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Dear JetBrains, Don't mess with your UI

neil.computer

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Re: Dear JetBrains, Don't mess with your UI

#311

Post by bmacho »

mcluck wrote: post #274
matsemann wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

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

> It's rather offensive to assume that a group of UX professionals decided to take on a massive overhaul just for fun.

I suppose it is human nature to randomly change things (see the other submission about gardening (continuous small changes are different from big changes time to time, still equally annoying)), also a result of the free market, there are too many UX people for coming up new products and make them final.

I bet if architects could change the buildings in minutes and for free, now we all lived in constantly changing (but obviously not improving) buildings.

Re: Dear JetBrains, Don't mess with your UI

#312

Post by favadi »

yellow_lead wrote: post #152
faizshah wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, the only refresh that I feel is genuinely bad is reddit. The problem with new reddit is that the usage pattern is totally different. Old reddit can be rapidly browsed and only the posts that interest you are the ones that you give attention, in new reddit posts can’t be rapidly browsed and each one is supposed to grab your attention (in my opinion).

The fact that reddit still has old.reddit.com available is a testament to the failure of the new design.

IMO, it is not that the old reddit UI is very good, but the new reddit is just terrible.

I wonder how many percent of users are sticking with the old UI.

Re: Dear JetBrains, Don't mess with your UI

#313

Post by Retric »

bornfreddy wrote: post #304
jdbernard wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 uniq…

> For example, Linus' insistence that kernel developers "don't break userspace." Wait, what? Is that meant as a counterexample?

He wouldn’t say it so often if developers didn’t break userspace.

Re: Dear JetBrains, Don't mess with your UI

#314

Post by bmacho »

hsn915 wrote: post #89
faizshah wrote: post #52

Eh, I have used vim, spacemacs, sublime, vscode, atom, eclipse and netbeans. Jetbrains IDEs have superior functionality out of the box across languages and don’t require me to mess with and debug a million plugins. I don’t mind a UI refresh, it’s going to be just like the gmail refresh everyone hated it and now we’re all fine with it. I just wish they would invest more money into things that are actually a problem cu…

> I don’t mind a UI refresh, it’s going to be just like the gmail refresh everyone hated it and now we’re all fine with it. We are not fine with it. It really sucks. It's just out of our hands. To this day I hate the gmail interface. It used to be so much better back in the day.

Which previous?

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/

Still points to the "basic HTML" version, which is at least faster than the standard one. (I use it, and I'll keep using it, until I can, I guess.) https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049

Re: Dear JetBrains, Don't mess with your UI

#315

Post by bornfreddy »

jdbernard wrote: post #290
selfhoster11 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that parent’s point was that debugging is an exceedingly powerful tool, and therefore leaving it out of your toolset by definition makes you less powerful as a programmer. It’s not even such an esoteric skill - operating the simplest kind of a GUI debugger is maybe learning 5-6 different actions, and the IDE often takes care of the details of setting up the debugger for you.

I don't know that I'm convinced of that point though. I've been developing software professionally for almost 20 years and my usage and reliance on a debugger has decreased over time. At the moment, I think it's been probably three months since I've last used one.

This. I used to use debugger all the time as a more junior dev, but I haven't used one in years now. Also, over time I spend more and more time writing tests. When there's a problem a simple print, echo, console.log or whatever is usually enough to solve it quickly.

The problem that debuggers solve is simply not a big problem anymore, in my experience. Definitely not worth the setup hassle when actively working on multiple platforms.

Re: Dear JetBrains, Don't mess with your UI

#316

Post by noizz »

jenscow wrote: post #302

I've actually used the new UI, on Rider and WebStorm on Linux. It's not bad, and majority of changes make it more usable. When I go back to an older install, I prefer the new UI. - Increased margins/padding: At first, I thought it was a waste of space - but things are now easier to click on. I realised this when loading an older version on another machine. I'd still like to be able to tweak this - the document tabs a…

Can you split vertical panels? Like project files on top half and terminal on the other half? I haven't found this option on early previews and haven't had a chance to play with it again.

Re: Dear JetBrains, Don't mess with your UI

#317

Post by p2detar »

matsemann wrote: post #242
SebastianKra wrote: post #232

> - 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…

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 ?

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.

Re: Dear JetBrains, Don't mess with your UI

#318

Post by giancarlostoro »

faizshah wrote: post #52

Eh, I have used vim, spacemacs, sublime, vscode, atom, eclipse and netbeans. Jetbrains IDEs have superior functionality out of the box across languages and don’t require me to mess with and debug a million plugins. I don’t mind a UI refresh, it’s going to be just like the gmail refresh everyone hated it and now we’re all fine with it. I just wish they would invest more money into things that are actually a problem cu…

I am on the same page as you. I also have tried spacemacs, but it either installs or doesn't depending on what OS I'm on. I secretly wish someone would make a bundled installer for it for Windows so I dont have to figure out the terminal incantations to make it work on Windows. I've also managed to mess up the initial setup on Linux too.

Re: Dear JetBrains, Don't mess with your UI

#319

Post by andrepd »

yellow_lead wrote: post #152
faizshah wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, the only refresh that I feel is genuinely bad is reddit. The problem with new reddit is that the usage pattern is totally different. Old reddit can be rapidly browsed and only the posts that interest you are the ones that you give attention, in new reddit posts can’t be rapidly browsed and each one is supposed to grab your attention (in my opinion).

The fact that reddit still has old.reddit.com available is a testament to the failure of the new design.

Heck I still use i.reddit.com on mobile!

Re: Dear JetBrains, Don't mess with your UI

#320

Post by sirwhinesalot »

I've been looking for a reason to leave the comfort of JetBrains tools for VSCode, and this might be it.

I don't have a particularly strong opinion about the new UI, other than that it looks way too much like VSCode and way too little like the current one.

The main reason I use JetBrains stuff is that I'm familiar with the interface, it's messy but I know where to find all I need. VSCode is unusable without writing json config files and dropping into a terminal.

I always wonder why the keyboard jockeys are using IDEs at all instead of Vim. Why even use the Vim plugin instead of Vim? If optimal keyboard usage is your goal, Vim is all you need and want, it is the king.

Me? I like being able to open the IDE preferences and see the configurations for all the testing, virtual environment, or whatever crap I need to have set up to do my work. Typing text is easy, dealing with bullshit configs is the annoying part.

They've come into my messy table and threw all the papers into the ground. If I need to sort them all again I might as well not pay them for the privilege.

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