Sketch 60 — Let’s talk about the awesome, new Components panel
Working with Symbols is now better than it’s ever been with this latest Sketch release.
The updates from Sketch are now coming thick and fast, more than ever before, with each one improving on the last, and with Sketch 60, the key update for me and I’m sure many other users of our favourite design tool is the new Components Panel.
Let’s dive on in…
Ok. So I’ve been playing around with the Beta of Sketch 60 for the past couple of weeks, and now it’s available to the masses wanted to share my initial thoughts. The good and the not so good.
I started testing the Beta version of Sketch 60 with my own Design System/UI Starter Kit: Cabana…
…I felt that was the best way to really put the new Components panel through its paces. No point in going in softly with a couple of Artboards and a handful of Symbols. I had to go in hard, and what better way than with Cabana with its 100s of Symbols, Layer Styles and Text Styles. Go hard, or go home right?
The new Components panel now resides in what we simply used to call the Layer List, which, is now referred to as simply Layers. You can easily toggle between Layers and Components in this panel via the simple keyboard shortcuts -
- Ctrl 1 for Layers
- Ctrl 2 for Components
Then, once you have the Components panel visible, you have 3 options available to you, where you can either choose Symbols, Text Styles or Layer Styles via the 3 icons at the top of the panel.
I’ll get to Text, and Layer Styles in a moment, but before then, let’s talk about how it feels to have our Symbols now residing in the Components Panel…
…well, in a word…awesome!
Is the new Components panel going to improve your workflow? When it comes to actual Symbols, it’s a resounding yes from me! Having the ability to Search and Filter through your Symbols is a real game-changer, and on top of that having a decent sized image preview now available to you in the Components panel (yes I know Sketch Runner does this, but we’re talking core Sketch functions now) is super-helpful when searching for the right Symbol. No more teeny-tiny image previews in the Symbols menu in the Toolbar. Oh yes!
In regards to the Text Styles option in the Components panel. Hmmm. I’m not sure it’s doing it for me right now. Having to drill down through folders to find a certain Text Style just seems like a chore, and not suited for Text Styles. For Symbols, yes. Text Style, nah. For now, until the team at Sketch come up with something more functional, I’m sticking to the tried and tested Text Styles menu in the Toolbar. For me at least, it seems the faster, and more streamlined way to choose Text Styles as things stand. Hopefully the Sketch team will take another look at how Text Styles are catered for in the Components panel and improve on it in a future update.
The Components Panel.
Where have you been all these years?
I’ve worked, we’ve all worked with Symbols for quite a few years now, and kind of gotten used to reaching for the Symbols menu in the Toolbar, or using a plug-in such as Sketch Runner to pop a handy little Symbol into our current project. And that’s been kind of ok. Well let’s give props to Sketch Runner here, that awesome little plugin improved on the handling and insertion of Symbols in a very big way and they deserve to be applauded for all the work they put it into that invaluable plugin.
Has the Components panel taken some cues from the aforementioned plugin? Yeah I think that’s pretty obvious here. Like it has always been inside of the Sketch ecosystem, Sketch doesn’t have X feature. Plugin comes along and adds X feature. Sketch adds plugins functionality directly in Sketch. It’s a cycle that keeps on repeating. And that’s not just Sketch, many other design tools have followed a similar pattern. It’s just the way shizzle goes down around these parts.
To wrap things up here, let me share my final thoughts…
Is the new Components panel a step in the right direction? Yes indeed.
It supersedes the archaic method of both choosing Symbols, and categorising them in a really big way, helping you speed up your workflow more than ever before. The Text Styles option inside of the Components panel? The jury is still out on that one if I’m being really honest, but let’s see where future updates may take us. Hey, for Text Styles you can always just carry on using the Text Styles dropdown in the Toolbar, it’s still there, it hasn’t gone away.
Give Sketch 60 a go. Apart from certain niggles, and rooms for improvement here, and there, it’s an amazingly beneficial, and enjoyable update that I’m sure you’re going to really appreciate.
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Thanks for reading the article,
Marc
Designer, Author, Father, and Lover of Retro Gaming.
