When will new Unity UI be available?

I really look forward to it.

 

About 3-4 years ago.

 

It's not out yet.
Unity engineers showed new UI editor in Berlin. I wonder when it will come out.

 

zombiegorilla sometimes I think you are a worse poster than I am.

 

I think that he is asking about the new unity editor UI which will use HTML similar code instead of the infamous GuiLayout.

 

You mean UIElements?
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UIElements.html
That is only about a year old.

 

LITERALLY THEY MEAN THE NEW USER INTERFACE THAT WAS PREVIEWED AT UNITE THIS YEAR OH MY GOD.

 

Omg, html for the editors???? That is what I have wanted for so long. I began trying to develop a specialized web view that renders html that I coded in local html files, in place of GuiLayout EditorWindows. And with javascript hooks to communicate back to the editor.

I didn't get far because of how darn difficult they make it to access WebView base classes and their dependencies, but knowing something like that is around the corner is a huge relief. GO UNITY!

 

You mean the editor interface design?

 

It doesn't seem to be on the keynote list. So its obviously not that important.

https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/06/1...-workflow-preview-and-more-from-unite-berlin/

Anyone care to link to the actual announcement? I don't have the time to scrub through the presentations right now.

 

There was basically a one or two line comment when talking about the roadmap where they mention/show the interface design. It looks similar to adobe's. Meh.

 

Ah, a lot of that is already available in my Trilleon's SWAT window architecture (although none of what I have created affects existing windows, only those that use my SWAT editor window architecture). At least everything sans html design.

Shameless plug: That SWAT architecture can be seen here, to a fairly good extent.

Note, this architecture is available within Trilleon, and does not in any way rely on Trilleon (but is implemented by Trilleon). It can be gotten for free here on Github. You can find it in "Assets/Automation/Engine/Xtra/Editor". If nothing more, it can be a temporary thing until this comes out from Unity.

 

New Editor UI is preview in 2018.3

I think as a package not sure

 

Why only the editor? The player UI would also benefit of a more modern approach html combined with a MVVM library is sooo much nicer to work with than Unity UI

 

A new editor UI coming? Wowsas.

I am so happy I could go spend another 8 years making a game

 

Wait. Those two new system is only exist inside Unity Editor? How sad

 

I also look forward to see how it looks,
at same time I also wish for an option to switch between different themes. so the old interface will still be available as an option for those who prefer that.

 

Checking the examples on Github shows that there are references to UnityEditor.Experimental.UIElements but there are references to UnityEngine.Experimental.UIElements too. We were told in the Unite Berlin keynote that this will replace IMGUI but since IMGUI may still be actively used it will provide a compatibility layer to handle IMGUI.

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/UIElementsExamples/tree/master/Assets/Editor

With this in mind since you can use IMGUI outside of the editor it stands to reason that UIElements would have to function outside of the editor too in order to provide full backwards compatibility with IMGUI.

 

Can’t wait for the new threads about the light skin not being free after they seem to make it lighter in the new theme.

 

I am really not a fan of the light theme that unity has. It just blinds me when trying to work for long periods of time.

 

This is not about light or dark, its about the new ui proposal. moslty its removing the gradients and replacing them with a solid color, and some new icons and icons placements. they will come in both light and dark themes.

 

They should have to. Although it's quite unlikely since Editor GUI is heavily packed while Runtime IMGUI is not. Also bloating the runtime with shiny HTML-like GUI seems not on their option (Sorry being pessimist, but they said it in Roadmap, "UIElements for Editor Extensions")

I understand that Unity 4.6 UI should be used to completely replaces that, but I really liked IMGUI since I can write entire UI logic in separate script and not having me jump between GameObjects and Callbacks over and over.

 

Indeed. Uielements appears to be largely a replacement for editorguilayout not for imgui in general.

 

New flat style means that you will automatically become a way better developer.

