I have been building on Bubble for close to 5 years now, and this was an unecessary update, given that there are lots of other pressing issues. I understand that this is paving the way to enable new operations (looping, branching, parallel and series processing etc), but the new editor being mandatory without enabling the said operations seems weird
I appreciate the direction the team is moving in, and I’m pretty sure the community would have switched voluntarily, had the communication been better and the benefits, visible. The entire reason why the new (design) responsive editor was a success was because:
We had the option to switch between both versions without being forced to either one;
The new editor had significant improvements
Cut-off dates were clearly mentioned within the app editor where all users spend their time, and not the Forum, or their email
This falls out in multiple areas of UX too, as highlighted by a lot of people here, and needed much more in QA before being a mandatory launch:
Recognition rather than recall: Need to make an effort to understand the new patterns, which would have been fine if Bubble was a new startup, but people have been seriously building on this platform for a long time now and are accustomed to the old one, plus, didn’t have any complaints since everything was working
Flexibility and efficiency of use:
– The delete shortcuts don’t work;
– Copy and pasting actions into a newly created event is broken;
– A lot of unnecessary scrolling and multiple clicks to achieve something straightforward;
Consistency and Standards
– Seems to be missing when they brought about the renaming of the Do when, Do every x seconds events (different on the event view, and different on the actions canvas)
– Smaller icons, right-click menu having a different UI experience than the right-click menus in the Design or Data tabs
There’s this narrative going around that if one were in the habit of naming workflows, using folders etc, they wouldn’t be finding an issue with the update.
I get their POV but this isn’t the case since I’ve been doing this for a while, and still prefer the old editor. This argument that people don’t use accepted and correct practices was fair when the WU pricing was launched, but misses the point here. The above issues being called out cannot be fixed by following best practices.
My initial feedback was negative, but I’m trying to be open to understanding the move. I just hope the engineers now don’t move to something else, what they’re traditionally known for, but actually listen to the feedback, fix the issues and make this reach a point where it becomes usable and scalable
Im with bubble for almost 5 yars! And this worst update from bubble team in 5 years! Common, back old workflow for us! Make a choice for us: old or new! For many developers this new - its horrible workflow now! Why u delete this choice from us???
This new workflow 1/10
This was one of my first thoughts when I read some of the comments…not about Bubble though, but on the user’s end.
I would guess there are a lot of Bubble Apps that are bloated, taped, paper-clipped, and hot-glued together to where they’re now just a hot mess.
Any change from Bubble could throw their whole app into chaos.
Not saying this is always the case in this situation, but I would bet it’s the case in a lot of these situations.
I agree there are some problems that need to be fixed, and I think that’s probably on Bubble’s part and also on the app builder’s part.
I’ve never been paid to work on a Bubble App. I wouldn’t anyway because I don’t have the experience. But, I have built a ton of apps and edited a ton over the last 10 years (not Bubble Apps), and know it’s easy for an app to get bloated and out of control.
I’m positive about the changes because it’s the beginning of other changes that will modernize the whole workflow area.
For anyone missing the old Bubble workflow editor just a little reminder of when things were clear and easy to use. Simpler times, fewer clicks, less crying.
Thanks for this. What about the time delay in going from editor to workflows? There’s suddenly this long wait, when it used to be instant. Huge killer for productivity, that is certainly the most important for me to be sorted, and I’m sure for many others.
nobody want or asked for this BS, we all hate it…go back please. you are ruining a lot of business and customers will leave bubble. Why would you guys force this on to people it is a terrible business decision
Hey guys, now I have seen more than 10 unique person reporting delays and crashes with the new editor. I have the same issue from day one. For 5 days you have collected data with crashing or delayed wf editors which disrupted the data. How do you intend to keep this data sterile ? 5 more days ? @fede.bubble@kate.mcnally
I’ve been using this for about a week now, and there’s some serious UX problems. Apologies if some of these have been covered previously, but there’s 353 messages in this thread, too many to go through.
