7 features Sketch forgot to include
Sketch is a great tool which we use on a daily basis at Hike One. Although we embraced the tool completely, we feel it misses some features as well. Luckily for us, Sketch and its community have bright minds who have written great plugins that fit our needs. Below I’ve listed my favourite plugins, which speed up my workflow immensely.
Sketch Palettes
This is one of the plugins I like most. While working for multiple clients or brands at the same time, I always struggled with various colour palettes. Sketch Palettes enables you to save and load colour palettes. Also, now palettes can be shared with others. Goodbye frustration!
Download: https://github.com/andrewfiorillo/sketch-palettes
Artboard Tricks
Arranging and separating multiple artboards from each other with the same amount of pixels is something Sketch isn’t good at. Artboard Tricks makes it possible to align artboards with equal distances. Besides, it allows you to add numbers before the artboards name without changing one by one.
Download: https://github.com/romannurik/sketch-artboardtricks
Content Generator
Although I prefer using real data in designs, dummy data can come in handy sometimes. Meet the Content Generator plugin. It is especially useful for adding Lorem Ipsum and images. Just import images from a root folder or insert them from Flickr. How cool!
Download: https://github.com/timuric/content-generator-sketch-plugin
Pixel Cleanup
Doing a precision job, fractional numbers like 10,08 are my worst nightmare because edges become blurry. Pixel Cleanup rounds pixels to the nearest pixel and removes all unnecessary numbers after the comma. Both for size and position input fields.
Download: https://github.com/stackdevelopment/sketch-pixel-cleanup
Font Finder
Copying and pasting components in other files, and working with multiple templates sometimes results in font styles that are not welcome in your file. Font finder lives up to its name, it finds all types of fonts in your file. What’s more, select the unwanted styles and do with them whatever your want.
Download: https://github.com/ukn530/fontfinder
User Flows v2
To be honest, I haven’t used this plugin that often. However, I think this is something many designs have been waiting for since Sketch was released. With the plugin, arrows can be drawn between items and artboard and diagrams can be created.
Download: https://github.com/abynim/UserFlows
Click Dummy
While User Flows enables you to make connections in your Sketch file, Click Dummy makes it possible to export a real HTML click-model. It’s not as advanced as InVision, but flows can easily be prototyped at first sight. Name any shape ‘linkto:ArtboardName’ to link to a specific artboard.
Download: https://github.com/raureif/sketch-click-dummy
Pro tip: Add keyboard shortcuts
As mentioned before, using plugins will speed up your workflow. But adding keyboard shortcuts for frequently used actions will make you accelerate like Superman. So, how to become a superhero designer?
On a Mac, go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts to add shortcuts yourself. The input is case sensitive and should refer to menu commands in Sketch.
I use shortcuts myself to align faster. Instead of reaching the top right in Sketch 20,000 times a day, I mainly use these shortcuts:
⌘ + ‘Up’ = align to top
⌘ + ’Bottom’ = align to bottom
⌘ + ’Left’ = align to left
⌘ + ’Right’ = align to right
⌘ + ’Move To Front’ = move artboard/shape to front
⌘ + ’Move To Back’ = move artboard/shape to back
I also added a shortcut (‘Apply from folder’ = ⌘ + Shift + X) to paste images in selected shapes using Content Generator. This way, I fill multiple shapes with images using one action only. Last pro tip: Do not overwrite ⌘ + C or ⌘ + V, because copy-paste won’t work anymore. ;)
Conclusion
It would be great if the community smarties keep up the good work by writing plugins. And I’m sure they will. Why? We, designers, are always looking for new ways of working and are willing to share our tools and knowledge. All that remains for me to say is: try new plugins, use shortcuts, and keep improving Sketch features!
Are you in need of more plugins yourself?
Find more on Github or Sketchapp.com.
Danny Groenen
Visual Designer at Hike One
