Appendix

Plugins

Basically, Sketch gives you everything you need to approach a broad range of projects. But there are still parts that either are totally missing in the app or that work in an unexpected manner. To account for this, the community has created countless plugins that enhance Sketch in very different ways.

Besides the ones already mentioned throughout the book (and that are also listed below for the sake of completeness), this chapter gives you an overview of the most recommended plugins. They are arranged in useful categories for easier recognition, but in no particular order. Most of them can be installed with Sketch Toolbox; however, the official websites are also mentioned for your reference. Read more about their usage and application in chapter 3. Please note that plugins tend to stop working with newer versions of Sketch, so I can give no guarantee for their correct functionality.

Up for more? Besides the official plugin directory¹ there’s a huge collection of these little helpers to choose from on GitHub².

Productivity

•Sketch Runner³: Like Spotlight search but in Sketch. Search through plugins and menu commands, jump to groups or layers, insert symbols, or create and apply styles, all in a simple interface.

•Rename it⁴: Rename multiple layers at once based on different parameters, like a numerical sequence, with a prefix or by adding dimensions to the name.

•Find and Replace⁵: Finds text either in the selected layers or the whole document and replaces it with different content.

•Dynamic button⁶: Create buttons with fixed padding no matter what text you add. The button shape automatically snaps to the new dimensions once you press a shortcut.

•Compo⁷: Kind of an advancement of Dynamic buttons. Turn a text layer into a button, or put an existing component in order with the correct margins, all with a simple keystroke.

•Sort Me⁸: Allows you to arrange layers alphabetically or numerically in the layers list, or in the reverse order.

Responsive Design

•Fluid⁹: Before Sketch offered native group-resizing possibilities, this was the best way to achieve the same functionality. It’s a bit more complicated to use, but it gives many more options for pinning elements to certain positions and resizing whole layouts at once. Sketch Constraints¹⁰ falls in the same category.

Colors and Palettes

•My Sketch Colors¹¹: By default, Sketch offers just a handful of preset colors, but with this replacement you get a lot more options to choose from.

•Sketch Palettes¹²: Lets you save and load colors in the color dialog so that you can distribute them across different computers or to your whole team.

•Prism¹³: Creates an artboard with all of the colors in your Document Colors with the corresponding color labels, in a variety of formats. Think of it as a mini-style guide.

•Contrast Color Analyser¹⁴: Calculates the color contrast of two layers and evaluates it against the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).

Images and Patterns

•Sketch Subtle Patterns¹⁵: Import all patterns from this well-known pattern library into Sketch. A paid but more comfortable alternative can be found directly on the website of the library¹⁶.

•Unsplash it¹⁷: If you need a simple way to add an occasional placeholder image from the famous Unsplash collection, this is the perfect place.

•Sharpen images¹⁸: Apply a sharpen filter (unsharp mask) to your layers in Sketch in a non-destructive way. This is especially important if you flatten parts of your designs to a bitmap.

•sketch-uifaces¹⁹: Easily load avatar images from the uiFaces website, so that you don’t have to insert profile pictures manually.

Development

•Git Sketch²⁰: All of the functionality of Git, built right into Sketch. No more “v1,” “v1.1,” “v2” for your files, but rather a clearly documented design process.

•CSSketch²¹: Enables you to modify designs quickly by attaching a CSS file to it. It supports Sass and LESS style sheets, which means you can put functions and variables in your style sheets to make your workflow even more efficient.

•Code generator²²: A paid plugin that allows you to convert parts of your Sketch document into Swift or Objective-C to ease the build process of an iOS app.

•Marketch²³: Creates an HTML page in which you can read all of the information to code your design, such as colors, font sizes and measurements.

•Sketch Measure²⁴: Takes the same line, but also allows you to add measurements, dimensions, color codes and more directly in Sketch, as separate layer groups.

