Sketch 3.5 is released today

Sketch 3.5, for web and app designers, is released today

Sketch has gained massive popularity as a graphic design program dedicated to designing interfaces, websites, icons… in short, where UX/UI/front-end developers and app builders need graphics PLUS interaction tools. As a Mac-only product (with no Windows version in the works, according to their website), they have accumulated a large following in those quasi-niche disciplines, and maintained a presence on Apple’s App Store despite issues with release cadence, due to Apple’s approval process, and other technical restrictions.

Having come to the decision to move their development forward in such a way that would pull them from the App Store, they went ahead on their own to move off of the store in order to release their 3.5 version, assuring existing customers that licenses can be transferred and the product will continue with full support and a regular development/update process. In fact, the implication is that, now freed from Apple’s control, they can push new updates with more capabilities and potentially more convenience in managing plugins, in-app purchases, and other types of licenses.

Sketch is purchased on a non-subscription-based license, as opposed to Adobe’s fleet of products, and can be installed an run on two Macs per license.

Sketch may have competition from Adobe, who is working on their Project Comet (announced in October of 2015, yet still not in release), aimed specifically at the UX designer, who might still want to see Adobe work on Fireworks rather than rely on their old version for interactivity. Apparently Adobe has followed the same route of creating a Mac-only version of Comet first, according to their press releases and online forum communication, leaving the PC user to rely perhaps on Illustrator, Photoshop and Axure.

The release of 3.5 was also made with an invitation to download a free trial version; below is their news release in its entirety, including details on updates, improvements and bug fixes:

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Sketch 3.5

We’re excited to release Sketch 3.5 today. We’ve made significant rendering and performance improvements that you’ll notice especially when working with large documents and images, multiple Artboards, and complex operations. We’ve brought feature requests to life and improved many fine details to polish and help you enjoy Sketch. We strive to release updates as often as possible and are excited for what’s coming in 2016.

This is our first update after leaving the Mac App Store. If you haven’ttransitioned your license yet, please do so to ensure you’re using the latest version of Sketch. Like all previous updates, please note that Sketch 3.5 files are not backwards compatible with earlier versions. This update requires Mac OS 10.10 or higher to run.

You may reach out to us with any questions, or bug reports via email at[email protected]. Don’t hesitate to get in touch and provide us with feedback, feature requests or ask for help. We enjoy hearing from you.

We’ve distilled a few highlights below, but if you wish you can read the entire release notes. We hope you’ll download the free update, and see what’s new!

Enjoy using Sketch 3.5!

Improvements

  • Improved rendering performance during complex operations such as moving many objects and undoing big changes, as well as while zooming and panning the Canvas
  • Improved performance with better caching for multiple blended layers, complex bezier paths, and for documents with large images
  • Improved performance when moving layers around in large documents with nested groups that have been open for a long time
  • The title of an Artboard now truncates so it doesn’t run over another Artboard ever again
  • The title of a new Group is by default called ‘Group’ instead of the combination of its child layer names
  • By default the Subpixel anti-aliasing has been turned off for all documents – we soon expect to drop support for it entirely

Enhancements

  • Properly scaling line height when resizing text layers
  • Automatic Union operation when dragging a shape onto another shape in the Layer List
  • Distributing layers horizontally or vertically now also takes the Pixel Fitting preference into account and a Toolbar icon is added for Aligning Layers to Pixel Edge
  • New images are now always inserted above the selected layer
  • The contextual menu that appears when right-clicking on a ruler now includes an item to remove all guides along that ruler
  • The list of used fonts in a document now includes all pages, and not only the current one
  • Dragging a selection rectangle outside an Artboard will no longer select any layers in the Artboard
  • Adds the ability to export slices in SketchTool using their ID instead of the layer name
  • When reducing the size of images we now display a warning dialog explaining the effects

Bug Fixes

  • Fixes a bug where Symbols could be pasted into each other in some cases
  • Fixes a bug where hitting the export button while an export-size field still had focus wouldn’t register the last edit and thus export at the wrong size
  • Fixes a rare bug where images could get lost between saving a document and reopening it
  • Fixes a bug where changing lists in text layers would not cause proper refresh
  • Scale sheet no longer accepts negative values for its width and height fields
  • Fixes a crash that could happen when changing selection in or out of Full Screen mode
  • Fixes a bug in SketchTool where it would fail to dump the contents of certain documents

 

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