Feedback 2023.1 Beta 2 - Window's title bars look pretty bad

This looks pretty bad, especially with dark theme:

Unity 2021:



Speaking of the way that 2021 sub-windows are shown, it should also be used for main editor. A bit like in unreal, there's no title bar at all.
Left side:

Right side:

This fixes issue with white top/menu bar.

 

Here's also Unreal sub-window:


As compared to 2021 it can be properly moved around and snapped to screen edges.
Comparing to 2023: title bar is black, tab is in title bar to remove empty space.

----------------
TO THE POST BELOW THESE ARE ALSO NATIVE

 

Whether the bars look bad is debatable. But they are definitely useful.
I think it's a style vs functionality thing, and and for me personally, functionality is way more important.
Finally we get some nativeness for windows OS. Things like windows snap to screen and such.
Think it is worth the the loss of beauty.

 

If doing it like this the bar should be dark when dark skin is enabled.
The fact that the title is shown twice is also pretty bad

 

How are they more useful than Unreal bars that are also native but tab is placed correctly? Snap works as I said.
Look on your web browser bar, there's also no title...

 

Never said that they are more useful than Unreals, but happy to see some changes in the right direction

 

lol when i see it the other day first time i think it was a bug and was hoping it would be fixed in future.

for me when trying to drag a window i keep selecting on to the dark bars as that is muscle memory
i agree with @Lars-Steenhoff above it should have been dark in dark mode.

 

In my opinion, this looks quite bad. I was hoping it is actually a bug.
While I see a small benefit of being able to minimize it, please consider adding an option to disable it.

 

how to remove it?

now each window, with that duplicated extra titlebar also shows up in windows task bar,
have fun alt tabbing or clicking correct one..?



just curious,
how many errors or bug reports there have been, related to the old title bar code, where windows had separate code parts?

*compiled list of issues:
- Bad UX/UI (duplicated title bar, it looks like modal dialog)
- They clutter Windows TaskBar (for no useful reason?)
- Combined with the other wont fix/3rd party issue, those additional window title texts have microscopic font https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...a-higher-value-and-windows-scaling-is-changed

 

Hi, to be honest I prefer this jarring inconsistency instead of it being white.
Can't you simply draw menubar with Unity UI instead of system?

Krita, win10:

 

Rider:


Visual:


Looks like it's very possible on Win10, I don't understand how Unity doesn't have enough resources to improve it...

 

Since I have a custom dark theme on window 10 / 11, with this Unity update. the title bars all now finally respect what the OS / Windows theme and it looks beautiful.

The titlebars being white for a lot of people is a problem with Windows and windows settings. you can easily set dark active title bars system wide but inactive title bars are still white. This can be worked around with registry hacks and/or custom Windows user style themes. Again, all a Microsoft / Windows problem, not a Unity problem. all the apps that workaround this and override the native title bars completely with completely custom UI to hide this Windows UI limitation creates an even worse problem of massive inconsistency in UI since now everyone is rolling their own title bars in a slightly different way. It's a mess. But know that the blame is squarely on Microsoft first and foremost. There are some new APIs like Win UI 3 that microsoft just released that will finally help developers like Unity deal with this in the long run but it's not trivial, an uphill battle. this recent Unity update is a step in the right direction towards that in any case.

 

??
Title bars respect OS theme since 2021. Menu bar doesn't.

If every app is able to workaround this then Unity should too. Makes no sense saying "oh let's wait for Microsoft 10 years until they maybe fix it".

 

Here's Godot 4, drawing custom menu bar instead of relying on OS like I mentioned before:

 

personally, i prefer it this way compared to where it was previously

 

Huh... There are more people here who actually like the new title bars than I thought there would be. I thought it was a bug until I checked the patch notes and read it in the "Release Notes" rather than the "Known Issues" section.

> "Editor: Changed to title bars on Windows for editor. Improving upon the existing title bar feature by adding to it."

What does it mean when it says "Improving upon the existing title bar feature by adding to it"? It's not very descript.

Personally, I despise the change. I cannot see why others find this preferable, especially when it means that the name of the Window is duplicated right next to it. However, I respect that it's possible to have a differing opinion.

