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Feedback General Feedback [Not Bugs]

Discussion in '2022.2 Beta' started by Deleted User, Apr 2, 2022.

  1. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    I get excited every time Unity releases a new major version, and the hype is real. However, there are a few Unity stuff if only lost, the engine will look and feel much neater and sweeter!

    - I have a few of them, but you can of course share yours as well ..


    Startup Design Logos

    Let's start with Unity's 2022 startup logo. If you are a seasoned Unity user, then you should know that Every Unity year version (2017, 2018 etc) had a unique startup design logo, here's an example:

    Unity_2017-2021_Startups.jpg



    However, Unity this year, it seems, will use its 2021 startup design logo for its 2022 year .. this will(including but not limited to):
    • Break the sequence
    • Feel Not Leveled-Up from 2021

    It might be a minor thing, you might say .. but I would argue it's Not .. because it's the first thing you see each time you open/create a project, so it reflects the 'feel' of Unity & its reputation.


    This should be the startup background design logo for 2022 (it's used in 2022.1 Alpha & 2022.2 Alpha):​

    Unity_2022_Startup.png


    Let's go to another station, shall we?


    UI Inconsistencies

    There are a bunch of annoying things you have to deal with when working inside of Unity Editor. Here are a few examples that Unity should lose:

    Top_White_Bar.png
    Top White Bar

    Probably the most immersion-breaking of them all. Seriously, Unity, you implemented the Dark Theme for your editor but forgot a chunk of it? You want my advice, Unity? Lose it. This bar should be consistent with dark theme, in other words, it should be also dark. Some of its problems:
    • Immersion-Breaking
    • Inconsistency with overall dark UI
    • Might be harsh for those who work in poorly-lit/dark rooms
    • It badly affects the representation of overall design of "Unity"


    - While still in the same context, here are some other inconsistencies:

    Culling_Mask_Menu.png
    Shows Compatible Design

    White_Menu_Background.png

    Failing To Replicate Compatible Design In Some Other Areas


    Yet another UI inconsistencies(I run out of allowed files limit, click here to view):

    - It shows white background menu in a dark-themed editor.

    Let's go to the next station ..


    Submenus & Toolbars

    I'll show you how scary and unorganised Unity can get in a big project.

    Take a look at this disorganised mess of ridiculously long submenu(click here):

    - And the surprise is? This is an empty project created in Unity 2022.2 Alpha .. I think you're starting to see the picture how it will look as the project grows!


    Here's an example how it can be organised and categorised(click here):

    - So instead of stacking(Scene, Scene template etc) on top of each other, you could create a category called, for example "Scenes", and you put all that jumble inside there.

    - The same goes with the other Red box, something like "Animation", and Ram everything inside.


    * The other issue I found with toolbars this time, is when you place a panel next to "Scene" panel(click here):

    Scene panel when gets tight(while having many toolbars attached), will make toolbars hidden & inaccessible ..

    - A quick solution to this while preserving the workspace layout, is how Blender did it, for example(click here):

    - With middle-mouse-click you can scroll side to side without sacrificing workspace layout. Unity should learn from this.

    And now to the fourth And final station:

    Icons' Resolution

    Some UI icons aren't/about the same resolutions as others, take a look at this(click here):

    - The Red represents low-resolution icons compared to the Blue high-resolution ones.


    And please, make this tiny Unity logo bigger. Unity will have its own Prestige and Majesty(click here).


    <<< This is just a quick and dirty general feedback for how Unity can improve going forward. Share your feedback if you have any. Let's make Unity shine and be glorious! >>>
     
    Thygrrr, Wattosan, Havokki and 17 others like this.
  2. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Indeed ...

    No top white bar for me because my os has a dark theme. If Windows doesn't have a dark theme, or if you cannot change that colour by yourself, I'm afraid Unity cannot help you. :)

    I'm on Linux Mint.

    Capture d’écran_2022-04-26_15-39-21.jpg

    No problem for me with the "Display ..." contextual menu either:

    Capture d’écran_2022-04-26_15-44-29.jpg
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 26, 2022
  3. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest


    Linux can do that??! :eek:

    I'm on Windows 11, and this is the closest I can get .. although it still has *some* white bar:

    Screenshot 2022-04-26 190208.png

    - To make this happen in Windows 11, you need to make "Accent Color" dark AND turn on that option:

    Screenshot 2022-04-26 190403.png


    And Even then, it's tricky to keep the turned on top-white-bar to black persistent .. when there's a tab selected on top, black bar turns white again:

    Screenshot 2022-04-26 190238.png


    I believe some kind of OS configuration can solve the problem .. but I'm afraid it's not always the case, APSchmidt. Take a look at Unreal Engine's interface, it's pitch-black (without the need to enable OS dark theme):

    Screenshot 2022-04-26 191608.png


    - And Unreal Engine isn't the only software that's completely dark .. GeForce Experience, Unity Hub 3.x, heck even Chrome can turn all-black, just to name a few. In other words, it IS a Unity problem.



    Just taking a glimpse at how sophisticated Unreal Engine 5's UI is, makes Unity look outdated and needs a redesign overhaul ;)
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited by a moderator: May 6, 2022
    DoctorShinobi likes this.
  4. zedz

    zedz

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    Aug 31, 2013
    Posts:
    245
    I do prefer Unities UI compared to Unreals, Unreal feels childish with these large icons etc.
    But one thing that is better in Unreal is the lack of titlebar. No need for something that 99.9% of the users will run fullscreen.

    Heres what I see at the top of my screen, so much wasted/empty space.

    Even on 1080p monitors, you could easily combine the titlebar and menu bar together.
    On 4k you could put all 3 into one line, OK I run 2160p @ 100% which is prolly a small minority, but theres no reason not to combine the 2 top lines into a single one, and give us back some more screen realestate
     
  5. Onigiri

    Onigiri

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    Aug 10, 2014
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    469
    +1 from me. Vs code is also a good example of this upload_2022-4-27_12-39-14.png
     
  6. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    I would like to have a minimize tab button
     
  7. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    And you would win what, 15/20 pixels in height? Never tried pressing F11?

    Capture d’écran_2022-04-27_13-57-07.jpg
     
    Deleted User likes this.
  8. zedz

    zedz

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    You gain 88,320 pixels on my system (I just counted)
    heres 88,209 pixels in an image

    FWIW F11 does nothing for me (also windows & shift & enter) .
    I have made it shift & space to display the game window fullscreen. But thats the game window, not the Unity App.
     
    Deleted User likes this.
  9. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Did you try Ctrl+F11 or Alt+F11?

    On Linux Mint it's Alt+F11 by default but I changed it to F11 only. And F11 not working on Windows is kinda weird...
     
  10. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Nope, it doesn't work. Maybe it's another Linux functionality! :eek:


    And besides, it's just a workaround for the issue, and not solving the core .. Unity has to be "Unity" just like their Hub, right?

    Screenshot 2022-04-27 185828.png

    All OS dark theme functionalities "disabled"​
     
  11. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    F11 has been there forever on Windows... Try it on another window, explorer or else; if it works, you can file a bug report for Unity. :)
     
  12. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Yeah, well, I meant it doesn't work on softwares (such as Unity), but weirdly enough works on others (like Chrome browser). Sorry for the confusion :D
     
  13. print_helloworld

    print_helloworld

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    I just wanna point that you guys arent asking for things that the devs could even tackle in an alpha phase (replacing the system menu bar with a custom one). The new dark option popup as a replacement for system option popup is an exception tho, those I could see being replaced in time
     
  14. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Nope, it's actually about the alpha specifically. If we have feedback for future Unity, where would we go? No place but the forums, and the latest Unity version.
     
  15. AcidArrow

    AcidArrow

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    11,631
    I like getting out on the balcony in the middle of the night and screaming into the void, it's about as effective as any other method, but a lot more gratifying.
     
    NotaNaN likes this.
  16. zedz

    zedz

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    What?
    The Alpha phase is the perfect place to debut it, you dont want to add it later, eg beta, final release.
    Maybe you got confused with alpha/beta.
    Yes in windows F11 works for some programs eg firefox, explorer but not for Unity, spotify.
    My photoshop CS6 from 2012, removed the menu bar, A whole 10 years ago.
    I forget when unreal engine removed it, but it was years ago.

