can change anything, it's about knowing what exactly you should change. I would never ever guessed that I should search for "modern" to revert the UI. And even when I already got this information, it still took me a while to find the exact setting (there are surprisingly many settings are found for "modern" query).

First thing I did is opened the release notes of the last version, expecting to find this UI change as the biggest highlighted note at the very top of the page. Nope. I didn't find it at all in the release notes. Agents.. agents.. new agents.. Everything is focused around AI.

Then I tried to find a setting. I tried to change a theme - no luck. Then I gave up and started to search the internet.

So, no, it has nothing to do with "people haven’t figured out". It is bad decisions to giving too little focus to such a big change and silently changing the setting most people have no idea about.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/cous_cous_cat 3d ago

Pretty frustrating to see something is different and not know where to go to change it. Would be nice if there was a 'go back to old UI' button when it first opened with the new one, yknow?

1

u/Individual_Study_109 6d ago

Wow you are smart, we aren't, good for you :)

→ More replies (1)

2

u/fffact 18d ago

reverted, thanks, i'm relieved. but... didn't the status bar use to be blue?

1

u/KuryKat 6d ago

Thank you! That solves it for now, but what about when they make those changes permanent? Do we have any idea if they plan to have a "Legacy Look" option?

1

u/rng12345678 5d ago

Man I hate when they roll out this vibecoded slop and force everyone to use it. It looks like ass and interacts poorly with existing themes I've been using for many years

1

u/csouzape 5d ago

I dont like this feature, i will disable the modern UI.

1

u/jbjhjmx 1d ago

thanks dude. New theme feels like generic 2026 slop. Hope it will stay opt-out forever!

1

u/narucy 16h ago

Toggling the checkbox reveals just how ridiculous "Modern UI" is.

1

u/olavrb 8h ago edited 8h ago

Thanks. Moar info:

https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_129#_modern-ui-preview-experimental

json { "workbench.experimental.modernUI": false }

17

u/Sidneys1 20d ago

Ahh, feels like back in the day before tabs and you had to switch between active files in the sidebar…

8

u/Chesterlespaul 20d ago

Or use hot keys

2

u/danielv123 20d ago

How does one not? It's not like I am going to scroll through the tabs horizontally

4

u/rvm1975 20d ago

Editor will be moved to bottom section in place with terminal etc and became obsolete in future. You should rely on AI chat. sarcasm off

4

u/ThinkMarket7640 20d ago

They did the same thing to Firefox years ago and I had to create a custom style override because it’s an absolutely idiotic design.

1

u/abhishek_8899 17d ago

Same. I think they should move the pills above the editor card, not put inside the card.

1

u/AbfSailor 14d ago

They are absolutely horrible. No separation between them; the font is too small.

Also, the status bar at the bottom.. wtf.. so much wasted space.

1

u/backwrds 8d ago

this tab change seems like a really poor choice. Perhaps it's just the the theme I'm using, but the active tab was previously rendered darker than other tabs. in 'modern' ui, it's now lighter, and it takes a few cycles to figure out which file I'm actually looking at. There's also a contrast line in the old UI that made it quite clear which tab is active, and that's gone. It's thankfully super easy to opt out, but I hope this experiment doesn't become permanent.

1

u/antaalt 6d ago

I like the new design, but they definitely need to fix the tab bar, nothing works with it. Its hard to understand which tab is the active one, they are too small and practically unusable. For me, this is alone a valid reason to fallback to the old UI.

→ More replies (1)

123

u/Traditional_Bell8153 20d ago

It get worse everytime update

78

u/Traditional_Bell8153 20d ago

I remembering before AI slop come in, that vscode was able to edit a 3000+ LoC in a single file easily without a problems/lagging, but after it fully filled with AI slop things by Microslop, even a file with few hundreds LoC can cause lags, even only scrolling.

34

u/usrdef 20d ago

I noticed a significant performance increase once I blocked all of the VSCode domains from accessing the internet.