If this is the final version of what this new title bar is supposed to look like, I don't think this is the solution for native controls that we've been looking for. This is lazy. Is it progress? I'm not sure. But.. it's lazy.

 

While the title bars look much worse than before on Windows 10, I still prefer them this way.

They are somewhat native windows now and behave exactly as they should: dock/tile on screen edges, maximize when dragging them on screen top, spawn as own sub-window in the task bar and so on.

It was always like this in the Linux editor, and now the 2023.1 windows behave exactly the same on Ubuntu 22.04 and Windows 10. Unifying it and making everything native to the OS is definitely the right decision in my opinion.

 

Very lazy and cheap feeling implementation of a good feature. I also thought it was a bug at first. Really should be done like either Unreal or every cross-platform app listed in this thread. Pretty surprised a dev came in to cosign this decision as intended, but happy for the communication.

Also, i would love to be able to have windows go to the background and also have the option to pin them so certain windows are always in-front. Things can get pretty cluttered when every single window is stacked over the main Unity window

 

Good to experiment with making it better, but I would keep both ways possible in preferences, until the new one is clearly better for everyone.

 

I imagine if you use icon-only view this is going to be even more amazing? Godot now has windows that can work with freaking android "natively" and not differ in looks, but unity with their millions of budget can't keep separate code path. Boo hoo

Can't blame people who have no idea how their software is actually being used tho

 

Unreal is open source and Unity couldn't even take a peek at how Unreal did their titlebars and mabye copy Unreal's homework for once.

 

please consult the internet first

 

The Source Code is there for you to view and change. Right in the launcher options.

 

Unity only needs to see how it works and get an idea how it was developed. Not actually use their code.

 

Unreal is source available, and not under an open source license. You can't just copy code out and use it for something else.

 

Your post here is a very long way of saying "we made Unity look incredibly ugly on PC because it's easier for us". Don't do that! If you're telling me that you find this picture a picture of a shippable product:



... I can't even begin? Take a step back and look at the screen.

Did you look?

It's staggeringly ugly. You can't, with seriousness, say that this is something you want to ship.

 

I think the functionality is quite useful, it's just the looks of it. How about moving the control buttons back to the unity window title bar, remove the extra bar, but keep the functionality?

 

I agree that the look at the right now isn't ideal especially all the windows cluttering my startup bar.

But.

Unity probably has more important features to fix, and I do hope this feedback do not delay or move the attention from the core engine bug fixing...

 

now that i've used it few times, can get used to that bigger title bar..

but try to find some solution for these duplicated titlebars..


and option to disable those taskbar windows would be nice.

 

Why not just remove the tab and make the preferences menu a regular dialog box because as far as I know, noone in their right mind would dock the preferences window.

 

Dunno why everyone get white titlebar in dark theme.

 

That is most likely because your OS theme is also dark, whereas for most others it is not.

 

Thats true. I've changed theme to light, restarted unity and it's still have dark titlebar. Maybe i need to restart PC or it's because i'm on Win 11?

 

Is main Unity window (not focused window) also dark?

I have dark OS on win10, not focused window title is light, menu bar is light.

 

The main unity window is always light as they said they made it so because menubar is always light

 

No, on win10 it's dark when active.


Thank god they didn't "fix" it there.

 

Uh, I pretty much permanently have both Preferences and Project Settings docked.

 

Same here. Docking the preferences, project settings, and package manager to the main editor window is an absolutely GOATed layout for my workflows. I'm in there constantly. that said, that's why the Unity editor layout is customizable, to tailor to many different workflows and use cases and I can understand it being in the way for other users.

I am also very often undocking inspectors and larger graphical editor panels and placing them on a secondary monitor, in which case this update is a huge improvement in accessibility as the windows OS finally recognizes these child windows in snap layouts and powertoys fancyzones layouts, etc.

These cosmetic issues on Windows 10 are quite minor in comparison and can be remedied easily on active title bars and even on inactive title bars with a registry editor or custom theming tools. The lack of a UI for this setting is a Microsoft issue at the core, not a Unity issue.

