I just thought after using this for roughly 6 hours my thoughts and wondering if anyone else who has tested has similar views
UI improvements - 2/10 - For me this is the biggest let down, too much was deprecated. Make the improvements but allow backward compatibility for those who have gotten accustomed to previous layout
Feature Improvement - 6/10 - I like the chat folding , composer popout from the chat like interface etc. However , other features like long context, models 200k etc removed without warning. Notepad cannot be created or edited. Again these could be minor bugs that can easily fixed.
Agent - 9/10 - For me this is the biggest improvement. I have tried windsurf and i think i have said this before , Windsurf feels too autopilot and not given a lot of control to dev. With The composer agent, i was able to define rules using Notepad and then just adding it to the chat . i was using similar approach before agent and i always had hit and miss in composer as i had to be detailed with the rules. it used to delete parts of legit code always left code with lint errors. Now, wow it feels like working with me than running away with the changes. It also gives 97% of code updates without lint errors. Even when it has lint errors, i have the retry on lint error so it corrects it. it also now focuses on the core issues. Early days but so far i’m impressed and i think this is the future.
Editing and integration - 8/10 - the editing of code and layout in composer is much cleaner . You can clearly see diff, you know exactly what was edited , what the agent was thinking etc
So far early indication is this update is a major improvement and i’m well excited to see where we are headed once the minor bugs are fixed.
What’s everyones experience so far?
sorry i probably should have clarified. I like the UI but it feels like im learning a new UI compared to an improvement on the previous UI. For starters, Ctrl + I doesn’t open composer anymore ( I’m on Linux). Also the Composer is now next to the Chat (ie similar to when i press Ctrl + L) . When composer also opens in new window, it starts up on a random history not my current chat. Composer used to have mount back to window etc this has all changed. Basically i get that going forward you want to perhaps bring composer to be like how you have a chat but personally i liked it when there was clear separation . Or Even if this was going to happen it should be a transition rather than such a drastic change.
Ah I’m the opposite, I’m loving the new UI I think its much easier, I wasn’t using composer previously as it felt detached/confusing now having it directly in the sidebar is great!
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I don’t see option to create notepads anymore in composer. Even when i pop out. I see previous notepad I created and can add it to context. When I double click it after adding to context it opens up in tab.
Just noticed that you can manage your notebooks here in the sidebar:
When expanded you can create new or change old ones.
PS.: Is there some place I can read more about agent mode and how it differs from the previous composer? I read somewhere that agent mode can use the terminal. Are there more tools that the agent can use? Ideally I would like to know use-case examples where agents can solve problems that previously could not be solved with the composer. Thanks
I like the new UI, though very different compared with the previous version (and took me a while to find the notepads), but it’s a more reasonable UI for me.
But the frequency of composer not responding increased about 10 times in my experience…
Is there a way to turn off agent mode? Ever since I enabled agent mode, the composer has stopped applying any of its changes to my codebase. And I can’t seem to turn off agent mode?
UPDATE: I just realized that I can create a new composer with ctrl+N.
Having used the new version for a day and half now, I have started getting used to the new UI and it makes more sense especially with composer now as a tab. you can still pop it out using “move it into new window” but tbh it’s much more productive for me now in its current format. I have a multi-screen setup and use to love the popout composer, but now in the tab format I easily switch tabs and don’t even use the multi-screen anymore. I also noticed a few people mention the “add files” feature gone, I still have it and haven’t even used it once in the agent mode as the agent keeps searching for the correct file automatically to use. In my setup, I only have a notepad in the add to file which has a bunch of rules the agent should follow. So far, the agent is consistently giving me dart code with very little lint or no lint errors at all with every code it updates. It also appears to be more focused on areas it needs to fix but that could be because I have rules like I said in Noptepad which gets added to every chat. Don’t get me wrong, there are teething issues like when I move focus from the composer tab and click back it takes me to a random history rather than what I was working on. I’m sure this will slowly be ironed out in the coming days. What would have been good or probably alleviated most of people’s frustration or certainly mine, “Cursor devs”, Next time there’s a major update like this, please detail all the updates, changes and features compared to previous releases beforehand. This way people can decide whether to update or not. Also include a roll back feature to previous version will help. Anyway, I for one is loving this update so far and keep up the good work:+1:.
