why does the new version of UE5 have such a terrible interface.terrible small and gray icons.I was looking for a program with a normal interface and found the UE4 version. But the way the UE5 appearance is made is terrible. The developers followed the path of following the general trend and fashion and made everything extremely inconvenient. It’s horrible. Please return the old interface. And then you will have to look for some other programs. I don’t want to work in UE5 in advance and even open it. One disappointment
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I know this is an old post, but you can revert the Unreal Engine 5 UI back to UE4 in Window->Load Layout->UE4 Classic Layout. Regardless, I have found the modern layout to be more effective at conserving screen space.
The positioning, sizing, etc of things isn’t the issue. Anyone who spends even 5 seconds in the interface can see they can move stuff around. The thing you can’t apparently do is change the actual DESIGN of it. Selecting “UE4 Classic Layout” does not change the design of it, only brings you back to the default UE5 Layout (dunno why they call it UE4 Classic if it’s only similarity is the layout positions of windows).
The issue is the toolbars themselves are designed differently. I, too, am bothered by it. At the very LEAST the main toolbar at the top, which used to have a Blueprints button that made it easy to access the Level Blueprint, was way better in UE4. UE5 doesn’t have an option like that, and from what I can see, has nowhere any mention of loading the level’s blueprint. How am I supposed to make stuff happen from the level’s events (begin play, etc) if I can’t even access the level’s blueprint?
Even the Unreal Engine 5 Documentation still shows Unreal Engine 4’s toolbar designs, as if they hadn’t changed it, while stating it’s Unreal Engine 5. See here if you don’t know what I mean:
The images there are all from UE4, but the page says UE5. I can’t see how that’s not a lie.
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I finally found what I was looking for, though the documentation was of no help.
It’s under this tiny button, then selecting Open level Blueprint. These buttons need to be bigger or at least have some sort of text on them to tell you what they are for. Mousing over it, it says “List of world Blueprints available to the user for editing or creation.” which I thought was for just adding new blueprints based on defaults already created (as the other two buttons next to it are strictly just for that, creating new stuff). It took me actually looking in there reading everything before I found the mention of “Open Level Blueprint”
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The other replies didn’t seem to get what your complaint was really about. I think I do, at least. The tiny text-less grey buttons that don’t give you much of any idea of what they’re for are certainly an annoying “improvement” upon the original. Especially when the purpose of doing this new design is to save screen space, yet they wasted so much of the top toolbar space by having a bunch of empty grey space to the right of “Platforms” and left of “Settings”. They could have at LEAST still had those old buttons that had text under them telling you what they were for, but maybe just had the icon a bit smaller (still having the text though), as there’s LOTS of room for it.
In my case, this button here was a major thorn in my side for the longest time because it has no text and it’s mouse-over text isn’t very clear on what it’s for:
Turns out, that’s the old “Blueprints” button they used to have, that UE5’s documentation STILL to this day shows (even though it’s nothing like that now):
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ohhhhh！！！
I was hoping Unreal won’t mess up UI for Unreal 5, but it is utterly ridiculous how they messed up as much as possible. Such a shame from an amazing software like this.
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unfortunetly i need to agree. The hole new UI interface of UE5 is a step backwards in my personal opinion. UE4 was nearly perfect.
As an example, why is the reset button now far right in details pannel on a parameter and not right next to it, like before. And this is just one of multiple things. Would be amazing to have UE4 interfaces, colors, icons sizes etc and features of 5.
UE5:
UE4:
Another exmaple is the “Tabs”. Why are the Tabs now one step below. In UE4 they where on top and you could easily snap them, now its harder to snap them and you need to aim a lot better.
UE5:
UE4:
Inside the Blueprints Variables are also now a lot more “strange” then before. UE4 is a lot cleaner, then the UE5 version of this panel:
UE5:
UE4:
Content Browser is now always docked at the bottom. I know you can have it undocked, but i do not see any reason, why its there twice. Same with “Output Log” and “Cmd”. Also i don’t know why it called now “Content Drawer”. It doesnt draw any content, it’s there to browse.
Greets Spähling
6 Likes
Indeed, this UI looks like it came before UE4, it’s too monochromatic and dark. For example, the revert property arrow used to be yellow and easier to find, but now is gray, the properties boxes being black with white font look, blurred? I don’t know how this optical effect is called but the contrast is too strong and bad for the eye that they don’t look crisp and clean like in UE4.
I would like Unreal Engine’s team prioritize this but I know they are busy with more complex stuff, I feel like Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs when he is mad cause there is no an easy way to change the fonts lol.
“Now, which tab do I click on to get different font styles?”
THe dark monochrome look I think has been driven by professional VFX software where you need be able to look at images in a very neutral environment. Too much contrast, areas of great brightness and any sort of large areas of colour will really mess with your eyes. Of course in a package like Unreal there is only a subset of users that really care about those things (usually anyone in art), programmers and level designers have a different set of priorities. Agreed that more customisation might be helpful and there are definitely some questionable design decisions, like those reset arrows for example.
Nevermind, my homie told me how to customize literally the whole UI which is way better than UE4 by going to the Editor Preferences ->General Appearance and Create my own Theme.
Sorry for being a silly fella.