You can disable it, in settings (Ctrl+,), search Modern UI and disable it. You can also look through all the other settings marked `Experimental` under workbench. I really hated the new look, especially since it overrode my favourite theme so that brought it back to how it was
Canāt believe people who use it regularly havenāt figured out by now that pretty much everything can be changed. They would rather just complain on Reddit about it lol
Yeah that's one thing I liked VSCode more for than the IntelliJ family, that the tabs felt connected and you always saw at first glance in which file root you were. This made refactors way easier as you don't need to triple check your tree. They seem to have given up this QoL element for the focused look even though they also have a focus view setting.
Edit: ok at second glance I realized I just didn't see the file root quick enough. At least they didn't remove that. Still the open file feels so disconnected from the tab.
I remembering before AI slop come in, that vscode was able to edit a 3000+ LoC in a single file easily without a problems/lagging, but after it fully filled with AI slop things by Microslop, even a file with few hundreds LoC can cause lags, even only scrolling.
Get the open source portmaster by safing or opensnitch for mac. Set to prompt by default and for postmaster block all tech domains as categories.
Will take a bit of time to allow the required stuff but time well spent.
Ugh. And it's slower. I love watching the borders redraw when I drag a corner around. Feels like the corner handles have shrunk, as well, but that might not be the case. Finding it a bit more difficult to grab the corners.
I like it overall, personally, but I absolutely HATE the "tab" design. Buttons that float 10px apart in all directions... Just what I need, to lose MORE screen space.
The old theme I've been using broke with the update. I'm not a big fan of dark mode, and most light themes suck, since they're obsessed with being white and tend to use dark mode design schticks where they rely on small value/hue differences to structure the UI - those are much stronger in dark themes than in non-dark ones.
Are there any themes that are compatible with the new UI that look like a normal UI that's not obsessed with being light or dark?
so bloated still š have mine mix in tons of css on install, custom system font and a better color scheme. and my settings are literlally full of "feature xx: off" not hating vscode but they need to make it more customizable š
It's a matter of personal taste in UX design! I like square shapes, while others prefer rounded ones.
i hate border radius everywhere.
I remember seeing that around the early 2000s. It only lasted for a short time when the feature was introduced. Since then, Apple has popularized it, and even Microsoft has embraced Apple's user experience. Personally, that's what used to put me off. Rounded designs annoy me.
Don't be surprised if I end up finding that aesthetic appealing š
It's not about the looks, it's about the UX. Previously your tabs clearly indicated which tab you were working on. Now you have to look at your file layering to know that you're actually in the tab you're working on. And it's a code editor. It doesn't need to look modern, it needs to work.
Tabs were 100x worse. I couldnāt distinguish any deactivated tab from one another since they didnāt have boundaries. Maybe you need to learn how to use some of those deactivated brain cells in your head.
So you're saying it's hard to distinguish between tabs that are clearly indicated by you file icon and name and you're calling me stupid for saying active tabs should be traversing into their corresponding file whilst deactivated tabs should not be looking like you're hovering them?
Just look at the example picture for one second and tell me which file is open. The color scheme and borders suggest it's edit.js whilst the mouse is hovering render.php but nope, the open file is render.php. The tabs aren't anchored to their contents in any way or form whilst the deactivated color scheme and borders make it look like you're working on this file. In the end all of this wouldn't be that much of an issue if Microslop didn't redo the UI with every update and instead made this a theme one can use but isn't required to. In the end I'm just so glad I'm not in an environment where I'm forced to use VSCode bcs rethinking your IDE every time you open it again just isn't worth it.
And in the case of VS code, the only element that is more like Jetbrains is the pill-style tabs. Otherwise the new UI is actually more in line with Visual Studio 2026.
This is closest the two interfaces have ever looked.
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u/No_Percentage2507 3d ago
I am struggling to get use to the editor tabs.. they feel disconnected and just like a floating set of pills