 

is there official new ui feedback thread somewhere..?

in the meanwhile,,
not a huge fan on that screenshot so far..

• seems like lots of extra s p a c i n g (and clutter) everywhere
  • For example hierarchy, project windows, which you already have to scroll a lot if have many objects.. object re-arranging would be more difficult
  • window borders and titles take more space, so can fit less stuff on single monitor..
  • cannot minimize that gameobject name/tag/layer-part in inspector? takes huge space, but rarely use those (in current version its nice & compact there)
• component toggle button few pixels next to another ... dropdown button (might cause miss clicks)
• how would it look without all those rounded edges?

 

Yep. It looks like someone took Adobe CC dark skin... and implemented it to Unity. That scene view left side toolbar - it's like let's make this photoshop.

I'm personally not fan of visual overload causing UX things - lines, extra gaps, rounded bright boxes around checkboxes....

IMHO seems like original Unity UI was created out of necessity and with small resources - thus it is very lightweight in it's appearance.

This looks more like someone ("UX designer") had all the time to go crazy with designing stuff. It does not look too different, but it doesn't add much either.

What I'd like to see is just a scaleable UI but pretty much as it is, and a replacement for scripting UI so that one shouldn't have to use immediate mode gui stuff (seems like there is some CSS / web kind of thing already in the works - was it UIElements?), which feels really archaic and complicated for non-coder.

 

So this must be the "dark" editor skin. I wonder what this looks like in the "light" skin for the free tier users?

 

I hope you're joking because I F'n hate flat style.. it looks like positively uninspired slop, just makes things harder to see visually, where gradients, bevels etc done well and subtley make for a much better aesthetic and that makes things visually less cluttered by grouping things up better with background color fades... not just straight single flat tones if anything at all.. disgusting like wintrash 10

 

I very much like that screenshot.

 

I always see people complaining about every 3d softwares UI.

 

It will soon have RTX support, so that we can have flatness but with reflections as well.

 

well that's ok then.. reflections make everything that is dull, flat and Fn boring.. better

much better actually.. bit like aero glass reflection style on win7 before all visual design went to garbage at MS.. I guess i'll need a rtx2080 for some unity ui reflections aswel then.

 

This might have started as a joke but it won't be long before Unity staff see this and imagine the possibilities of reflections in the UI. Someone will want to try this.

 

Current general trend in UI design is very inefficient for developing anything, or work. I am not saying only about showcased Unity video above. Mentioned latest MS Windor, "new" Skype (loosing popularity) and many more. I see less and less important content, instead see big blobby buttons with images, and huge gaps, where I can write 2 lines of text in between. 17 Inch screen is not enough. And even 24 inch screen seams become now small.

I am loosing viable time on scrolling up and down, to see what I need to see. Specially if comparing something between top and bottom of hierarchy tree. However, with format approach like CSS for HTML, any design could allow to re calibrate whole design at one go. Reducing, or expanded wanted/unwanted gaps etc.

Will I be able to see my own reflection too?

 

If you have a webcam, I suppose?

 

I was just about to write that.

You could take a photo of yourself and the wall behind you, then use that as the image that gets reflected

 

oh, actually the light draft version looks much better (more compact..)

*these are images from the roadmap 2018 video

but best thing would be if you can customize the css or have extra options then.. to override/remove padding/rounding etc.

 

Windows 7 Aero Glass meets Windows 10 Metro?

Agreed. Though I wouldn't mind having a slider that lets me adjust the darkness of the UI instead of having to select between two extremes. If I remember the presentation correctly the light skin will be considerably brighter now.

 

I think current unitys gui is great, flexible and readable. How about just updating it so it's faster, and refreshing it with new icons and making it even more flexible with customizable theme colors - so we could change theme to any colors, not just dark or white(its not important but would be nice addition).

 

Luckily software does not get designed by arbitrary people from its user base.

 

Yep, we clearly saw that with Unity Connect...

