topic Re: April 2026 Fusion Update - Start-Up Navigation Issue in Fusion Support Forum

April 2026 Fusion Update - Start-Up Navigation Issue

al_walker — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 03:21:57 GMT

I have Default Design Type set as my Start-Up Experience with Hybrid set as the the Default Design Type and on Start-up that's exactly what I get without the Intent-Driven Design Window, so thanks very much for fixing that.

I then open an existing design and I no longer see the Autodesk Assistant on the right, so thanks again for removing that.

However, when I close the existing design I am navigated back to the Home page, rather than to my default Start-Up Experience, which is not what I specified in Preferences. I don't like the Home view as it's really unstructured, so don't use it.

My preferred method of navigation in my Hub is via the Data Panel, and that's what I want to see by default, per my Preference settings. I have to create a new design to get the Data Panel view.

On closing a design I want to go back to my Start-Up experience blank Hybrid design without the Intent-Driven Design window, that also displays the Data Panel.

So kind of two steps forwards, one step back. Can this navigation issue be fixed please?

Kind regards,

Re: April 2026 Fusion Update - Start-Up Navigation Issue

al_walker — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 06:26:57 GMT

I just had my Default Design Type spontaneously change to Part Design, so another issue to sort out please

Re: April 2026 Fusion Update - Start-Up Navigation Issue

bwalker145 — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:28:48 GMT

Agreed, the previous experience was better.

They removed the "What do you want to design?" at start-up, but now it you get to see it every time you have to start a blank design just to browse the standard Data Panel. One step forward, two steps back...

Re: April 2026 Fusion Update - Start-Up Navigation Issue

bbtfabrications — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:37:54 GMT

Agreed, the home tab has cost me more headache and time this week than I care to mention.

Re: April 2026 Fusion Update - Start-Up Navigation Issue

jlarsonLP454 — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:57:33 GMT

I just updated Fusion and opened it for the first time. Went to open the data panel by clicking on the location of the data panel icon (didn't look at the icon before clicking since I do it by muscle memory) and now there's a home button there instead. Once Home is open, I can't close it by clicking on the button again, and the data panel button is greyed out. This is a terrible user experience, much worse than the previous annoying "what do you want to design" pop up.

Apparently I have to create a part to get the data panel back so I can open an existing part file? Please give me a startup option to start in a blank screen with the data panel open - that would be perfect. Or at least go back to the original UI before you added the "what do you want to design today" popup.

The home screen is a chaotic mess that is useless to me.

Re: April 2026 Fusion Update - Start-Up Navigation Issue

bentwookie — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:44:04 GMT

It's confusing for sure

1) Open a file

2) Click that home button in the tab bar

3) Try to get back to your file. It's oddly not obvious where to click.

The home screen presents as a tab, in that it replaces your open document and displays in that space, but it doesn't draw its title as a tab. It's toggle from a place that historically has come in from the side, but goes essentially window-modal. Pick a lane Home Panel!

They'll always need to be something like the data panel which comes in from the side, as you have to be able to use with an open document (to import all these parts I'm now forced to create), so a window-modal Home screen is the odd man out.

IMO, the data panel should look like it does when in a narrow, portrait aspect and then convert to something more home-screeney when wider. Have a button in the data panel that toggles it.

(and then fix all the pixel-peeper bugs in that panel. Heaps of alignment problems, buttons atop other controls, inertial scrolling broken by slow reload on the main thread, on and on...)

E: I spent some more time in the Home screen. What a mess

Search still...can't
Scrolling the project list just stops
Everything is slow slow slow
Disclosure triangles for projects that then tell you they're empty when you turn them
With all this room, still no way to organize. No drag and drop. There's less functionality here than the data panel
No indication that opening is opening

The wheels are flying off this product.

Re: April 2026 Fusion Update - Start-Up Navigation Issue

scottprater — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 17:43:33 GMT

I want to upvote this post a thousand times.

Autodesk, PLEASE don't make arbitrary changes to workflows WITHOUT DOCUMENTING IT in the patch notes.

For what it's worth; yes, the data panel is a much better experience then the home panel (which I almost never used until now). The home panel is slow, clunky, difficult to navigate, and I would rather do anything I wanted to do in the home panel on a web browser (which is a much better experience).

When I close out of all my designs, I literally have to create a new part just so I can navigate through our design hub.

-Scott

Re: April 2026 Fusion Update - Start-Up Navigation Issue

MikeSmell_ADSK — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 20:17:34 GMT

Hi all - Thanks for the feedback on this topic. I will digest each of your feedback with the team closely, but I will provide some clarity to help you all get moving, hopefully a bit faster through this change.

We do have an option to control the startup behavior, as documented here - https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/april-2026-product-update-whats-new/#usability. Your startup behavior should not have changed. If you previously went to the Home tab on launch, you should still go to Home in the new release, but with no document open. If you previously went to a default blank document on launch, that should remain unchanged as well.

There is a change in the last document close that cannot be changed. You are now returned to Home to the last panel you were currently on. For example, if you opened a document from Projects, you will return to Projects. If you are more comfortable navigating from the Data Panel, you can still do that before closing the final document. Control+N is a keyboard shortcut to get you a new, blank document to help you quickly get back to the data panel.

Re: April 2026 Fusion Update - Start-Up Navigation Issue

al_walker — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 07:08:14 GMT

Hi Mike,

Thanks for coming back, I suggest the navigation rule is quite simple: When the last document is closed, Fusion reverts to the user's preference for the Start-Up Experience with the Default Design Type. If a user wants to start a new design of a different type, it is available from the File drop-down menu. That way a clean and clutter-free workspace can be maintained.

For those users who want to use the new features, they can choose to do so, and for those who want Fusion to behave the way it has historically, they can choose that experience.

That way everyone is happy.

I would also suggest that as many users have evolved personal workflows over a period of years that future changes to the Fusion experience should always allow for the 'classic' experience to avoid alienating such users. What may be genuinely seen as enhancements by the Fusion product management and development teams cannot take into account the myriad workflows that users employ on a day-to-day basis, and indeed are often fundamental to their commercial livelihoods and the business services that they offer.

As someone who has held senior corporate product and engineering management roles, I learnt long ago (the hard way) that users' workflow requirements should be the driver of product evolution, and not perhaps the internal corporate view of what it should be.

Kind regards,

Re: April 2026 Fusion Update - Start-Up Navigation Issue

dixonjn — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:01:18 GMT

Hate the new UI - why has it been forced on me - getting really sick of Fusion 360 and the stupid design changes