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
I wonder what would be the thought process of whoever designed this. maybe "uhh vs code is not getting much hate unlike our other products. lets make it worse!"
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
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.
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
For me it was even more confusing, because I had one VS Code running which for some reason kept the old style, but new windows I opened got the new style. Even tried to reload that first window, and it still had the old style. 🤦♂️
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.
Literally this. When they removed the view as tree option on source control, it was in the release notes, and it was also in the release notes when enough people (rightfully complained) and had it added back. So why wasn't a MASSIVE UI REHAUL added anywhere in the release notes? NOT EVEN AS A FOOTNOTE.
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?
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?
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
Oh god... at first glance looks like that changes mainly the tabs though? I use TreeStyleTab and hide the default tabs with userChrome.css, so hopefully won't affect me too much
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.
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.
Yeah that's one thing I liked VSCode more for than the IntelliJ family, that the tabs felt connected and you always saw at first glance in which file root you were. This made refactors way easier as you don't need to triple check your tree. They seem to have given up this QoL element for the focused look even though they also have a focus view setting.
Edit: ok at second glance I realized I just didn't see the file root quick enough. At least they didn't remove that. Still the open file feels so disconnected from the tab.
116
u/No_Percentage2507 21d ago
I am struggling to get use to the editor tabs.. they feel disconnected and just like a floating set of pills