Bug: Border radius has infected VSCode editor

22Ucoder about 3 hours ago 41 commentsRead Article on github.com

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41% Positive

Analyzed from 845 words in the discussion.

Discussion (41 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

rstat1•2 minutes ago

So it turns I've been using this new UI for a while and didn't even notice it was different nor did I even know they were doing this update until I saw this very thread full of people complaining about it.

myfonj•about 1 hour ago

Rounded corners and pill-shaped buttons really infest UI everywhere, and I never understood what kind of ergonomics they are supposed to improve.

And fighting them is increasingly difficult, but at least somewhat possible:

- VSC luckily still supports

    workbench.experimental.modernUI

we can turn off; and if they will be marginally clever, it will remain there indefinitely.

On the web, we can use userstyles sharpening most dulled corners [1]. And if you happen to have seen upcoming Firefox skin, it is also pill addict's fewer dream. We can use userChrome.css, but web components are making it very cumbersome and fragile, basically constantly adding new custom properties, being glad they are really used [2]. But I digress. I really look forward for this pill mania to wear off, like wet floors, glitters, and similar fads.

[1] https://userstyles.world/style/8283/

[2] https://gist.github.com/myfonj/f5415dd0580663a82ea18407ef2ee...

marcosdumay•18 minutes ago

> I never understood what kind of ergonomics they are supposed to improve.

People like buttons with sharp corners in real things because they are rare and expensive, and buttons with round corners in digital things because they imitate the cheap round buttons that are everywhere.

Now that the round corners have been overused, we may get some fashion of sharp corners again.

nxc18•43 minutes ago

Who else remembers when devs were complaining about flat design and the loss of corner radii, borders, and gradients? Everything old is new again.

P.S. Code is super late to the game on this UI trend. See Slack redesign circa 2023 https://slack.com/blog/productivity/a-redesigned-slack-built...

P.P.S. I can’t believe I forgot jetbrains did it first.

misnome•about 2 hours ago

Lots of unnecessary whitespace, tabs changing colour to be confusing about which is selected…

They hired a new design lead who wants to make their mark, didn't they.

2Ucoder•about 2 hours ago

I would call it more of a stain on your career when you use border radius like this.

klodolph•about 1 hour ago

A stain is a kind of mark :)

imnotr0b0t•about 2 hours ago

It definitely feels that way

antfarm•about 1 hour ago

Round Rects Are Everywhere! (Andy Hertzfeld, 1981)

https://www.folklore.org/Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.html

antfarm•38 minutes ago

Today, even most Apple devices are round rects.

msephton•about 2 hours ago

I came for screenshots and there are none, nor are there in the linked issue this is marked a duplicate of.

dvh•about 2 hours ago

Waterluvian's Law:

> The more an article would benefit from photos, the less likely it’ll have them.

layer8•about 2 hours ago

The following issue has a good number of screenshots in various comments: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/325240?timeline_p...

dadoum•about 2 hours ago

https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_129#_modern-ui-prev...

At the end of that video you can see the modern UI preview.

godshatter•about 1 hour ago

I don't use VS Code, but when I look at the before and after in the video I can hardly tell the difference. I think the "border radius" problem is overwhelmed by the "too much crap on the screen" problem for me to really notice it that much.

jasonlotito•about 2 hours ago

Sorry! It seems the page can't be found

verdverm•about 2 hours ago

they seem to have a lot of broken pages, like the changelog :facepalm:

https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_139

Internally, these companies are the real slopocolypse

2Ucoder•about 2 hours ago

Screen shots? Just open the app, it is glaring with border radius.

jasonlotito•about 2 hours ago

You want them to install an app and then open it just to see images? That's crazy.

kps•about 2 hours ago

> Just open the app

I'd prefer not to.

imafish•about 2 hours ago

He says to open VSCode

ramijames•about 1 hour ago

It looks.. fine? I don't understand why people have to complain about every little thing.

2Ucoder•about 2 hours ago

A gluttonous heaping dollop of border radius has been added to my favorite code editor. It is effecting my coding productivity, as the change is quite harmful to the eyes. The designers have been plaguing the web with this exponentially. It was only a matter of time before it spread to desktop electron apps. That time has come now, I have reported this visual bug to VScode.

sovok•23 minutes ago

I for one am glad not having pointy corners threatening to poke me during usage, that's a matter of safety. And aerodynamics. There's a reason why most cars have rounded shapes, we can learn from that.

bigstrat2003•about 2 hours ago

> It is effecting my coding productivity, as the change is quite harmful to the eyes.

You probably mean "affecting". As a verb, "effect" means "to put into effect" or sometimes "to make more effective". Somehow I don't get the sense you meant either of those.

pyridines•about 1 hour ago

GlacierFox•about 1 hour ago

Some people really get sour when others politely point out grammatical mistakes they've made on a written forum. It's understandable as some people don't really do it tactfully and it can come across abrasive. Then there's a special kind of person who gets sour and snarky over someone politely pointing out grammatical mistakes other people have made.

RonanSoleste•about 2 hours ago

I stopped using vscode because of their ui a long time ago and went to zed. Never going back.

sp1nningaway•about 1 hour ago

I fired up VSCode for the first time in months because I thought it would be a good tool to introduce a friend to LLM-assisted coding. I was so totally overwhelmed by the interface (after using VSCode every day for years!) that I gave up. I've gotten to used to the visual simplicity of Zed + terminal, or often just a terminal.

2Ucoder•about 2 hours ago

Honestly it is probably time I start using Vim.

RonanSoleste•about 2 hours ago

Vim is great. But Zed is more like VSCode in usage. And more lightweight too. Not as lightweight as vim tho :)

gerdesj•about 1 hour ago

I had to traverse two symlinks to find it but the vim binary is 4.4MB in size here. It does link 13 libs including the mighty standard C library at 2.1MB.

I suppose I could crank out the compiler and create a stripped static binary for it. Nope, bugger that, I'll drink more wine instead.

My Commodore 64 is glaring at me 8)

ivanmontillam•about 2 hours ago

This feels like the effective death of VSCode.

afavour•about 2 hours ago

I want to believe this post is sarcastic. But sadly you just can’t be sure…

amelius•about 1 hour ago

Can't some company just patent those rounded corners?

antfarm•about 1 hour ago

  "workbench.experimental.modernUI": false,

hmokiguess•about 1 hour ago

Tangential: who's still using VSCode in 2026?

rplnt•17 minutes ago

I started to use VSCode in 2026. Hardware caught up to it so it's not as slow as I remember (still slow, but fine). It's so noisy. Every cursor move highlights half the screen, at least 3 different searches active at the same time, it's a mess. Can't really write (or read) code in it. Using it for copilot.

nxc18•44 minutes ago

Everyone who’s using Cursor, Antigravity, Kiro, or Windsurf, to start. And then of course the millions still using VS Code.