Want to Prototype in Sketch? Craft has got your back

My initial thoughts on the Prototype Beta by InVision Labs

The easier it is to make a prototype, the less attached I am to it, making it that much easier to discard if I realise it isn’t the best approach.

I was fortunate enough to be invited into the Beta of a prototyping plugin for Sketch called Silver earlier this year by Aby Nimbalkar, and Andrey Shakhmin, and was very impressed by its offerings. The folks over at InVision were equally impressed and decided to acquire Silver quick-sharpish, and integrate it into their existing Craft plugin suite. Smart move!

This will make Sketch a much more powerful tool now Adobe XD has started to make its presence known, turn Craft into the ‘must-have’ plugin for any Sketch install, and has enabled Aby, and Andrey to have much larger resources at their disposal to create a product that is at the top of its game.

Now one thing I was a little sceptical about with this new collaboration, and Silver transforming into what is now called Prototype, was the UI. I mentioned in a previous article I was impressed with what Silver offered…

Even at this stage, everything about Silver feels as though it has been a part of Sketch from the beginning. That was the first thing that struck me on my initial venture into the application, was how native it feels. It has Sketch DNA running through it’s prototyping veins.

I had seen how the Craft plugin in its first few iterations (and as cool as it is) somehow still felt a little detached, visually, from the rest of Sketch. But from playing around with the Beta, all those negative thoughts have been quashed, and I can say that it feels just as native as it did when I played with the plugin in its previous form as Silver, if not more so.

What Aby, Andrey, and the rest of the InVision Labs team have created with the Prototype plugin is truly impressive (and this is just from my play around with the Beta). Everything that was included in the Beta of Silver has remained intact (from what I can see), and fine-tuned to within an inch of its life.

Your design, and your prototyping are all walled into one application, enabling you to make those design decisions instantly. No back, and forth. No need for application switching. You design, you prototype, without leaving the comfortable surroundings of Sketch.

I’m impressed of where the team at InVision are taking the Craft plugin suite, and the Beta of Prototype has put the doubts that I may have had with the transition from Silver to Prototype to rest. There’s bugs to be squashed, kinks to be ironed out, but when it’s ready it will be the ‘must-have’ plugin for your Sketch install. Simple as that.

Define Initial Screen

Creating Links between Screens

Creating Input Fields

Web View (Embeds)

Clear Components

InVisionApp Preview

I’ve only touched on a portion of what is available with Prototype, but I’ll be covering it in much greater detail with a (Free) added chapter to my latest guide, once the public release is available. It will be worth waiting for I promise.

Would love to hear your thoughts on Craft Prototype, and any of the other prototyping tools now available?

Thanks for reading the article,
Marc

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