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Discovering Sketch

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Re: Discovering Sketch

#51

Post by falk »

Sometimes things don't vertically center properly when I use the "Align Vertically" button. I haven't seen anyone else complain about this, so am I doing something wrong?

Here's an example: http://imgur.com/kgbMwJ2

Ninja edit: After looking at the screenshot I posted above again, it looks like the entire textbox is being vertically centered (the blue outline is centered), but not the text inside of it. Why does it a function this way and can I change it so that it vertically centers the text? Thanks.

Re: Discovering Sketch

#52

Post by joelanman »

I love Sketch, it's a great Fireworks replacement. A few tips:

⌘ + cursor right or down: nudge width/height

in preferences you can set it to zoom into selection, which I prefer

when elements are grouped, hold ⌘ to select elements in the group directly

right click a layer and select mask - this will mask any layers above it. If it's in a group it will only affect the elements in the group

Re: Discovering Sketch

#53

Post by xutopia »

workbench wrote: post #49
omegote wrote: post #27

It would have been great to point out at the beginning of the article that this sketch software is for Mac only. Serious web development is not only done in Mac, did you know?

How times change

I remember in 2001 a friend of mine brought his black Apple laptop at work because he wanted to work with it to do a web application in Java. Everyone laughed at him. Now if I see someone with a thick Dell or IBM laptop it's the exception.

Re: Discovering Sketch

#54

Post by joelanman »

shmageggy wrote: post #6

This looks very much like Fireworks. The author mentioned that he won't discuss it since Adobe discontinued it, but the resemblance is uncanny. I never understood why Fireworks wasn't more widely used/praised; I found it to be absolutely perfect for designing web graphics.

I think the main thing it's missing from Fireworks is a symbol library - so useful for repeating elements such as buttons, icons

Re: Discovering Sketch

#55

Post by gngeal »

jwdunne wrote: post #40
porker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why hybrid vector/bitmap editors didn't gain more acceptance: it seems a natural way to work. This one-or-the-other mentality may suit developers of the software, but it's not natural for users. I like to be able to go back and edit my shapes, yet change the contents in ways that only a bitmap editor would be able to. Storing a history of the transformations I did and re-applying when I'd resized/c…

I notice this about Photoshop users myself but I also notice the more time you spend using it, the biggest efficiency gains you make to your workflow come from using vector shapes and non-destructive editing (various types of masks, adjustment layer, layers with blending options). There are a few things where destruction is required but often I stash an old copy of the layer unless I'm dead set on the new version, bu…

You should always be able to do non-destructive editing even when pretending to work destructively, by keeping around the original sources (which you keep around anyway in most cases) and the graph of operations applied (which isn't much data). Or rather, the software should be able to do that. I'm surprised that there don't seem to be any applications doing that.

Re: Discovering Sketch

#56

Post by idealform01 »

joelanman wrote: post #54
shmageggy wrote: post #6

This looks very much like Fireworks. The author mentioned that he won't discuss it since Adobe discontinued it, but the resemblance is uncanny. I never understood why Fireworks wasn't more widely used/praised; I found it to be absolutely perfect for designing web graphics.

I think the main thing it's missing from Fireworks is a symbol library - so useful for repeating elements such as buttons, icons

in fireworks it's called "Common Library" but it's really useful for that kind of stuff. It also has "styles" functionality that flow through to all of the pages for element styles.

Re: Discovering Sketch

#57

Post by joelanman »

idealform01 wrote: post #56
joelanman wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main thing it's missing from Fireworks is a symbol library - so useful for repeating elements such as buttons, icons

in fireworks it's called "Common Library" but it's really useful for that kind of stuff. It also has "styles" functionality that flow through to all of the pages for element styles.

sorry my comment was badly worded - I meant it was missing in Sketch compared to Fireworks

Re: Discovering Sketch

#58

Post by porker »

workbench wrote: post #42
falk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Sketch, but I don't like Fireworks. I find Fireworks awkward and clunky.

Seems like most designers dismiss Fireworks before even giving it a chance. Once you get over the initial bump it actually feels much nicer to work with than Photoshop. The only thing really listed in this article that Fireworks hasn't done for years is the retina capabilities. Fireworks blows sketch out of the water performance wise and also opens layered PSDs/copy and paste support for vectors from Illustrator. Ado…

> Adobe killing off Fireworks just proves how little they understand the needs of their customers.

"Adobe" and "customers" go together in a sentence like "hacker" and "power outage"...

I am hopeful they will turn round the company, but it'll take a while.

Re: Discovering Sketch

#59

Post by Goondaba »

clumsysmurf wrote: post #18

I've been using Inkscape on my Mac for quite a while, but the team doesn't seem to be willing or able to support the platform well. The download page still has 0.48.2 which is pretty ancient; I'm not too optimistic 0.49 will see good mac support either. I like inkscape, and if I migrate to Windows / Linux I can continue to use my assets there. But this app looks very nice; I wonder if anyone can briefly mention the a…

Have you tried using the Fink installation? It seems to have a more recent build, 0.48.4-5.

Re: Discovering Sketch

#60

Post by chestnut-tree »

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #17

Is there any comparable program to use for windows or linux users?

For Windows, take at look at Xara Photo and Graphic Designer. It's principally a vector Illustration program but includes some photo manipulation capabilities too (cropping images, adjusting brightness and contrast etc).

The interface is far superior to Illustrator and it's extremely fast in performance.

I have used this program for many years and recommend you give it a try to see if you like it.

There is a free trial version of the software on the Xara website

http://www.xara.com/uk/photo-graphic-designer/

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