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[Sketch] ObjJ GUI Builder?

over 7 years ago from , Senior UX/UI Designer @ AdStage

Within the arena of Sketch plugin coding, if your plugin needs any level of complex input from the user, you inevitably have to work with Objective J to build your interface. Building an interface for a Sketch plugin is time consuming and not all that well documented. I spent hours trying to figure out how to do certain seemingly simple things like positioning elements in my plugin window based on the weird backward coordinate system in place currently.

Does anyone know of a tool that makes building those interfaces a VisualBasic-level of WYSIWYG-ness?

Could be really powerful and remove a lot of the barrier to entry for someone looking to make a relatively simple plugin without spending hours on laying the groundwork.

2 comments

  • Zethus SuenZethus Suen, over 7 years ago

    Not sure about the Obj J/Cappuccino side of things, but I'm currently working on a json/api consumption plugin & companion app for sketch as well and this is how we're managing it:

    Electron App: Using electron, we can package an ember.js app up as a standalone desktop application. Users add API endpoints or dump raw JSON for the app to parse. We write this data directly to a simple text file inside the sketchplugins folder for the plugin to read.

    Sketch Plugin: Because Sketch is kind of sandboxed inside of the plugins folder, we just read the text file which contains our dumped JSON data. A user is then able to rename layers inside their sketch document and tap a hotkey to replace text and image layer contents with real data fetched from the API companion app.

    2 points
  • Pablo StanleyPablo Stanley, over 7 years ago (edited over 7 years ago )

    I fucking love the music in this trailer. It didn't need the typical horns “BWAAAAA” to create tension. So pumped for Fassbender's performance.

    2 points