Track updates with ‘Timestamp’ plugin in Sketch

My first Sketch plugin to help you with annotations

A huge part of my job is to deliver annotated wireframes. Primary audience for these notes are developers, visual designers and QA folks. They refer these to make sure that the final implementation comes out as intended.

In most cases, there is back and forth between teams and design ends up changing.

Sketch is quick with making changes, but not so efficient with tracking them. I can go ahead and make the changes, but if I need to specifically see when I changed something and why, I will have to depend on some another form of documentation.

That’s where Timestamp comes in.

rachit91/sketch-timestamp

What can it do?

• If an artboard is selected and you invoke the plugin, it will ask you if you want to add a timestamp and if you click ‘add’ it will add one to the bottom right of that artboard.
• If no artboard is selected and the plugin is invoked, it will add timestamps to all the artboards on that page. If an artboard already has a timestamp, it will update it.
• After a timestamp is added, whenever you change anything on that artboard, timestamp will update automatically.

Timestamp in action

Instructions about installation and usage here: https://github.com/rachit91/sketch-timestamp

What goes into making a plugin for Sketch app?

The plugins are written in CocoaScript and are bundled with a manifest.json file which tells Sketch how to interpret your plugin. Sketch also understands JavaScript so you can choose to stick with either of the two as your main language but remember to cross-check the documentation for specific function definitions and usage.

Running a script in Sketch

What’s in the future?

At this point, this plugin is about simply updating the date on which the design was changed. I would want to:

• Find a way to track ‘what’ was changed and store it in a readable, proper format somewhere. (At present, I create another artboard and type it manually. Bah)
• Find a way to pull out the changes that were made on a particular date without switching context

I wonder why there isn’t a plugin that already does these?

And that’s a wrap!

If you have an idea for a plugin, take a stab and try building it. Take a look at examples and other plugins that are out there to get started. Feel free to reach out to me and I will help out as I can.

Happy exploring!