States

•Checkpoints²⁵: Save important stages of your artboards, so that you can easily compare and revert to them. States²⁶ falls into the same category.

Asset Generation and Exporting

•AEIconizer²⁷: Make it easier to resize artwork for the iOS app icon: Select any layer and generate all of the required sizes.

•Iconboard²⁸: A paid plugin for creating optimized icons with multiple sizes from artboards in Sketch. Both Windows and Mac icon formats are supported.

•Sketch Export Assets²⁹: Export assets for Android, iOS and Windows Phone: Select the element and choose which platform you want to serve.

Style Guides

•Style Inventory³⁰: The bigger your project grows, the more important it is to keep everything consistent. This plugin can help because it collects all colors, text styles and symbols of a document in a dedicated artboard. Craft³¹ can help you do the same, but also syncs the styles.

Text

•Comma³²: Easily access text modifications such as uppercase or title case, add ellipses, or change to single or double line breaks.

•Sketch Iconfont³³: Insert and manage icons from icon fonts with ease. Also needs the font bundles³⁴ installed, which gives you access to four different fonts.

Image Optimization

•Sketch Image Compressor³⁵: This official plugin takes care that your bitmap assets (PNG and JPG) are automatically optimized for a small file size when they are exported.

•SVGO Compressor³⁶: The same, but for SVGs. Lets you tailor the optimization settings to your needs.

Various

•SplitDivide³⁷: Split overlaying shapes and create separate layers for the overlapping parts.

•Animateme³⁸: Create animations right in Sketch: Define keyframes, set easing functions, and export as an animated GIF or separate PNG files.

•Segment Circle³⁹: Make circular graphics for diagrams, instrumentation and analytics, including as a segmented circle, tickmarks circle or dashed circle.

•Magic Mirror⁴⁰: Kind of a supercharged version of the native transformation tool, allowing you to create hip perspective mockups directly in Sketch.

•Arrowfy⁴¹: Let’s be serious, the default arrows of Sketch are somewhat less than perfect. This plugin eases the pain a bit by adding simple arrowheads to any line, sized and colored to match its properties.

•Paparazzi!⁴²: Not exactly a plugin, but a little utility app that lets you make screenshots of websites, which you can import into Sketch as editable layers.

Content Generators

These basically all do the same: provide real content for your design in an easy-to-use manner. There’s a whole paragraph dedicated to them in Design With Real Data in chapter 5, which you should check out to learn more about these helpers. Here’s just a list for reference.

•Craft⁴³

•Sketch Data Populator⁴⁴

•Content Generator⁴⁵

•Day Player⁴⁶

Collections

Most plugins serve a single function, but some collections combine various little helpers into a comprehensive package.

•Sketch-Mate⁴⁷: A collection of useful plugins that let you manipulate artboards, align layers in smart ways and sort them.

•Utility Belt⁴⁸: An always-expanding collection of small, simple, focused plugins.

•Sandros Sketch Plugins⁴⁹: Another library of plugins aimed at working with horizontal and vertical grid layouts and typography.

Resources

Sketch not only has a vivid plugin ecosystem, but is also surrounded by a vibrant community that provides helpful resources about the design app on a regular basis. Let me give you a list of the best places out there.

•SketchTips⁵⁰: My very own website about Sketch, where I’ve provided countless tips and tricks about the design app for over two years now. Please subscribe to my newsletter⁵¹ to get the occasional email about Sketch-related topics. As a bonus for signing up, I will send you my Sketch keyboard cheat sheet, with the most important keyboard shortcuts.

•Personal coaching⁵²: if you or your company are interested in a Sketch training, please fill out the contact form and I’ll get back to you in no time.

•Visit the website of the book⁵³ to get updates and to subscribe to the official newsletter.

•You can also contact me⁵⁴ there or ping me on Twitter @SketchTips⁵⁵ whenever you have a question about Sketch or about design in general. I’d be glad to help in any possible way.

