When will we see a modern Unity?

Unity Engine
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In 2019, Unity’s interface was redesigned to make it more… modern: Unity Blog
I was happy to see the promise of a more user-friendly interface and especially (because we need it) much more ergonomic, but where are these works? Where is this Unity that they wanted to sell me in 2019, with for example this image (which you can find in the article sent above):

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Being on Windows 11, I still have this horrible and repulsive white bar against the editor’s dark theme. It no longer matches at all with all the other software (even Unity Hub, where we only launch a project, has been redesigned to have the design it has today, which is more modern and user-friendly), the Unity logo is all beautiful and has evolved a lot, but once in the editor we are left with a repulsive tool.

It keeps a certain charm, it’s true, but having a friend who finished his studies in design, he quickly brought me back to the reality that Unity is far behind Unreal or even Godot in terms of interface and especially ergonomics…
Dare to tell me that the image presented above, although it was only a “concept”, is not 100 times better than the interface we have today?
Doesn’t it make you want it? Well, that’s from 2019!

I agree that this is not the most important thing in a game engine… Pfff YES!
Oh yes, it is the most important thing and that’s even why all other engines or software of all kinds keeps their interface as modern as possible, so why is Unity so behind?

Give me a reason or a demonstration of the progress on a redesign of the interface to make especially new and old users more comfortable in this great game engine that is Unity. please…

Edit:
I just saw this, a promised interface but not present when we want to install Unity, available on this page : Real-Time 3D Development Platform & Editor| Unity

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No

on Linux.

Anyway, what would you call “modern”?

The only grudge I have with the latest alpha is the size of the editor’s font, too small for my poor eyes…

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I think most people care more about reasonable domain reload times right now.

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As I said, it has its charm, but it only needs to be compared to another editor to see that there is a difference in style and above all, what I reproach it the most: ergonomics.

And it’s simply by seeing what was proposed as a concept and what is literally sold (as the image is (as I showed) presented when installing the editor) that I become sad to see what Unity’s interface is today.

And yes, only Windows suffers from the unpleasant white bar…

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Isn’t this part of the UX? It’s one of the most urgent problems in the user experience, but for me, it’s also part of the modernity that Unity needs to bring, so I agree that we should linger on this, but then what?

How long will we have to wait for the promises of this conceptual interface, which personally I have been waiting for since 2019.

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I mean it’s in the works. But requires unwinding a decade of technical debt with the mono framework. So it won’t happen overnight.

Same with the UI, there’s a lot of work going on with UI Toolkit, but there’s a decade of debt with IMGUI that can’t be undone overnight.

Of course there is the option for Unity to just start the engine anew, but that has other downsides.

And of course you have those who whine about change. :u

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People don’t dislike change, as long as it goes their way. Problem is that everyone has “their” way. Unity still has to find the perfect compromise, The Editor that will please everyone.
Will never happen.

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Can’t you avoid that one by setting the editor full screen (F11)?

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The debt is real! Unfortunately. Yet, over the past years there have been iterative improvements, including under the hood tech changes like switching the editor from IMGUI to (entirely?) UI Toolkit based. Not sure about entirely as there may still be parts wrapped in IMGUI.

There is another sort of debt that‘s less sexy but all the more important IMO: the scripting API.

Take the AssetDatabase for example - a single static class that has 100 methods, often ambiguously named (what is a valid folder??? what does ‚refresh‘ do? and when do you need to call it?), not consistently implemented (parameters, return types, behaviour / side effects), and they are spread over 13 conceptually different categories (bundles, dependencies, labels, subassets, file i/o, paths, status, database, cache server, version control, importer, packages, and the last one i can‘t remember).

So I redesigned the AssetDatabase: GitHub - CodeSmile-0000011110110111/de.codesmile.assetdatabase: Unity's AssetDatabase in enjoyable, consistent, concise, convenient, comprehensible, safe, documented form.
(pending Asset Store review)

Going forward, I‘ll keep redesigning every of these 20-year old APIs that just add to our mental overload.
IMGUI event handling and handles is something I started, but I can only deal with it every so often, it‘s just so extremely depressing and frustrating to work with and this goes for editor tool scripting in general.

In such instances I need to switch over to work on something more constructive, like game mechanics.

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Yes, and seeing this, I thought I would see a change in the editor or allow users to modify all this, but I didn’t find anything conclusive (after that it would only affect the style and not essential additions to ergonomics)

No, the only way is to add a dark theme (not secure and unofficial) to Windows, to simply have Unity in full dark Oo

U5 made this change and it was very well received, as it improves the user experience and is still very customizable. Not everything will please, but I remain convinced that the interface can only be improved and I am sad to see that it is taking far too long…

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I think I really enjoyed that! :slight_smile:

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The UI is pretty customisable. Though there is a lot that is annoyingly internal, but I’ve generally always been able to make a modification to suit me.

And to be clear. No one is against what you’re saying. It’s just going to be a while as Unity has built a lot of debt.

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Looks like it’s a Windows thing then, there’s nothing Unity can do about it.
If I recall correctly, Windows XP allowed you to change the colour of that bar and Windows 7 allowed you to switch to XP’s interface. Windows is cruel to its users. :wink:

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Happy to hear that! :slight_smile:

I fixed the broken script reference links and completely updated the readme with more examples in the meantime.

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Yes and no, it might be related to the problem of moving away from Mono, as only old applications face this issue. So unfortunately… We have to wait for 10 years :confused:

It’s worth noting that until recently, the context menu was also in white, less bothersome because it’s rarely displayed. They then replaced it with a dark context menu by creating it themselves.
For this white bar, the most efficient solution is to make its internal content part of the editor (as Unreal or Godot does).

So it might be a problem with older versions of Windows that are still kept today to avoid compatibility issues and prevent, for example, Unity from becoming obsolete because it hasn’t yet moved away from Mono.

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I’m coming back to the initial conceptual image that Unity provided us in 2019. The solution for this white bar is that it should be directly integrated into Unity. I don’t understand why it’s taking so long, especially when there was a concept that worked back in 2019 (without making Unity too different from what we have now). Why, at the end of 2023, is it still not implemented?

Especially since I’m repeating myself, but they like the idea because they use it on this page :

It’s literally turning into misleading advertising…

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I’m not sure what’s missing in your opinion. That page more or less looks like this:
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And this screenshot was taken in the latest 2023 version.

It has nothing to do with Mono. And BTW, they are working on moving away from Mono, but the light colored menu bar is not a problem connected to this in any way.

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Where is it said that the image was taken from a Windows installation?

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Perhaps the horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen? With a very recognizable logo…
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That’s what’s in the original image, and aside from that and some hidden elements, everything else is identical (so I’m certain that they based it on the conceptual image given in 2019).

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In that case, I guess Unity has more urgent priorities and you’ll have to wait another decade. Or more. :wink: