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Feedback Missing features in the new UI of Plastic SCM / Unity Version Control

Discussion in 'Unity Version Control' started by goranw, May 10, 2023.

  1. goranw

    goranw

    Joined:
    Aug 19, 2022
    Posts:
    3
    Hi! We've been using Plastic SCM (Team/Enterprise Edition, with an on-premises server) since 2015.

    Plastic SCM is now rebranded to "Unity (DevOps) Version Control" and lately, we've been still using the "legacy UI" since the "new UI" was missing important features from the old one. However, in one of the latest Plastic SCM updates the legacy UI was deprecated and removed entirely.

    The removal of the legacy UI is unfortunate from our perspective - while there are some great new features in the new UI, it's still missing many features from the legacy UI that were important to us:
    • In the new Mergetool, there are no keyboard shortcuts for resolving conflicts (i.e for toggling to keep/discard the lines from src/base/dst respectively).

    • In the Branches view, the "Tree view" option is missing, making a large hierarchical branch structure appear only as a (very long) flat list.

    • After restarting the GUI, and after switching between Workspaces, the following views do not remember which (Advanced) filter was last active: Changesets, Branches, Labels, Attributes and Code Reviews. (NOTE: We have our own Attribute filters that we always want to use by default, for Branches and Code Reviews.)

    • When switching between Workspaces (or restarting the GUI), the last active view in each workspace is not remembered - which makes for an unnecessary amount of clicking whenever we are jumping back and forth between a couple of repos (which we often do).

    • The display of branch@repo@server at the top, next to the workspace selector, does not include the full (hierarchical) branch name (except when hovering). That makes it harder to see full context at a glance.

    • In the Code Reviews list there is no longer any different color coding of lines, based on Code Review status: Under review / Rework required / Reviewed.

    • The new History view does not give the same at-a-glance overview as the old one, and the "History as 2D revision tree" view is missing entirely. See these posts:
      https://forum.plasticscm.com/topic/24022-history-is-the-one-thing-keeping-me-on-the-legacy-gui/
      https://forum.plasticscm.com/topic/23127-view-history-as-2d-revision-tree-is-missing/

    • Pending changes can no longer be viewed as a hierarchical file tree, only as a categorized list. See these posts:
      https://forum.plasticscm.com/topic/22834-pending-changes-view-as-tree-instead-of-list/
      https://forum.plasticscm.com/topic/23164-pending-changes-tree-view/

    • The Navigator / "minimap" option is missing from Branch Explorer - we find it valuable for overview and navigation.
    These were all great usability / workflow features that are now all of a sudden missing, since we can no longer access the legacy UI. Getting stuck on an old version is not really an option. We hope that re-implementing these missing features has a high prio on your roadmap.
     
  2. Wolfram

    Wolfram

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2010
    Posts:
    253
    Thanks for this post!
    Fully agree on essentially all points.

    Add to this important missing context menu entries, such as:
    • access to the "show history" for files in a comparison window (such as after double-clicking a changeset)
    • "show this changeset in the branch explorer" (as in, "switch to the branch explorer, and focus on that changeset") from essentially any element dealing with changesets (=history window, changesets list, and so on).
    And a really helpful feature that never even made it into the Legacy GUI, DESPITE the exact same functionality already being available in the "show history as 2D tree" feature:
    • show changeset numbers below the changeset dots in the branch explorer
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2023
    goranw likes this.
  3. gio-pro

    gio-pro

    Joined:
    May 10, 2023
    Posts:
    1
    I also greatly miss display options like visibility mode and relayout mode.
     
    goranw likes this.
  4. goranw

    goranw

    Joined:
    Aug 19, 2022
    Posts:
    3
    Also, there is no longer a keyboard shortcut (F5) for the "Refresh" button in all the main views.
     
    trooper likes this.
  5. goranw

    goranw

    Joined:
    Aug 19, 2022
    Posts:
    3
    Oops, the above point I made was actually invalid - I had missed the "Set as default query" button that is still present in the new UI, under Advanced - Query in these views. (Possibly I missed it because the default query did not seem to be carried over from the legacy UI to the new UI?)
     
  6. Ruchir

    Ruchir

    Joined:
    May 26, 2015
    Posts:
    927
    Any updates on this?
     
  7. trooper

    trooper

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2009
    Posts:
    746
    No more tabs
    It's graphically slow (network wise seems the same)
    I cant get the proxy server to work anymore either, I can't even find where to put the server address in the latest update :(

    Codice really pooped the bed when they went down the new UI route. Go back to the old interface and scrap this piece of crap.
     
  8. HeberSaiz

    HeberSaiz

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2020
    Posts:
    18
    Hey all!

    Thank you for the feedback.
    I already talked with @goranw about most of these issues and forwarded them to the PMs and Dev team.
    I will share this thread with them too, so feel free to add anything you need.

    On top of that, we have an option at the bottom of the cards in the public roadmap where you can submit those requests, aggregating them, so that they can be properly triaged and prioritized:
    https://unity.com/roadmap/devops
    upload_2023-5-22_12-45-3.png

    Best regards,
    Héber.
     
    goranw and Wolfram like this.
  9. Wolfram

    Wolfram

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2010
    Posts:
    253
    The randomly assigned user colors (as shown in the Profile, the History windows, etc.) are currently completely separate from the "old", manually configurable user colors that are stored in branchexplorerusercolors.conf:
    usercolors.png
    Also, many of these new "random" colors are completely identical, making it even less useful, and to my knowledge, these colors cannot be configured/adjusted.
     
    Marc-Saubion and goranw like this.
  10. Wolfram

    Wolfram

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2010
    Posts:
    253
    There is at least one very vital keyboard shortcut missing: currently there is no way to switch to the next/previous difference in the diff windows, except for using the mouse:
    upload_2023-5-22_16-41-28.png
     

    Attached Files:

    JakeShields and goranw like this.
  11. Wolfram

    Wolfram

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2010
    Posts:
    253
    All cross-links to show a specific changeset/item in the branch explorer are missing from the context menus, for example:
    • in the Changesets tab
    • in the Branches tab
    • in the Labels tab (this one is kinda important)
    • in any sub-window related to changesets (history, changesets-in-a-branch, ...)
    Currently, the only way to find such a changeset in the branch explorer is, to remember the changeset number, manually switch to the branch explorer, and then enter the changeset number in the quicksearch field (and then double-checking that the quicksearch actually landed on the correct changeset, and not on some other changeset that happens to pattern-match with the number in its name/comment/branch (or be forced to type an additional "cs:" in front of the number))...
     
    Marc-Saubion and goranw like this.
  12. Baene

    Baene

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2014
    Posts:
    6
    Hierarchical tree views pretty much everywhere are an absolute must. Please, the flat file list is killing me! We have a bunch of ignored files and every time I make changes, add files or packages, I have to turn on show ignored to make sure nothing I actually want is being ignored and It shows every single ignored file mixed in with the others, listed separately. It makes each checkin an absolute chore now that takes 100x longer than it used to.
     
  13. carlosalba1985

    carlosalba1985

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Jul 19, 2021
    Posts:
    862
    Thanks for your feedback. In your case, you are missing a tree view in the "Pending Changes" view of the Plastic GUI, right?
    Were you previously using the legacy GUI on Windows?