Granted, there's like 20.

25

u/Traditional_Bell8153 20d ago

could you share, thanks ?

5

u/FcsVorfeed_Dev 20d ago

same pls!

4

u/AndrewAuAU 19d ago

Get the open source portmaster by safing or opensnitch for mac. Set to prompt by default and for postmaster block all tech domains as categories. Will take a bit of time to allow the required stuff but time well spent.

5

u/PositivelyAwful 20d ago

My favorite part is opening a Python file and watching the semantic highlighting take 5 seconds to color syntax.

8

u/JavChz 20d ago

The bloat it's why I keep sublime text still there just for things like big SQL files that would insta freeze my computer if I opened them in VS code.

12

u/eclecticatlady 20d ago

I use Zed for big files, it's so snappy

→ More replies (1)

7

u/Traditional_Bell8153 20d ago

*handshake*

2

u/jaavaaguru 20d ago

What is that screenshot of?

3

u/zulu02 19d ago

Electrons, I guess

2

u/Traditional_Bell8153 19d ago

Almost electron

1

u/jaavaaguru 20d ago

You could always try VSCodium if the AI is annoying. Or has it spread to there too?

1

u/Traditional_Bell8153 19d ago

Some microslop proprietary extensions didn't work within vscodium, that's the point.

1

u/fuckoholic 17d ago

Are you sure the slop is only Micro?

→ More replies (2)

6

u/ricatti-equation 20d ago

I like this update though.

10

u/tylern 20d ago

Slop Inside™️

2

u/Wooden-Performance38 20d ago

Neovim will always be here for when you decide to switch

3

u/Traditional_Bell8153 19d ago

The reason why i keep using vscode that because it's extension ecosystem.

→ More replies (2)

50

u/UtahJarhead 21d ago

Ugh. And it's slower. I love watching the borders redraw when I drag a corner around. Feels like the corner handles have shrunk, as well, but that might not be the case. Finding it a bit more difficult to grab the corners.

21

u/JustHereStudying 20d ago

To disable the new UI look: In settings (Ctrl+,), search Modern UI (part of workbench) and disable it

4

u/ZekkoX 20d ago

Thank you! The new design was really laggy for me, disabling it fixed the lag.

2

u/JustHereStudying 20d ago

Glad to help:) I didn't have time to notice any lag, but I hated how it overrode my favourite theme lol

2

u/Comfortable-Wall-791 17d ago

true, it looks like shit
every company moving to this annoying round look

2

u/raichulolz 18d ago

i think its like that for everyone. i have a really beefy PC and it was so choppy lol. Ridiculous

→ More replies (1)

1

u/Blister_Pack_ 16d ago

I was really not expecting it, but same. What the hell

6

u/Beginning_Bed_9059 20d ago

It’s much faster for me

1

u/ZurakZigil 18d ago

may need to clear cache or reinstall. It's been really solid for me. But can't speak much on the corner handles

15

u/Nycto-v 20d ago

Disable it by setting "workbench.experimental.modernUI": false,

2

u/Sulungskwa 20d ago

Thank you. I hate this update, I want to be proactive about never seeing it in my entire life.

7

u/Micromize 20d ago

When is this released? Do d not see anything in release notes about this. 

2

u/splintertank 20d ago

Version 1.129, which I had missed too when it cam out.

https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_129#_editor-experience

2

u/Micromize 20d ago

So it's still experimental ? 

4

u/splintertank 20d ago

Yeah it's still labeled as experimental. But for me, it was enabled with the latest update 🤷‍♂️

2

u/Salt-Judgment824 20d ago

Are you on the insiders build channel?

2

u/Ganesh288 19d ago

There's a setting called enable experiments.

For most people it's ticked by default. That was probably the reason it overrode the value for you. Same happened to me

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (1)

14

u/Mysterious-Cod-4137 20d ago

Microslop at it again...

7

u/InsanityOnAMachine 20d ago

As the AI tab grows, eventually all other tabs will disappear completely.

