The new node UI’s are terrible. What are you thinking? How is this better?
common theme for the last 2-3 years:
stuff gets ported and functionality gets cut / lost / dropped.
The power users aren’t there focus any longer. Everything is centered around the subscriptions and AI.
and to complete the complaint for everyone missing it:
- no more syntax highlighting
- custom query field is smaller and not auto-expanding
- no more metadata browser (at least on the screen, might be due to the missing connection)
- and my personal opinion: a MAJOR downgrade in the font, readability and contrast of the text entered (and given this is default, it affects essentially everything ported to the new ui)
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If it’s not broken don’t fix it. The font used is a bad choice and the UI is going downhill. WebGL doesn’t work, can’t open metanodes. They are going to loose me as a user if they don’t overhaul this new UI in a major way.
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Hey folks,
and Merry Christmas. I, and many more Knimers, can feel your pain. During each Community Hacking days and on several ocassions since introduction of Modern UI (MUI) this has been brought to the attention of Knime by many community members.
Through personal experience I can assure you that this will be addressed soon. Albeit not being a justification nor an apology for the perceived “lazyness”, the Knimes Dev-Team has taken leaps and bounds to modernize Knime all while ensuring backwards compatibility. A tremendous endevor which accumulated in the recently published web-based UI.
In 2026, though, it was mentioned in a conversation with thte dev-team during the DataHop in Stuttgart that at least one quality of life update round will be conducted. I participated in pretty much all prev. commuinity hacking days and will continue to push on that subject. Certainly other attendees will too.
But maybe @christian.birkhold or @DanielBog (apologize for dragging you in on Christmas Eve) want to chime in … or, understandably, not bcs. it is 
Cheers
Mike
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Hello all,
We absolutely care about our power users - and we’re not “only focused on AI and subscriptions.” I get why it can feel different from the outside (as nicely put by Mike “perceived reality”), but that doesn’t reflect our intent or priorities. Power users matter a lot to us, and so do casual and new users.
So yes: we hear you, and we’re on it. In 2026, we’ll dedicate a significant amount of time specifically to UI/UX across both Hub and AP (see also e.g. Basic Functionalities in 2026 - #2 by christian.birkhold ). That includes visual polish (e.g., contrast), closing gaps where capabilities got lost in the move to the modern UI, creating more working space for workflows, and a bunch of other quality-of-life improvements. Many of these details were necessarily deprioritized while we modernized the tech stack - but they’re front and center now.
@Christopher41 let’s make sure in 2026 we don’t loose you as a user. Please keep the feedback coming - it genuinely helps us prioritize what we tackle in 2026. Keep pushing us.
Merry Christmas everyone. Hope to meet some of you at a DataHop (or similar) in person and talk over a beer or Apfelsaftschorle.
Best,
Christian
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