An issue which Microsoft fixed in Windows 11, which you can upgrade to for free. Also worth mentioning that Windows 10 reached end of sale last month. So, while I don't agree with Microsoft's lack of attention to Windows 10, it's just the harsh reality and don't expect this to be addressed as people can upgrade to 11 to resolve this. Or if someone wants or must stay on Windows 10 in the meantime for some reason, they can use the inactive title bar registry edits, or custom theming tools to extend Windows 10's features / life, all freely available. MacOS and Linux are options for some as well.

Just because other software devs spent resources on custom title bars in the Windows 10 days, Unity devs don't owe anyone some 100% custom title bar drawing to appease die hard users of a sunset operating system version that has workarounds available. (if this was an issue with Windows 11 I wouldn't be giving Unity a free pass on it however, and they still need to fix the main editor window menu bar in dark mode, though I personally use a custom theme to workaround this. But that's off topic (this thread is about title bars) --there's already a few threads about the dark mode menu bar and Unity devs have a plan to address it.)

I hope that clarifies the situation, have a great weekend everyone!

 

It's still Unity issue.

It's not sunsetting operating system anytime soon: "Microsoft will continue to support at least one Windows 10 release until October 14, 2025."

Small stuff like this quickly add up and make people change the engine. Looks like most Unity employees don't really care and I'm not even surprised.

I hope that clarifies the situation, have a great weekend everyone!

 

For me , tool is a tool , and cosmetic look isn't very important as I can get used to it as long as my productivity isn't harmed or improved.

Having worked with 2023.1 beta for several weeks now and I don't really care about "white" or "black" side of bars but I do care about the following situation :



My task bar is getting filled up with multiple Unity related sub windows. I know I can generally all collapse them under a group using Windows setting, but then I don't want to globally apply that since I do want some other application to have multiple window showing such as my explorer.

I am not saying this is bad for all of us, as I am sure there must be someone who likes this set up, but I am pointing out that this can be a problem if there are many of them.. to the degree where you won't be able to recognize what each windows is for...

 

Biggest issue for me is that the compilation progress bar appears as a window in taskbar,
it steals Alt+Tab when coming back from VS. (Press Save in VS, Press Alt Tab to go back to unity, Progress bar jumps into task bar and steals your alt tab, so you are left to VS, need to press Alt Tab again 2-3 times..)

once i start using recent versions more, it feels so annoying that have to start looking for
some 3rd party hack/autoIT script to hide that popup window taskbar : (

* Looks like someone has reported this,
https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...in-the-background-and-script-changes-are-made

** too bad cannot login to vote : /

 

Oh yeah this too.

 

I am using 2023.1 for quite a while now for a new project and I still cannot get used to having duplicate title bars on the windows. This is so different to how all other apps behave that I know and since I spend most of my day in Unity this really makes me feel a bit painful. It is just so ugly (personal opinion). At the least I would appreciate an option to deactivate the additional title bar. I don't personally need Min/Max/Screen-Dock for any Unity dialogs except for the main Unity window.

 

I dock the Preferences, Project Settings, Build Settings, and other utilities onto their own secondary window. It's very useful.

 

To be entirely honest, Kevin, while I definitely agree that non-constructive/combatative feedback is not helpful in the slightest, your initial post very much did make this sound like this change is a foregone conclusion.

 

Oh no.



Oh F*** no.

Not only is it a change that makes Unity look worse, it's also a change that makes us less productive! You just broke the usability of alt+tab, thank you so much.

@KevinWelton, I cannot stress this enough - a program should only, ever, have one window with regards to alt+tab.
I constantly alt+tab between Unity and Rider. I also change which of Unity's sub-windows have focus. This change means that if I alt+tab to Unity, and then press play, alt+tab doesn't bring me back to Rider, since now the focus has jumped from the Unity window with the scene view to the Unity window with the game view.

This is a monumental regression! I don't understand what kind of advantages this is supposed to have. Were you trying to solve any problems whatsoever for the end users with this?

If I'm coming off as crass, believe me I'm toning it down. We're probably using Unity for at least one more multi-year project, and changes that will make the core feel of interacting with my computer feel worse than it does now makes me kinda furious, tbh. You're making a change that will make my day feel worse every 30 seconds or so. That is S***ty. Please don't.

 

added link to my earlier post, someone has reported that alt tab issue, so sounds like its considered as a bug?