•My Skillshare courses⁵⁶: In my beginner’s video course, I show the basics of Sketch based on a beautiful Twitter profile card. If you are up for more of a challenge, watch my advanced class, where we design a gorgeous water-consumption app from start to finish.

•Sketch App Sources⁵⁷: A collection of useful resources about Sketch. They also have a publication on Medium⁵⁸.

•Sketch Tricks⁵⁹: Get bite-sized Sketch tricks, tips and techniques in this weekly newsletter.

•SketchTalk⁶⁰: The friendly community where everything related to Sketch is discussed.

•Sketch Hunt⁶¹ and Sketch App Rocks⁶²: A collection of the best resources for the design app.

•The official Sketch documentation⁶³

•The official Sketch Facebook group⁶⁴

•Official Sketch support⁶⁵: Whenever you have a question about Sketch, want to report a bug or request a feature, the Sketch team is there to help.

•Sketch Beta⁶⁶: Get a look at the future of Sketch. This beta can be installed independent of the normal version and lets you see the next iteration of the design app. Use at your own risk, and be sure not to employ it for production work.

•Project files: The Sketch files of all projects built throughout this book are available for you to see how certain parts are constructed or to grab some of the assets. Here’s everything related to Visit Austria⁶⁷, and here you can find the Mini Projects⁶⁸.

The Most Important Keyboard Shortcuts

The true power of Sketch lies in the keyboard shortcuts. Although I have named and used most of them throughout the book, I’d like to give you a condensed overview of the most important ones:

Cmd + click: No matter how deep within a group a layer is nested, you can select it if you click on it while holding Cmd.

Alt + hover: Hold and hover over another layer to measure the distance to the currently selected layer (hold Cmd to drill into layer groups).

Alt + drag: Hold and drag a layer to duplicate it.

R: Add a rectangle (hold Shift to make a square).

O: Add an ellipse (hold Shift to make a circle).

A: Add an artboard.

T: Add a text layer.

Cmd + D: Duplicate a layer.

↑/↓/←/→: Move a layer in the corresponding direction on the canvas (hold Shift for 10-pixel steps).

Cmd + →/↓: Enlarge a layer (hold Shift for 10-pixel steps).

Cmd + ←/↑: Shrink a layer (hold Shift for 10-pixel steps).

Tab: Cycle through the layers in the layers list (hold Shift to go in the opposite direction).

Alt + Tab: Jump to the first input field in the inspector (Position → X). Press Tab to jump from one field to the next.

Cmd + R: Rename a layer.

Alt + Cmd + ↓/↑: Move a layer one step to the back or front.

Cmd + G: Group multiple layers into a group (add Shift to ungroup them).

Enter/Return: Access a layer group or the vector point mode of a layer.

Esc: Sequentially go out of nested layer groups. Or stop editing the vector points of a layer. In case no point is selected, the vector point mode is left; otherwise, the currently selected point gets deselected.

Shift + Cmd + L: Lock a layer.

Shift + Cmd + H: Hide a layer.

Alt + Cmd + =: Make text bigger.

Alt + Cmd + –: Make text smaller.

Cmd + B: Make text bold.

Cmd + U: Underline text.

F: Toggle the fill(s) of a layer.

B: Toggle the border(s) of a layer.

1 to 0: Change the opacity of a layer or group.

Cmd + +: Zoom into the canvas.

Cmd + –: Zoom out of the canvas.

Cmd + 0: Show the actual size of the canvas (100%).

Cmd + 2: Zoom all the way into the currently selected layer.

Cmd + 3: Center the currently selected layer.

Cmd + K: Scale an object by a certain ratio or a defined width or height.

Cmd + {/|/}: Align the content of text layer to the left, center or right.

Ctrl + ↓/↑: Jump to next or previous page.

Ctrl + R: Toggle rulers and guides.

Ctrl + G: Toggle the layout grid.

Ctrl + P: Toggle the pixel grid.

