Not pleased with V6 - Provide Option for V5/Classic Layout

Well guys, I am not sure where to begin with the issues with V6 other than to start this with a simple statement ... You should never try to fix something that was not broken!  The V5 layout was a very good evolution from the starting point of this client but now it seems you have gone all Win8 on us and changed everything... not good, not good at all.

The ribbon interface is utterly ridiculous and there was no need whatsoever to introduce this feature degradation.  It does not work on MS Office and it certainly does not work in an FTP Client. SMFTP is not Microsoft or Apple and Ribbons do not improve productivity, they hinder it.  I have used SmartFTP since it was first released and have always been a fan until now.  I have really tried hard to like V6 and the more I use it the more I hate it as it just frustrates me.  The interface is no longer intuitive and adds way too much time to what should be very simple tasks.

My feature improvement suggestions really revolve around brining back the Classic Layout or at a minimum, giving us the option of layouts for those of us that work from a regular computer and find no use for a ribbon.  This way, we still get the security improvements of V6 but we still have the option to stick with a layout that made us Smart FTP customers in the first place.  As it is, I am now shopping for a new client after many years as a SMFTP fan-boy.
Local/Remote Browser Windows
 - bring back the icons selections that used to be under the Navigation panel (no way to manually flip between Passive/Active anymore or have the quick tools right there.  Not sure why those went away but that was fundamental functionality of an FTP Client).  Other simple things like the new folder and delete buttons in each browser (local and remote) are no longer there... used to be part of that tool bar selection for each browser. 

-  Browsers will no longer remember view settings.  Feature suggestion is to fix this! For instance, I prefer to always have my local/remote windows in detail view.  No matter what I do, it flips me back to list view with every folder click or every time I re-open the client.  This is inefficient as it requires more key clicks to get simple jobs done.

 

Thank you for your feedback.
Version 5 with the classic UI is still available for download at:
https://www.smartftp.com/download
The ribbon interface is part of version 6 and is here to stay.

I totally second the OP here. Version 5.0.1356 from May 2014 was the best one I've seen ever, and I am using and loving SmartFTP since the times when it was free for personal use (v2 more than 10 years ago).
The introduction of SSH Terminal windows and the built-in editor were one of the greatest improvements one could wish from a FTP client, plus the multi-document interface, flexible organization of favorites & settings and nice looking interface with many themes to choose from.
Since version 5 though, what I see is constant degradation, the pursuit of the "modern" UI tendencies is leading to breaks in major functions and increase in inconvenience and annoyance with every next update that follows.
- The ribbon interface that cogency described; if there was an option to choose from ribbon and classic, that'd be great
- The removed options to customize the main menu and the window toolbars (add/remove commands is still there but there is nothing to choose from)
- The reduced set of buttons in the connection window toolbars (disconnect/reconnect, transfer mode, etc.)
- Keyboard shortcuts (e.g F7/F8 to Open/Edit a file in the built-in editor) no longer work in the local browser, only remote
- Favorites can no longer be accessed as a drop-down menu from the main toolbar
- Moving files from one remote folder to another, within the same server and window, used to happen very fast, with the move commands flowing in the log window, now it is raising a popup window with animations and it is several times slower
- Every next update is removing existing design themes. SFTP 7 does not support the Windows 7 theme anymore and is forcing us to the boring Win-10 flat white style, as if we're going back in the 80-s on monochrome monitors.
 
The only reason I had updated SFTP since v5 is because it wouldn't run on Windows 10. v6 wouldn't run on November's Windows update so I had to go to v7 - and say goodbye to the Win7 theme and say hello to bugs in the built-in editor.  If only I could run the old v5 on Windows 10, I would never trade it for anything else. But the way it's going now, I think this was the last time to pay for renewing support.

Please report the bugs (if you have not done so yet) you are experiencing. Thank you.

The outstanding bug was the built-in editor zoom (300%) which you have already taken care of.
My reply in this topic was not about bugs but mostly about inconvenience and annoyance caused by deprecation of interface features, keyboard shortcuts, layouts and themes in the latest versions, and the inability to run the older version that has these features and I like more, on Windows 10. If there were settings to turn on/off those points that I've listed above, I'm sure there would be many users to be happy about it.
Home users who use FTP infrequently might be thrilled by new stuff in their interface. But for web developers who use SFTP every day and all the time, such changes mean they do their job slower. Even simple things like missing shortcuts they're used to, or different location of a menu which requires 2-3 clicks more than it used to be, add up.