Feedback Do we really need to show our real name on the top toolbar now?

In 2021.1 and before, we would just see "Account" drop-down button. Now on 2021.2 there's my real name as drop-down button to access the same menu.

I'm not a fan of this, is reusing the same workstation with different Unity accounts a common enough scenario so this is considered an improvement? Could there be some toggle for this?

I can imagine this becoming an issue for many content creators too if their real name has to be manually edited from the training materials etc.

 

Yes this is huge privacy issue, please disable this

People work on zoom a lot today, and they don't always want to show their real name online when screen sharing

The old way to just show account was fine

 

@LeonhardP Can you please ask the team to revert this change? Thanks

 

Whats the reason behind this? I really don't want to have such a thing also.

 

Thats a no no from me also. Please revert!

 

I can see why they changed this because if you have multiple users on the same workstation, it's not obvious at first glance which account you are signed into... but one could then also debate how many users are in a situation where you also reuse the same operation system user account on that workstation, or how many users even need hot swapping and would those user amounts be significant enough for this level change that will inevitably annoy the rest of the user base?

If the reason is for account identifying purposes, then I could imagine few alternatives to this:

- only show the account swapping thing if there's more than one license installed on the computer

- have a toggle on preferences for account swapping that would show/hide that button.. in fact, bring toggles for hiding ALL the other buttons on toolbar too, like cloud thing etc things that users may not use at all and just pollute the toolbar for no good reason

- just take the first letters of the name to ID the account, like you do in the Unity Hub (I'm personally not fond of this either and I manually edit the initial letters out of all Unity Hub screenshots I post online).

 

Alternative option: allow us to give nicknames for accounts so we display whatever helps us to identify the account and gives privacy for people who doesn't need this feature.

 

It uses the community name, I can change my forum name to change the displayed name, but I don't want to change my forum name for this. If there could be an custom display mame for just the editor then that would be good.

I would just call it "Account"
But if I change my community name to "Account" that would be strange

 

No, it does not. I can see my real name and I do not have that here.

It is incredibly useful to see which account I am logged in currently with just a glance, so I don't screw up things and open things with the wrong account. Maybe you don't like or find this feature useful, anyone, who, for example, does work for others and work for themselves with different licenses know that it worth it's size in gold.

 

What name does it use then?
Organization name perhaps

 

No, you have a "name" stored with your Unity Account. ( https://id.unity.com/ )

 

Maybe a checkbox in preferences would be best here for that then. I don't think this invalidates privacy concerns, but it sounds like there is a legitimate reason to want the option for this.

 

I need to disagree - this totally invades privacy concerns for all of us who make developer videos of any sort on any platform. In fact, next to nothing is to be gained from this feature, so I wonder why it was put in.

 

I need to disagree - not all of us make developer videos on any platform, and the person said it doesn't invalidate and that a checkbox would be good to have as an option. And yes there can be things to be gained from the feature as stated by other users who work in a workstation with multiple users such as RDP stations.

 

I understand your concern, but I also think, you shouldn't overreact. I know in our current environment it's hard, but let's try it.

This feature is useful and cool just plenty and I do not think there was any nefarious intention behind it. No one invaded your privacy, you are free to choose if and how you use an application. And this is in an early alpha, no invasion of anything.

 

Thanks, I was able to change the name, I had to sign out and sign back into unity to see the change, before when I changed it I just restarted unity and it did not change, thats why I was confused.

 

No offense meant here, just advising to steer clear of the extremism focusing on your own use-case. Someone above literally posted their reason for wanting it. You can argue they are in such a vast minority that it isn't in Unity's interest to even provide a checkbox ... but then again ... why on earth are we getting involved in a discussion like that? Improving someone's workflow without harming the other various types of workflows that exist amongst the massive user-base can only be a good thing, right? So lets focus on the part about it harming your workflow, and needing a different way of handling this in which both use-cases can co-exist productively?

I'm assuming it was just an honest accident where the post above wasn't noticed and you couldn't come up with a real use case, so you assumed it didnt exist. However, on the off chance that it was noticed and just ignored ... I'll be vocal that every single person's use case should be considered. Unity has a lot of people using it for their careers ... blanket statements tend to just ignore this.

 

Luckily, a Blur filter effect exists in major video software apps.

 

Live streaming a blur, yes it can be done
But I would just change the name in the account, thats what I did

 

A custom name for the editor would be even better, Initials don't tell me much

now it says "Account" I know what that means

if you change that to LS, I'm not so sure anymore what that means

 

I feel like it could just default to initials but still let us rename it after that. It would fix everyone's concerns. In general I'm not super happy about the initials but it's better than full name.

 

I was able to change my account name to something less personal ( company name )
For me personally the issue is already resolved.

 

I know we can just change the "full name" or whatever this tracks... but I'd assume it would be in Unity's best interests if people wouldn't try to spoof the name there just because they force the name in editor based on it..

 

I like this, its good to let the user know. Though shouldn't this kind of indicator be part of just the PM, as the need for someone to know would only happen in that context? From a UX standpoint it doesn't make sense why it needs to appear on the header of the editor (though I agree it should show up so that a user is aware of what a logged in account does). That'd might just also be dependent on whether the user knows if some packages are available depending on signins or not, people might ask "why is this here" so it could be a UX issue in this way too.