 

For me this is interesting for a couple reasons: I am a UX designer. I'm part of a team that is building an internal application in Unity.

Everything delivered prior to my joining the team, came right from dev with little consideration to how people will use these tools. The functionality is great, but a lot of it looks like a hot mess. If they really are developing a new UI with some HTML like styling functions, I'm going to be sooooo happy.

I need to be able to group and prioritize information with header titles, indentations, spaces between elements, vertical and horizontal, font weight, size and color. Control over the size of some UI elements would be a huge help too, for example: No one needs a field input that spans the panel and accommodates 273 characters when 99% of the fields in your inspector only ever get 1-2 digit numbers. Fields should be restricted to the expected input. Overall, it makes it hard to scan a page when everything is the same size and same weight. Don't get me started on the hierarchy...

Maybe this new look doesn't work for some people, in which case, it just supports my POV that you should be able to style it to your liking. From what I have seen from the Unity UX team's presentations, I do not think they did this arbitrarily. They follow a real UX process with significant research, discovery and design and testing to get to this point.

 

Well I dunno about that, you'd be understandably biased as you're a UX designer.

I wouldn't have anywhere near the faith you do. We're talking about global corporations spending upward of a hundred million on UX research only to find everyone actually doesn't like it at all in the real world. Microsoft has fallen foul of this multiple times and taken serious U turns (thankfully).

It's not unusual for product development and UX work to get it wrong, because the majority can't be spoken to so a lot of guesses do need to be made. And when that turns out to be wrong, it's expensive. And when a company doesn't backtrack (sunk cost fallacy) they end up firing people.

Not saying Unity is horribly wrong, only that the lithium forum fiasco should teach them that needless change is incredibly expensive. Slow change is very good.

• Research if it's even going to add value to begin with
• Research if it's actually a problem to fix and not something people want to justify to HR
• Test a single small change for 3 months or so (beta period)
• If beta went well, deploy that small change.

Repeat for the next beta. UX is something that happens over years for software used by hundreds of thousands of people. It is simply stupid to make broad overnight changes as some of the biggest companies in the world found out to their cost.

The problem isn't with the UX designers, it's with the decision makers. They need to understand a little bit more about paying customers and how fickle they can be for something they have ownership over. Imagine getting out of bed one day and finding that your light switch now needs to be unlocked first before they can be used. Your coffee machine now has all it's buttons in different places. Your car's shift stick has been swapped to the other side.

For purely cosmetic changes - these are not as scary since everything is in the same places - but do not change how it works and how it looks at there same time or pretty much everyone will reject it outright.

So these things, they do really tick people off, therefore change has to be gradual and non dramatic, and reassuring. Make only a single change per beta for UX. That's 3 changes a year.

 

If UX didn't move faster than that Android would still look like iOS

 

Not sure how your comment is relevant even a tiny bit. We are talking about an application that's a decade old with considerable training investment in it with thousands of learning materials, resources and it's proven to work.

In this respect, Unity is like Maya and 3DSMax - if change happens it has to be slow and careful.

Unlike mobile phones for people taking pictures and scrolling through instagram, Unity is not a toy. Unity is not a touchscreen phone for casual users who don't make million dollar games with large amounts of staff.

So no, don't waste my time with poor analogies.

 

I'm not following what you're upset about.

What does what Microsoft did have to do with any of this? Where do you see a mistake being made with Unity? Does the UI seem to be missing something that wasn't there before?

Would you be happy if they just didn't change anything? Why do you feel that way?

 

You just have to look to the windows 8 fiasco to see the risk of changing a lot of established UI in one go. The thing was a disaster.

 

Not really. It depends on how and why the decision was made.

I hated Win8. I guarantee you that decision came from marketing. It made no sense to shoehorn a tablet UI into a desktop experience and then remove or obfuscate the conventions of that desktop experience to the point where people couldn't use it in the same way they were used to.

I don't think they really listened to their users and instead wanted to make some kind of big design change.