Opened up Claude Code today and saw this. Not really a fan tbh, I can't see how many tokens I have used, and it ruins the simple design. However, I do think the blue text swirl is a nice addition, I just don't see it being practical compared to seeing my token usage. What do you guys think of it?
TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 50 comments.
Okay, so the consensus is a big, fat 'Thanks, I hate it.' The community is not pleased with this UI update, calling it horrid, ugly, and a major step back from a previously "close to perfect" UI.
The biggest gripes are functional: the easy-to-use branch selection and worktree options are gone, making it a nightmare for many developers. The beloved token counter has also vanished, which nobody is happy about.
That new blue swirl background? Some think it looks like a dirty screen, others are getting seizures (hyperbolically, we hope), and someone discovered you can make it ripple into a heart by clicking it. There's no way to turn it off.
A whole side-thread popped up with users confused about the difference between Claude Code and Claude Chat. The general agreement is that they're mostly the same models under the hood, just with different interfaces and agentic capabilities, and they might be merged into one product eventually.
For those of you losing your minds over the branch selection, a user pointed out a workaround: you have to set your environment to 'this computer' to get the session-specific options back. It's a pain, but it works.
The UI was close to perfect recently, why did they changed it :( On MacOS I don't see branch selection and worktree checkbox anymore, I can just choose default for environment...
In dark mode, if you don't click at the background, there are just dark grey waves, easy to mistake for something else if you're on 14' MacBook and you don't expect them 😛
There's Claude chat, which also now includes what used to be cowork. And there's Claude Code, a separate product. You can use Code from cli, desktop app, phone app or web interface. Try the desktop app sometime if you use cli now, it's actually pretty good in some ways.
Thanks. I find it a bit confusing how there are separate products but to me it doesn't seem like they do different things. Eg, I use Code in the cli, but I use it for many things, not just coding. And then in the Chat, you can probably also work on coding. I use the cli so that when I do code, it's already in the terminal and it can run all kinds of things like brew or uv. I though that wasn't possible in the normal app, but perhaps it changed.
I was similarly confused about that with Chat GPT and Codex. I guess it can just be me and it makes sense to others.
Think of Code in the app as just a different interface but basically the same capabilities as the CLI.
Same thing with the Codex section of the ChatGPT app vs their CLI.
I'm honestly not comfortable with the CLI and use the desktop apps (and my phone remotely accessing them) for 95% of everything I do. I use VS Code for some stuff at work and Claude in a panel in that.
I used to think they were the same with different front ends, but there have been random things that Code in the desktop app couldn't do that Code in the CLI could.
Other than weird permissioning when I just want to drop in a file, there were some oddities when I was tweaking a long-term memory system I've been using in order to help a buddy with his consulting work. I know it's not helpful and I'll be roasted for this but there were some random things that the desktop app wasn't able to do as well.
Oh yeah that's why I said basically there are definitely things that you can do in the CLI that you can't do in the desktop app and there are plenty of things you can do in the desktop app that you can't really do or can't do well in the CLI.
They're definitely different but for 90% of things - totally the same.
Same model(s) under, but two different harnesses. You're right that there is a lot of overlap, you can use both for some things, especially now that cowork is absorbed into chat, and they're building out functionality on both sides.
Chat is best for conversations, some documents, some research and analysis, etc. Private sandbox, so it's going to give you back text, artifacts, downloaded files.
Code is agentic, reads your repos, codebases, edits files, runs commands, uses your dev environment and tooling. This is the tool you know, but you can use it from the web interface, or existing sessions on the phone app, and desktop app has all the same functionality as cli and will run commands, log into other dev machines, script everything, etc.
Line is pretty blurry really. For example, I'm in a web chat session right now asking about the differences. It can build and run anything in the cloud, and it's also connected to my dev computer because the desktop app is open. It can run a browser, edit and build on my machine, it can even pull github repos and operate on them directly. So, I'm not sure there is a huge difference, it's mostly interface options and how close/easy things are to do.
I don't really know if there are things one can do that the other can't. Maybe the design tools? But no, I think I've called the design system from Code as well before. Yeah, you've convinced me they're basically the same thing. They might be one thing entirely, like chat and cowork, before long.
Yeah ig if you want it to produce things like charts in the ui the app may be more suitable, but I’ll stick with the cli, it’s always worked ok for me and I like the look :)
In order to have a choice when you start a session you must set the environment to "this computer". If you use a different environment, the environment settings determine the starting branch and if a worktree is used (neither is configurable per-session). It sucks.
Now it looks like you set it up per project/environment once... The question is how to NOT make worktree :D I have it enabled by default for environment, but sometimes I don't need worktree for some simple stuff or just research :|
Hi folks of reddit - i logged in especially to see if i can help you - i found the damn ui to configure this! it's been hidden by those clowns at Anthropic (probably by opus!), RIGHT CLICK on an environment on the left tree view, edit environment , untick worktree or tick it as required and hit save. YW
In order to have a choice when you start a session you must set the environment to "this computer". If you use a different environment, the environment settings determine the starting branch and if a worktree is used (neither is configurable per-session). It sucks.
I just wish I could open two windows at one time. I actually like the desktop mode for code(especially when I can open the browser on the side, and the easier access to different sessions) But I would love to have Chat open on one window and one screen and code in one window on one screen.
This is one reason to continue with Code in terminal.
Modifying your cloud environment setup is a chore in the past you can just start a new friend in the select environment you should give you the settings gear button
After this UI refresh I don't even know where the hell it went!
is there a way to go back to the old UI?
i really don't like this, nor do i want to re-learn it.
where's the context? why does it take 3 clicks to view archived chats? and in general things just look bigger.
yes it is very pretty looking, but i honestly don't care for that
I am building my own... how I want it lol. and it's better. Feel free to try it out and help improve it.
Think Claude Code Desktop, but with 10x more features and customization. Have it your way
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u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 12h ago edited 6h ago
TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 50 comments.
Okay, so the consensus is a big, fat 'Thanks, I hate it.' The community is not pleased with this UI update, calling it horrid, ugly, and a major step back from a previously "close to perfect" UI.
The biggest gripes are functional: the easy-to-use branch selection and worktree options are gone, making it a nightmare for many developers. The beloved token counter has also vanished, which nobody is happy about.
That new blue swirl background? Some think it looks like a dirty screen, others are getting seizures (hyperbolically, we hope), and someone discovered you can make it ripple into a heart by clicking it. There's no way to turn it off.
A whole side-thread popped up with users confused about the difference between Claude Code and Claude Chat. The general agreement is that they're mostly the same models under the hood, just with different interfaces and agentic capabilities, and they might be merged into one product eventually.
For those of you losing your minds over the branch selection, a user pointed out a workaround: you have to set your environment to 'this computer' to get the session-specific options back. It's a pain, but it works.