It seems like no one can defy the change towards "flat-design" in modern software. Don't get me wrong, I like it for the most part.
But who actually designed the new SourceTree UI, stepped back, took a deep breath and thought "Yeah that looks good"?
The UI had lots of changes in the past and most of them made it worse in terms of usability and readability, which is a pitty. The lack of contrast and outlines makes it a total mess for me.
Hi everyone,
I'd like to start by acknowledging that we should have done better in communicating our intentions and how we are resolving concerns around this very passionate topic.
As noted previously in thread, the substantial UX redesign was first introduced nearly two years ago for both platforms with additional changes as necessary. One of the goals was and is the fidelity of Sourcetree between platforms as well as with the rest of the Atlassian family. And in an effort to tackle the very common complaint of interface bloat, we also removed several buttons from the toolbar and other areas that were either redundant or infrequently used.
Since this admittedly rocky start we've listened to your feedback and made some changes:
One of the most contentious aspects was the removal of the treeview (sidebar) from Sourcetree for Windows. Jens, our Head of Product, recently posted an official response in SRCTREEWIN-7176 to help move us all forward.
Thank you for your patience and feedback around the pain points you’ve experienced with the UX changes. We do strive to improve the experience overall for the wide variety of users in our community but don't want to strip away everything you've come to know and love. We have work to do internally to better communicate and listen and I hope you can help us by staying positive and encouraging!
Brian GanningerProduct Manager, Sourcetree
I donwgraded to 2.1. I really don't mind UI chnanges that much, as long as all functionality is somehow still there. Like many others I miss the GitFlow Button and I also miss the buttons to switch between views (File Status, Log and Search).
New "features" (imho bugs)
1) Shift button is not usable when selecting lines in diff window. It can be done now by mouse, but in my opinion both should work.
2) Having different white background rectangles in diff window is irritating.
3) Automatic switch to File Status tab is irritating. If I want to switch, I'll switch myself. Tool should not assume what I want to have.
+1 for git flow as well.
Giving the software for free is not an excuse for the current deplorable Quality Control practices.This is a (critical) productivity tool, not a fancy game or similar low impact software.When ST gone free about a year ago (or something like this), I feared the state of the things would reach the way it is now: a buggy, low budgeted, low quality product.Let's face the reality: currently Atlassian appears to had entered a Race to the Bottom: since ST has no financial revenue, there's little paid workforce on it, but yet this software plays some strategical hole on the company. What's bad business on a tool that is the front end for your paid services.My advice? Go back charging money for the tool (so you can pay the guys) or just open the source and wave the responsibilities for the product development, and then just pack a branded version (something like Eclipse).Believe me, this sequence of (serious) flaws and setbacks are not improving the Atlassian image on the customers. GIT-X is ugly and cumbersome as hell, but the damn thing works.
The new UI is utter crap.
I haven't used it much because it crashes on some common operation all the time so I got that going for me which is nice.....
The new version is so full of bugs I won't even bother to list or report them all.
http://downloads.atlassian.com/software/sourcetree/windows/SourceTreeSetup_1.5.2.exe
I completely agree with most of this. I found this tryinig to see it if was just me. Very unstable, crashing frequently, especially when doing an external merge, won't start because it shows as already running in the background and have to kill it. I don't care much for the UI, but I could live with it. The most frustrating part is how it keeps switching back to the File Status tab, even immediately after switching to the Log tab. Horrible. The crashing and File Status switching is pushing me to find a way to load an old version. (This is the Windows version.)
I think flat ui is great , But there should be option to add some menu items to toolbar like "GIT Flow" & GIT LFS
The urge to have minimal colors just drives me nuts. With that woe combined with the following bug, I uninstalled and went back to 1.7. I'll be avoiding updates for as long as I can.
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/SRCTREEWIN-4197
I agree with the original post and most of the comments. I could probably get used a bit to the new UI (my colleagues using Macs like it), but it's the bugs that drive me crazy.
I'll be another happy 1.7 user for a long time to come.
I don't like the color-less outline icons. And they look just terrible on non-retina screen.
RE: SourceTree being free and not bringing in revenue. I understand their resources are limited but then they shouldn't be wasting those resources with redesigns. I honestly think the people working on SourceTree now don't understand their product and its uses. The first versions of SourceTree were right on and showed a good understanding of git. Then there was a break. Since then most changes were just meaningless or a step back.