Alt + Cmd + 3: Toggle the layers list and inspector (to maximize the canvas).

Cmd + Esc: Return back to the instance from the master symbol.

Alt + Cmd + U: Perform a Union Boolean operation.

Alt + Cmd + S: Perform a Subtract Boolean operation.

Ctrl + 1/2/3/4: Set the resizing behavior of a layer.

Besides the default keyboard shortcuts, it’s also possible to define your own combinations or alter the existing ones. Read more about that in info box Custom Shortcuts in chapter 3.

Acknowledgements

There are many people without whom making this book wouldn’t have been possible: Peter Nowell, for providing countless in-depth articles on Medium (http://smashed.by/sketch-pnowell1, http://smashed.by/sketch-pnowell2, http://smashed.by/sketch-pnowell3); Meng To for his enormous collection of Sketch tricks and techniques (https://designcode.io/sketch-techniques, https://designcode.io/sketch-mastering); Smashing Magazine and Markus Seyfferth in particular for giving me the chance to write this book; Owen Gregory for proofreading the book and providing many helpful comments (seriously, hire him⁶⁹); Andrew Lobo⁷⁰, who also helped with proofreading; Rafael Conde for his technical review of the book and all the valuable notes (you should check out his SketchCasts⁷¹); Jasim A Basheer for giving parts of the book a read and providing feedback. Check out his Sketch related products⁷²; my readers of sketchtips.info, in particular Daniel Leavey, Claus Medvesek, Bram Stege, Joanna Katsifaraki, Ken Takahashi, Scott Karstetter and Nikhil Kavimandan for telling me what they want to read in the book; and of course the Sketch team, for releasing and maintaining such a great design app, which makes the lives of so many designers easier every day. Finally, my biggest thank-you goes to my wife, Claudia, and my son, Florian, for their continuous support and for understanding that their husband and “Papa” didn’t have as much time as usual.

Copyright Information

Fig. 1.1 (left), 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2.19, 2.20, 2.21, 2.23, 2.26, 2.28, 2.37, 2.39, 3.2, 3.5, 3.10, 3.12, 3.17, 3.20, 3.21, 3.22, 3.26, 3.27, 3.30, 3.32, 3.36, 3.37, 3.38, 3.42, 3.47, 4.2, 4.16, 6.5, 6.6, 6.7, 6.8, 6.9, 6.10, 6.11, 6.14, 6.16 (bottom left), 7.1, 7.4, 7.5, 7.7, 7.9, 7.13, 8.3, 9.2, 9.5 © Österreich Werbung, Fotograf: Popp Hackner.

Fig. 3.1, 3.4, 3.34, 6.10, 6.14 by Haitao Zeng (unsplash.com/photos/rU2-7y7_dbo).

Fig. 3.19, 12.11 (left, middle), 12.12, 12.14, 12.15 by Thomas Lefebvre (unsplash.com/photos/V63oM8OPJSo).

Fig. 5.14, 5.15, 5.18, 5.19, 5.20, 5.21, 6.13 by Joshua Hibbert (unsplash.com/photos/utjhJQPD2xw).

Fig. 5.19, 6.13 (unsplash.com/photos/TI-B-TNYJMU).

Fig. 6.21 (top right) by pokedstudio (www.pokedstudio.com).

Fig. 1.1 (right), 12.25, 12.26 by Marco Galtarossa (thenounproject.com/marcogaltarossa), IT.

Fig. 12.25, 12.29 by Nesdon Booth (thenounproject.com/nesdon.booth).

Fig. 4.14, 4.15 by David Courey (thenounproject.com/term/bycicle/274110/), US.

Fig. 3.44 inspired by Creative Stall (thenounproject.com/creativestall), PK.

Texts on details page from smashed.by/sketch-tannheim and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallstatt.

Everything else: trademark of their respective owners. Please don’t copy any of the material without asking for permission.