Addressing the New UI Comments

Dmitry Jemerov

Last week, we announced a preview program for the new UI that we’re working on for IntelliJ-based IDEs. We’ve received an overwhelming number of comments, and we can’t reply to each one individually, so we’d like to address some of the most common concerns.

Before announcing the preview program, we ran an extensive dogfooding program inside JetBrains as well as usability tests with external users. Overall, we got a very positive reception, and the initial feedback from the private preview program matches that.

We do hear your concerns, however, and we want to emphasize that it’s not our goal to change the essence of IntelliJ IDEA as a power tool. The IntelliJ IDEA you know and love will still be there, and no one is going to take it away from you.

We’d also like to reiterate that we’re doing a gradual, feedback-driven rollout of the new UI. The current UI will remain available for at least two years, and we’re not going to remove it until we’ve seen that the vast majority of our users have successfully made the switch to the new UI. Also, very few of the design decisions you see now in the new UI are final, and we’re open to revisiting them based on your feedback.

The new UI will remain customizable. It is, and will be, possible to change many aspects of the look and feel, such as icons, colors, font sizes, and spacing between controls through theme plugins. We’ll add options as needed to accommodate user preferences, like the ability to customize the toolbar.

The preview program for the new UI is currently closed; everyone who applied has either already received an invitation link or will receive one very soon. We plan to open the new UI to all EAP users in the 2022.3 EAP cycle.

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