The UI of 1.5.2 and back was so nice. Then 1.6 came, the UI was redesigned with too much meaningless whitespaces. 1.6 also brought about loads of bugs that are still unresolved such as unable to resize the diff view, or the diff view's size automatically resets. Now 1.8 came, another UI redesign with god knows how many new bugs. Does Atlassian ever learn?
So either this was a) a release that went out by mistake before it was ready, or b) they realized how awful the backlash was and yanked it.
I didn't even bother starting to use it when I saw the new UI. The lack of contrast between headings and the things inside them on the left made my eyes water, and replacing the universal icons for "add" "remove" and "changed" with English letters was just plain bizarre. The menu at the top used to look cluttered, now it looked like a barren desert.
This is the second time in the last year or two this has happened. Luckily they fixed most of the issues of the last giant redesign with subsequent updates, so I'm hoping they can salvage this and show us what they were actually trying to accomplish.
Either way I think we deserve some kind of communication from Atlassian as to what exactly happened here and why.
It looks like SourceTree 2.2 has been pulled back as the current download is 2.1. I switched back to it and it is working fine, which means (thankfully) there was no incompatible local data change.
A thought to the designers: There's an 8 pixel difference between the Push and Pull icons in an area that is about 1/4" square. How can you possibly think this is a good idea? Compare them with the very clear icons you had before. Monochrome and flat does not have to imply awful – in fact, it should be the opposite. And why get rid of the view icons? I don't see any sense to the UI changes here or in recent releases. 1.8 was better than any of these.
Totally agree. I upgraded to 1.8, tried to use it for a day and then went back to 1.7. I even instructed my team not to upgrade.
Absolutely terrible. Downgraded to 1.7 (Windows) and looking for an alternative. If this was able to make it to the public I don't have any confidence in future decisions they are going to make for the product.
Apart from the terrible UI design I hate that in the diff window, if the code causes a horizontal scroll bar, it now scrolls the "Stage/Discard hunk/lines" buttons off the screen when before they would stay in place. And if you have a file selected in the "Staged files" area then select a file in the "Unstaged files" area, it still only displays the diff for the staged file.
After using Smartgit for a while I thought I'd drop in and see how SourceTree is going while I've been away...oh, dear.
I was censored for suggesting having the people responsible for the UI update tracked down and shoot..
@Farliga Tankar - because of abusive and non-constructive comments like yours I have stopped watching this issue. Thank you for contributing.
Whoever removed the color-coding of modified/added/removed/unknown should rethink it and reflect on their Human Computer Interaction 101 classes.. I need colors as a fast way to identify things..
@michael.benz exercise your tolerance. intolerance against the intolerants are just another form of intolerance. Don't be one yourself.By addressing who you consider an abuser, you enable him. He is an abuser by Christ's sake, being acknowledged of his success is, hardly, a deterrent!(and chances are that he is just a dark humor joker)
This updated just made me revert back to 1.6.25 (again). I might try 1.7x - was gunshy of the licensing "for my convenience you have to re-license" statement in the release notes. Licensing changes are never for me - and almost never convenient
But back on topic: Seriously - where did GitFlow go. The branch names, the no-contrast look which ensures you can't identify stuff at a glance, broken view switch/mode changes. etc. etc.
Yuck.
@Admin User We've re-added the GitFlow button in the new 1.8.2 release.
Agree.
The new UI is too bad. The latest update completely kills readability.
@Mike Corsaro Thanks for you response here, unfortunately it is the only "official" one to this point. Yet there is a new version and at first glance I feel like our voices have been heard.
The latest blog post gives a humble response to our criticism for the 1.8.0 and 1.8.1 release - I for one appreciate that and hope that you keep your word in furture releases.
The new UI is very difficult to understand but the worst is that the product is very slow and unstable now. Crash frequently everytime for different reasons or no reasons at all
In 1.8.2 search box still doesn't work for me in case of filtering diff. SRCTREEWIN-4298 is marked as resolved, but in Log/History tab it is still not working. Downgrading to 1.7 again.
Installed 1.8.2, saw the horrible mess that is the new GUI, and promptly downgraded back to 1.7. All of the depth of the program that made it easy on the eyes was removed, and it was made completely flat. We have color monitors for a reason. Use color.
The new UI is extremely difficult to parse. Discarding colors for the icons was a usability mistake.
Please bring back the old colored UI, or at least support it as an option. My eye no longer has an anchor with everything blending into 1 grey mass, so it takes me that much longer to find the right one ... we are developers, so its about being usable and efficient, not cool looking.
The new UI is a train wreck, please give us the option to bring the old skin back at a minimum.
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