Text is just too small, and in some places too light. The size of the text previously made looking at what things did in a glance easy, but now you have to focus. A UI with a lot of workflows should be easily scannable.
Conditions being cut off is irritating, and requires you to click into an element to compare quickly
Because of the new spacing, comparing workflows is now harder, as it requires more scrolling. This is especially true if the workflows are across folders, because there’s no way to see the list of workflows alphabetized without folders, as was default previously.
The “Uncategorized” folder keeps opening by default whenever I switch to the backend workflows page, even after I close it. This is super irritating.
Honestly, I much preferred the block layout. Even using the grid layout option, it just feels overwhelming on pages with lots of workflows. I think this is a sizing issue more than anything, but it also has to do with the width vs height ratios.
Having to use the context menu to change folders and colors is a big pain. When I create a new workflow, the first thing I do is set the folder and sometimes color. This just adds extra clicks and mouse movement. Please return them to the workflow pane, or at least give us the option.
The colors are too muted and limited in place. One of the things I liked about them previously was they made workflows easily identifiable. Please make them stand out more, have them color more of the workflow tab, and include them in the workflow editor pane as well.
There’s still no indication that a workflow or action has notes. Please highlight the “View notes” button, and ideally add an icon or some other indicator in both the workflow list and workflow editor panes. Even better, have a way to have the first part of a note automatically show if it has one, with the option to click into it to read the full note.
Copying a backend workflow only copies the actions, not the info for the event. This means that things like the name, folder, color, paramaters, conditons,and options aren’t copied and have to be redone. Super annoying.
If you’re going to have the workflow editor tab be vertical (which tbh is growing on me), then you need to make the editor pane small and the workflow overview pane large by default. In fact, I have the workflow overview pane expanded to the right the maximum amount, and tbh I don’t think it’s enough. I’d also make grid view the default, as it saves on so much scrolling.
Overall there are two common themes that make the new editor a worse experience than the old one for power builders:
It’s worse for identifying and comparing workflows, especially at a quick glance. It may present all the information you need, but it takes longer to get it.
It’s worse for copying and modifying existing workflows quickly, especially across folders.
In essence, while the new UI is cleaner, it’s less efficient, and thus needs some serious work.
Yes, I like these too, ESPECIALLY the “triggered from”. But to echo your point, those changes should have and could have easily been made in the old workflow tab.
Is there any timeline for loops or branching? I feel that if the new WF were released at the time looping and branching were released, maybe the excitement around those features would have severely lessened the blow of having to adjust to new editor.
Thank you for the update, one thing which I’ve noticed is becoming a fairly large blocker is that keyboard shortcuts like ctrl c/v don’t work half the time and actions such as ctrl x to cut an action end up crashing WF builder page entirely
Yeah I think this is fair. Once you start using the folders it does get a lot easier to use the new editor.
In fact, it becomes easier than the old one.
The new top to bottom flow, does it my opinion make it harder to see what is going on. In my head, I always think of a work flow as left to right. It’s hard to “see” what is happening with a quick scan, and it take some getting used to.
Going full width does help in some circumstances.
I would also like to see more contrast in the text to background. And more space to see the conditions and other information. there is too much truncation going on.
Also getting started on workflows can be annoying. It feels like some functions are missing. Like you can paste an action in to new workflow to get it started, but Paste it not an option in the 3 dot menu.
I agree. The top-to-bottom flow feels much harder to follow than before.
On top of that, the text and background colors make everything more difficult to read.
It’s even hard to distinguish between the event itself and actions now; as they almost look identical in the flow. When I first opened it, it felt like we were only seeing actions.
It’s crazy that so many power users are now resorting to JavaScript solutions, either through the devtools console or browser plugins, just to improve the readability and flow of the new editor. If users feel forced to do that, it’s a clear sign that something has gone seriously wrong.