    What purpose does having the title have in an program that you use often?
    Am I gonna get amnesia and forget this program is called unity? :D
    Just have that info in the about unity box, accesable from help
     
    MousePods and Deleted User like this.
  17. Bordeaux_Fox

    Bordeaux_Fox

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    If you have done some WIn32 development before, you would know, that Unity is using legacy Win32 toolbar aka CommonControls. As stupid as it sounds, but believe me, there is still no support for having ALL classic Win32 controls in a proper Dark Theme offically supported by Microsoft. I guess Unity wants to keep the native toolbar but right now there is no way of having a native dark themed toolbar because there is no included in Windows 10/11.
    You can check this out yourself if you build a hello world Win32 GUI app in Visual Studio and try to set the Dark Theme. You will get a dark title bar (DWMWA_USE_IMMERSIVE_DARK_MODE = 20), even dark popup menus and with some ugly Win32 hacks a "Dark Explorer Theme" but only for controls Microsoft needed for the dark themed Windows Explorer. Long story: No offical Win32 toolbar with dark colors.

    Here is an official discussion on Microsoft: https://github.com/microsoft/WindowsAppSDK/issues/41
    You can cleary see that there is still no 100% support of all legacy controls. Sure, Unity could switch to WinUI 3 to get proper dark theme for all native controls. But I doubt they will do this considering the huge code base of Unity. Also WinUI 3 is far to big spaced and casual for a game engine UI.

    Another way would be doing a complete custom toolbar but than some user would complain Unity is not behaving "native" on Windows. I would say a lot of popular apps going the complete custom UI route because Microsofts is failing to deliver proper Dark mode implementation. Some devs trying to use Windows API hooks and other hacks to inject some dark colors. But mostly this looks also bad.

    The funny thing is, for Unity HUB dark mode, they "faked" the windows caption aka titlebar.
    Sure it looks like the classic Windows titlebar for most users. But if you look closely, you will notice is has not the same hover colors and is lacking the default yellowish tooltips for the caption buttons.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2022
  18. runner78

    runner78

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    Unity uses their own UI system, so it shouldn't be that big a problem either to switch to Win UI 3, or replace the default toolbar. If I remember correctly, if you want to have a classic WPF application with dark mode, you also have to reimplement the toolbar yourself.
     
    print_helloworld likes this.
  19. Bordeaux_Fox

    Bordeaux_Fox

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    Like I said, Unity is using the legacy the classic Win32 controls atleast for the main toolbar/menubar and the popup menus. Compare it with the Windows Notepad or VLC, is looks the same.
    Unity is having like ages their custom UI, but always kept the native one for the components mentioned above. So my guess it they want to keep them. Right know, they could enable proper offical dark mode for the windows caption bar and the popup menus. The dark mode API for the windows caption is officially supported by Microsoft from Windows 11 on (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/dwmapi/nf-dwmapi-dwmsetwindowattribu.

    From the discussion on GitHub mentioned above:
    Windows 11 (Version 10.0.22000.0) preview SDK
    DWMWA_USE_IMMERSIVE_DARK_MODE = 20, // [set] BOOL, Allows a window to either use the accent color, or dark, according to the user Color Mode preferences.


    The dark mode popup menues requires to enable the "secret" unofficially Dark Mode Explorer theme with some dirty hacks like extracting some functions from Microsoft UX DLLs, which could break every version because it is not supported official.

    So the only proper route for Unity would be to implement the toolbars and popup menus themselves. WinUI3 does not really match with cross plattform design of the editor.

    So all in all, I do not really blame Unity for this because if you look on Unity for other OS they all deliver proper dark mode for the native controls. It's just Microsoft fault not having finished a completed Dark Mode for WIn32 GUI. And they probably never will because then they would have already shipped it with the beginning of Windows 11. :p
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2022
  20. print_helloworld

    print_helloworld

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    Nov 14, 2016
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    I agree.

    having the toolbar be a in editor implemented menubar with uitk would be awesome, and a win-win for everybody (hopefully)
     
  21. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Oh, hey! Don't forget also to clean this mess:

    Screenshot 2022-06-23 075131.png


    -
    You could categorize: Light Layer, Decal Layer and Unused into 3 categories that lead to 3 submenus. Like this:

    Nothing
    Everything
    Light Layer > Submenu
    Decal Layer > Submenu
    Unused > Submenu


    > I bet Unity Technologies needs to hire a UX Designer for its Engine. :p
     
  22. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    3,521
    a separate panel for this and not a dropdown would already make it so much better
     
  23. JoNax97

    JoNax97

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2016
    Posts:
    611
    This isn't really a solution to the underlying problem of mixing layers for different concerns (btw, that's being solved in new packages, both Unity/Havok physics and URP/HDRP define their own layer systems).

    Anyways, I digress. What I wanted to say is that you can add a forward slash / to the names of your layers and they should be grouped together into submenus, like a folder structure