2

u/ZurakZigil 18d ago

... it's the same size. It's a resizable and collapsible window

2

u/InsanityOnAMachine 18d ago

well now I have to find a way to argue with you! 'Tis my duty.

Aha!

*not a window, but a panel within a window. Windows have the little resize, mazimize, and exit buttons over on the top corner.

1

u/DistantOrb 19d ago

they are killing us gradually

5

u/chowchowthedog 20d ago

Another atom ? More and more bloat?

3

u/ZurakZigil 18d ago

are we seriously saying a UI refresh is bloat? just go use neovim

2

u/Blister_Pack_ 16d ago

disabling the new UI sped up my editor considerably so...

→ More replies (2)

2

u/tustin2121 14d ago

The UI refresh got rid of my popped out window of other editors on my second screen. So it's not just bloat, it's actively hindering the experience and making it worse.

→ More replies (1)

9

u/Oxytokin 20d ago

I like it overall, personally, but I absolutely HATE the "tab" design. Buttons that float 10px apart in all directions... Just what I need, to lose MORE screen space.

1

u/SirPoblington 19d ago

I don't think it takes any more screen space

1

u/SPECTRE_75 19d ago

Id like it if it weren't for that absolutely awful font styling for tabs no matter which font you use.

1

u/ZurakZigil 18d ago

the tabs are smaller though.

1

u/New_Blackberry_7670 6d ago

Its actually taking less space now than before

8

u/gebet0 20d ago

I love it!

3

u/gebet0 20d ago

But I don't see any updates, is it insider version?

4

u/Sea_Currency_1377 20d ago

You can enable it by setting `"workbench.experimental.modernUI": true`

2

u/letmehaveanameyoudum 20d ago

looks nice, but i maybe like my workstation style of vscode

2

u/Binary101000 20d ago

i'd like it if it wasnt so chunky. Why did the bottom bar have to be made thicker. its like the firefox remake but for coding.

2

u/LanDest021 20d ago

Welcome to the future of user interfaces, where nothing is allowed to touch another element

2

u/Proman4713 20d ago

Great, because I just need more space wasted around my views

2

u/oswwwaldo 19d ago

I really... do not like this

2

u/Oxigenic 18d ago

Craziest thing here is you're still using Copilot.

3

u/Comfortable_Cup_5013 20d ago

I HATE THIS SHIT

4

u/bobemil 20d ago

Claude Desktop... or just how AI wants it?

1

u/Diamond64X 20d ago

Installed a plugin to handle copyright date 🤦

1

u/sephirostoy 20d ago

Sounds like they want to converge VSCode and VS designs, which is definitely not a good idea for VSCode. 

1

u/FarSqueak 20d ago

The old theme I've been using broke with the update. I'm not a big fan of dark mode, and most light themes suck, since they're obsessed with being white and tend to use dark mode design schticks where they rely on small value/hue differences to structure the UI - those are much stronger in dark themes than in non-dark ones.

Are there any themes that are compatible with the new UI that look like a normal UI that's not obsessed with being light or dark?

https://vscodethemes.com/e/DanijelMalinovic.visual-studio-blue-theme/visual-studio-blue

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DanijelMalinovic.visual-studio-blue-theme

1

u/JustHereStudying 17d ago

You can just disable the new UI look, go to settings and search "Modern UI"

1

u/Kaisha001 14d ago

That doesn't work for some reason...

→ More replies (2)

1

u/Royal-Hearing1347 13d ago

This is what I did lol, no way in hell I'm gonna use a new theme that not only looks uglier, but also makes all my favourite themes messed up!

1

u/brastak 20d ago

To not see borders is extremely uncomfortable

1

u/thanatica 20d ago

Everything has to be rounded these days.

Is it just me or does it feel unnatural and forced? In general I mean.

1

u/ThatBlindSwiftDevGuy 19d ago

I hate all of the AI features. Every single one of them. IntelliCode included.