Indicating package/service visibilities could also be done by showing something similar to the "Experimental Packages In Use", but instead it'd show "Not signed in". But thank you for letting us know the motive behind it.

 

Probably because your signin also matters outside of the PackageManager like the unity cloud services etc

 

That's a great start and thank you for hearing us. The "next step" solution that satisfies all use cases / concerns presented here is to allow a user to upload a profile photo (or select from a variety of predetermined images) to show instead of the initials, Google and countless other services do this, and for these reasons:

1. An image is a much more helpful signifier / memetic than initials or a name string to distinguish between multiple accounts. The user doesn't even have to "read" it.. it's already recognizable in the user's periphery. It also removes the ambiguity if initials are the same between 2 accounts, while still taking up minimal screen / UI real estate and without requiring a menu invocation.
   
   
2. It eliminates the privacy issue that prompted this thread. The user knows what image goes with what account but if livestreaming or recording they don't have to worry about possible bad actors gaining personally identifying information.

Here's how this looks / works with a Google account in Chrome:

 

Just to add to the avatar idea: Just look at what Visual Studio does. It just shows an avatar (falling back to initials in a circle if not available), and just shows the full information on click and in the tooltip. When not signed in, I think it displays a generic button instead. Clicking on the generic button (or the avatar, for that matter) will open a popup that allows you to sign in / manage your account.

 

Yeah right, I want to manually go frame by frame in every timelapse to blur out private info on my screen.

Don't get me wrong, I have some privacy bars in place like for URLs and stuff, but Unity layouts wander a lot in my triple screen setup.

 

+1 for avatars, to be honest its a pretty standardized way of showing this sort of information and for the exact reasons outlined in this thread: privary, instant recognition compared to reading etc

Also if I saw a picture in the top corner of my avatar, I would know exactly what it is. Initials are not clear at all, and you can have two people with same initials in the same company on same workstations so it does not help the use case that apparently prompted this to be added in the first place.

 

I'm not a big fan of avatars inside an editor, In a startup screen its fine, or in a social media app, but why in an editor? where I want to focus on content and not be distracted by an avatar

 

Its literally a tiny picture in the corner, does it bother you in chrome also? They already outlined why its needed, so just trying to suggest a way that other apps do this.

There isnt going to be a solution that everyone "likes", but at least there will be a solution that doesnt put private information in public view, or create potential confusions between people with same initials.

Surely a tiny picture in the top corner cant interrupt your work, if so how do you get any work done?

 

The initial privacy problem can be solved by changing the displayed name.
Adding an icon is a new feature that is not directly related to the privacy issue.

And yes I can get annoyed by having icons drawing attention without immediate action required.
For example this blue one. (I will ignore it and get work done, but still its against consistent colour theming)

 

Why should I have to edit my unity profile in order to use the application without sensitive data being revealed? That just makes no sense. And all so that you dont get distracted by an icon? Sorry but that doesnt seem like a sensible product level request - it sounds like a personal one, which might be better for you but is not generalised across the rest of unity users.

If you are getting "distracted" by icons, then you really should look into some exercises to better control your attention, rather than try to change an entire product with millions of other users

 

All I'm advocating for is consistency

 

If you don't mind editing your profile, you can just change a hypothetical avatar to a singular colorblock in editor colors and have the least amount of distraction.

 

chrome has the initials as one of the available avatars. Unity can do the same thing.

(also the avatar in chrome is next to the extensions icons, there is no "consistent color theming" there by default)

 

You can also change the Engine you use, but that's not quite the problem discussed here, is it?

Chrome is a web browser. Avatars have no place in a game engine.

(actually they shouldn't even have a place in a web browser either, it's one of the reasons I don't use Chrome any more)

 

He literally said, if one is bothered by having their initials shown, one could edit their profile names - how is that any different to changing an avatar?

Your response is just arguing for arguments sake. Annoying.

 

There really is not a single valid argument for having my name being shown in the toolbar. Please remove it altogether by default and only allow an opt-in, i. e. show it when explictily specified. Not even my initials are of anyone's concern. Thank you.

ps: I was just about to write a bug post here on the forum with a screenshot and only noticed with this thread that my real name would have been shown in the toolbar, i didn't look at the screenshots that way. This is a serious invasion of my privacy.

 

The point is the initials is already kinda bad, and moving to avatars is moving in the wrong direction. Being able to work around that too doesn’t mean this isn’t making things worse.

Also, thanks, I find your response annoying too.

 

Any ETA for the change?

I'd still love to be able to hide the whole button, among with other buttons on the top bar I never use..

 

I installed a17 and my hereby username is displaying ; is that the fix you were mentioning or is this still to be fixed? I don't really mind my username displaying but I was surprised to see it.

 

not useful for me

 

A change to this feature should come this week in a18.
Sources:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/do-...-on-the-top-toolbar-now.1059713/#post-7147588
https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-2021-2-0-alpha-17-is-now-available.1059575/#post-7156891

 

awesome