Release Notes
Manage and sync your Sketch plugins across machines and teams
TL;DR: Sketchpacks 0.6.0 gives you the ability to sync plugins across machines and teams using your favorite file syncing app such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or Box.
We’re excited to release multi-machine syncing — making it even easier to sync your Sketch plugins across machines. Better yet, your entire team.
Note: Sketchpacks can only sync plugins that are published to the Sketchpacks registry.
Release Notes
Improved Plugin Management, Better Plugin Detection, and much more
Since the last release, we’ve been heads-down addressing some much needed improvements, fixes, and nifty additions.
Release Notes
Manage & Auto-Update Sketch plugins from your menu bar
🚀 What’s new
- You can now enable
Launch on startupfor Sketchpacks.
👍🏽 What’s improved
- Sketchpacks’ window will now open automatically after launching, making it more obvious.
🐛 What’s fixed
- Fixed window positioning for Bartender 2 users
👉🏼 Are you a plugin author?
Serving your versioned plugin releases automatically in 15 seconds.
Start by installing the Sketchpacks Relay Github Integration and choose which plugins you will register with the Sketchpacks Registry and we’ll take care of the rest.
Sketchpacks Relay will serve your semantically versioned releases from your Github. No extra CLIs or commands — keeping your standard Github Releases workflow in tact.
We love hearing feedback
✉️ Give feedback
Have some feedback you’d like to share? Good, we’re all ears. …
Release Notes
Manage and auto-update Sketch plugins from your menu bar
Last year I wrote about my ideas for a Sketch plugin registry called Sketchpacks. The goal was to help solve the problems with discovering, managing, and delivering Sketch plugins. With Sketchpacks for macOS, and the Sketchpacks Relay Github integration. I feel like we’re much closer to realizing that goal!
The first iteration of Sketchpacks was a simple registry and API for searching Sketch plugins. However, it quickly became obvious that it only solved a small part of the problem. It needed a way to manage installed plugins, as well as a better system for keeping the registry up to date.
TL;DR — I’ll show you how to use NPM and Sketchtool to automate your Sketch.app file versioning process.
Invest in your craft
I consider tooling to be an essential asset to a designer’s craft and productivity. It allows your spare cycles to be used on more important things like solving problems rather than repeating a lot of little tasks that end up feeling like a time-sink.
One of those tasks I repeat often enough is communicating changes with every new release of our design component library with the IBM API Connect team.
I wanted to automate as much of the repetitive tasks as possible…
When I first started talking about Sketchpacks, I outlined a few things I considered experience gaps in my workflow.
The first step towards that motivating that vision of a better plugin ecosystem is one that is open. Enter the Sketchpacks API, a simple, RESTful, public API.
[GET] /api/v1/plugins
Currently, the Plugins Resource is a fire hose that returns a collection of all plugins indexed on Sketchpacks.com. The schema is identical to the one used by Sketch Toolbox.
I know this API is rather simple at the moment, but that is on purpose. I’d much rather have the API reflect the needs of its contributors and users than my own.
If you’re interested in using the Sketchpacks API, I’ve provided the documentation at sketchpacks/sketchpacks-api-docs. Also, please be sure to let me know what cool thing your building with it!
An attempt to solve an experience gap within the Sketch community through open source software and design.
The collaboration and talent found within the Sketch community is one to admire. There have been many amazing plugins contributed that have boosted my productivity by leaps and bounds. Plugins that allow me to try out an idea with very little effort. However, there are still some obstacles I’ve noticed and experienced around the ecosystem of plugins.
Management
Just like you, I’m a huge fan of Sketch Toolbox, the open source Sketch plugin manager created by shahruz. Unfortunately, it seems that there hasn’t been…
Every two weeks, we highlight the latest plugins and news in Sketch plugin development.
The frequency of each issue is still a work in progress, but feel free to respond and let me know what you think the frequency should be.
New & Noteworthy Plugins
Design Tooling
Read
Watch
Like what you’ve read? Make sure to hit the ‘Recommend’ button and ‘Follow’ this publication for future issues.
TL;DR: Great storytelling is shaped by people’s experiences and insights, then simplified by curation.
I admire Gladwell for many other reasons besides being a best-selling author. Most of all, it is his writing process that I admire.
I have two parallel things I’m interested in. One is, I’m interested in collecting interesting stories, and the other is I’m interested in collecting interesting research. What I’m looking for is cases where they overlap.
The same can be said about designing great experiences. Our goal is to create a form that responds to the forces seamlessly. …
Great innovation and experiences begin with empathy
TL;DR: Starting a company is hard work. Figuring out what product to sell is even more difficult. I made sure to listen, learn, and observe potential customers to understand the problem and solve that problem as simply as possible.
Most companies know what they do, but very few know why they do it.
Knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing is what will keep the midnight oil burning for as long as you need it.
Luckily for us, we knew exactly why we wanted to change how people bought their products online by…
Adam Kirkwood
Designing for a better human experience @FacebookDesign. Creator of www.sketchpacks.com.