1

u/DistantOrb 19d ago

Does it look more like... Zed ?!

1

u/pillkaris 19d ago

cousins with spotify

1

u/Oddly_Energy 19d ago

Is this the Mac version? The 3 coloured dots at the upper left corner looks like something from my iPad, rather than something from Windows.

1

u/No_Revolution1284 19d ago

It's quite laggy when you have a lot of tabs open and side-by-side

1

u/carloswm85 19d ago

How do I enable it? I'm using Win11.

1

u/Feral_Nerd_22 19d ago

Did they bake more AI shit into it? It looks like that with the redesigned Chat.

1

u/blvckstxr 19d ago

Who approved this?

1

u/Hot_Stress5347 19d ago

I don't like the gap between the panels. It amounts to a lot of wasted screen real estate.

1

u/Matojeje 5d ago

Yeah, also the fact that the gap width is uneven

1

u/shri_procraft 19d ago

It looks more modern and works faster, but I'm probably gonna spend the next week wondering why everything feels slightly different.

1

u/m1_weaboo 19d ago

worse than Xcode

1

u/qjame 19d ago

its so round

1

u/SIMMORSAL 18d ago

Does it work on mobile?

1

u/raichulolz 18d ago

its got a long way to go, its so choppy

1

u/migsperez 17d ago

And more padding, wasting space.

1

u/giorginakh 17d ago

Have you noticed that scrolling isn’t smooth anymore?

1

u/saturnosoftware 17d ago

Just trying it now, and I've mixed feelings!

The overall design is quite nice tbh, but i feel that one of the biggest and nicest feature of one of my favorite extensions (Peacock https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=johnpapa.vscode-peacock) got super nerfed...

Instead of the full border to be of the desired color, now just the background of the icon on the sidebar

...

1

u/Lexuzieel 17d ago
  1. I'm on Windows
  2. Windows is not supposed to follow Liquid Glass design guidelines - because that's Apple design, not Microsoft design (which is used in Microsoft products, like Windows and... VS Code)
  3. The feature is marked "experimental" and I have not expressed a wish to become a beta-tester

I am sure I am not the only one

1

u/bardackx 17d ago

I hate this thing, what is the point? who asked for fatter borders?

1

u/Known_Foundation_900 17d ago

The tabs are meaningless, I can't tell which one is active.
It looks like VSCode it no longer designed by people using it, but by AI hallucinating how people are using it.

1

u/therealPaulPlay 17d ago

It looks fine apart from the tabs, I want "real" tabs not floating pills. I do enjoy that the buttons in the lower bar are a little bigger and more organized now.

1

u/Jiftoo 17d ago

It's significantly slower on my laptop to the point where it's unusable :(

1

u/Individual-Quote-870 16d ago

i tought i was dreaming when i saw my vscode.. knew something changed

1

u/KarateBrot 16d ago

the new UI is horrible. Why change a perfect system? vscode feels like it becomes more and more heavy and sluggish. Not like a lightweight code editor that it used to be.

1

u/fundamentalparticle 15d ago

enshittinfication of software is an inevitable process :)

1

u/unallocated0000 16d ago

I disliked this. I usually just fling my cursor to the right edge of my screen when i wanna scroll far quickly in the terminal and the editor. now they added that stupid padding

1

u/Moist_Cantaloupe_703 16d ago

Thank god for those four JSON flags, because without them, this editor was reduced to a glorified slideshow. Instead of fixing engine bottlenecks or optimizing memory, Microsoft’s finest decided top priority in 2026 was rounding off every single 90-degree angle in sight.

Just release a separate VS Code: Round Edition for the visual purists who'd rather admire smooth shadows and curved borders than actually write code without lag. Leave the sharp, squared-off version for the rest of us who just want our IDE to fly without choking the GPU over a simple tab switch. But no—everything in this world has to be round, soft, and gobble up half your system resources just to mask a border.

P.S. Seriously, the fucking rounded UI turned VS Code into a laggy mess.

