The dockable media library doesn't help. It really made more sense to have everything easy to grab/see on the left. I prefer working in a space like Hindenburg, where all my files can be organized on the right, making it easy to see/find them.

I now learn that Descript is abandoning Classic entirely, which I find disappointing. I tried again this week to adopt the "Storyboard" workflow for my (deadline-driven, high-pressure) workflow and have again become frustrated by the bugs and -- to my mind -- needless changes. I've come to rely on this software for my everyday work and have even advocated for wider adoption of it at my company. But I can't recommend it to anyone in its new/current form.

Hello Katie + others! Thanks for all this generous feedback. With our recent release of dockable/resizable both files and composition list panels, we hope your challenges are relieved there. For those that have separate feedback or requests from Katie's original points, please vote on the matching post or create a new one with so that specific request can be tracked. Thank you again for your honest and specific feedback here - it truly helps.

This update is really frustrating. Descript used to be nearly perfect. Now everything is hidden, the shortcuts all changed, and it takes longer to do everything. I'm not averse to change.

-I would like the project file back in the sidebar

-Universal search across compositions to see if I reused the same piece of audio

-Copy and paste audio while in "feather/write mode" to actually copy the audio and not just the text.

That being said, there's still nothing like Descript. This frustration comes from love of the product. Please reverse course.

Is there a way to downgrade to Classic? I'm new and I am finding Descript impossibly complex. I don't understand the concepts and navigation... and that's without the impact of continuous change to the interface too. (I'm doing audio-only editing, for podcasts)

Also wholeheartedly agree with this.

I wholly agree.

Trying to get to the list of Markers for quick navigation takes 3 click now instead of 1.

I must agree with this. I find this UI a whole new learning experience and is slowing me down rather than speeding me up. Using a drop down to access everything is not time saving. I am trying to put together a video with screen movies to demonstrate product functionality and I have never been so frustrated. I could have done this in half the time with Camtasia Studio but I wanted this to work better than it does. The Media bin is too small and not sizeable so I can't see enough to find the starting points of my added video clips. I tried the pan and zoom feature and it took me forever to finally find the handles on the timeline but also find this too small to see accurately.

I thought it was just me. In a way I'm really glad it isn't just me :-)

But in another sense this thread is worrying because it appears that a lot of users find the new version unintuitive, counterproductive, worse ergonomically, etc. It's not just "we need to re-learn a few things" -- for audio editing, the new version is measurably a worse, less efficient, clunkier tool than the old version and it's a bummer to see a favourite tool ruined by an "upgrade." There's a lot of consensus here and yet I'm not hearing or seeing any response from the devs. I know they've bitten off a lot, trying to become a competitive video editor and open up a big new market for the app. So maybe they're just desperately trying to get to a stable release and that's keeping them busy.

But it worries me that we're not hearing any response from the devs on a fairly strong set of feedback from unhappy users. At the very least it seems like they should not retire Classic. I don't even care if it ever gets upgraded -- I would rather continue to work with Classic forever, as it is right now (despite some of its shortcomings) than be forced to use the new Storyboard mode. With Classic I can get the job done efficiently -- modulo some beefs I have like lack of hotkeys for basic audio editing actions -- and I know I can meet my deadlines. With the New Mode I feel like it takes 50% more time just to work around the weirdly inefficient UI with so much stuff hidden, having to go through submenus and popups to get at the most commonly used tools, etc.

If we can't persuade them to go on developing Classic, could we at least persuade them to leave it alone as a "legacy" mode and let us go on using it as is?

I can't figure out how to edit my audio in the new update. I prefer Classic. So frustrating, when I want to get to work, but must hunt for how to do something that used to be easy (once I learned it.)