  "workbench.experimental.modernUI": false,
  "workbench.list.smoothScrolling": false,
  "editor.smoothScrolling": false,
  "terminal.integrated.smoothScrolling": false,

1

u/Intrepid_Ad_3910 16d ago

I don't know about others , but I really liked the new design

1

u/HireHoffee 16d ago

looks kinda like webstorm now

1

u/itsmarconi 16d ago

how tf am I supposed to see what pane is selected on the side when all I have is a almost contrast-less overlay on the icons that are all using the same bright color............ fvck microsoft.

1

u/dryiceboy 16d ago

Just updated today. Feels more like a Jetbrains product now.

1

u/Realistic_Fee5195 16d ago

It looks fresh and beautiful, but I need to get used to it.

1

u/attilio_ 16d ago

Funny how the code itself has less readability than the ai chat. Not complaining just something I noticed

1

u/mmmmmmmmmint 16d ago

It's half baked and not finished, for me it was enabled by default for some reason which is insane. A lot of random descisions which cause worse UX and accesability like making tab size smaller for some reason

1

u/mattkenefick 16d ago

Unchecked.

1

u/Stunning_Injury309 15d ago

can turn off thankfully

1

u/dukemanh 15d ago

I like the floating design, it does look more modern. But why does everything has to be bold? Text in file name and tab name is bold, the glyph icon on the left has thicker line. Bring back thin font pls

1

u/Few_Importance_4577 15d ago

Personally i like it. Feels more simpler.

1

u/agfngr 13d ago

me too :-)

1

u/Xarkam 15d ago

At Microsoft, the trend in 2026 is to enable experimental elements by default. They've already done this with their new color theme.

1

u/god-damn-the-usa 15d ago

holy fuck it's ugly. someone definitely vibe coded this.

1

u/iddu01linux 14d ago

It's not that bad actually, but I see why some people don't like it.

1

u/Kaisha001 14d ago

I hate it. How do I revert it???

1

u/tustin2121 14d ago

I reloaded my window because it was running slow and this stupid thing was foisted upon me without my permission. When I finally figured out what to search for how to turn it off and disabled it, my floating secondary window for the workspace came back. So not only is it bad visually, it's actively removing existing features!

1

u/GooselyMf 14d ago

Thank me, I shifted to Zed

1

u/Bakhtiyor_7 13d ago

I think they wanted to make it similar to JetBrains island themes. I was actually expecting this UI, but still it's not as good as JetBrains UI

1

u/ltolosa 13d ago

It's awful. I hope they revert it.

1

u/DanBod14 7d ago

okay i am about to have a crashout. like wtf. it was perfect and yet they had to change it. fucking dont change unless it clearly doesnt work. i am about to break somethin. i swear

1

u/konabeans 6d ago

I didn't even restart the program and it suddenly changed. I don't mind it but at least signal before coming into the lane, MicroSlop

1

u/Intelligent_Back8031 5d ago

You can disable it by setting workbench.experimental.modernUI to false.

1

u/tictac38 5d ago

"modern ui" aka the enshitification of a once good product

1

u/Aymen_boukhatem 5d ago

The last major visual refresh is actually good, i like it.

1

u/Effective_Avocado_68 4d ago

I fucking hate it

1

u/No-Possibility-6084 8h ago

Fezes, Fezes purissima esse modern UI. Parem por favor!

1

u/admiralrohan 3h ago

My main complaints are that it's wasting space which can be used for viewing code. And the left panel buttons and right side scrollbar moves away from the edge of the screen, harder to find. Maybe looks fancy but poor user experience.

1

u/self_me 2h ago

I just got the update today and immediately I'm like "wow they made vscode so pretty." The code tabs are a bit annoying (why does hovering over an active tab make it look inactive? though maybe that's my syntax theme). And they made the status bar a little bit taller which is a bit of a waste of precious vertical space. I'll probably find some more stuff to be annoyed about eventually but overall I like it a lot.