8 ms·

I've been using Sketch for over a year now, and though it's been a valuable tool (and the integration with Framer is wonderful) it continues to be plagued by bu

by sboak 10y ago

I've been using Sketch for over a year now, and though it's been a valuable tool (and the integration with Framer is wonderful) it continues to be plagued by bugs and crashes in even mundane daily use. They proudly announce new features while ignoring the toll these issues take on the designers who depend on their software. I'm posting this in the hope that they'll acknowledge and address some of these issues quickly. Here are screen grabs of just a few of the most obvious bugs I've encountered recently: https://twitter.com/sboak/status/651518759690108928 https://twitter.com/sboak/status/651518759690108928 https://twitter.com/sboak/status/704447216191078400 https://twitter.com/sboak/status/704447216191078400 https://twitter.com/sboak/status/676568026020372481 https://twitter.com/sboak/status/676568026020372481 https://twitter.com/sboak/status/664540876606017536 https://twitter.com/sboak/status/664540876606017536 https://twitter.com/sboak/status/651897512538693632 https://twitter.com/sboak/status/651897512538693632

usaphp 10y ago
> "it continues to be plagued by bugs and crashes in even mundane daily use" Me and 5 of my friends who are also web/mobile designers moved to Sketch two years ago, during this two years I maybe had 2 or 3 crashes, and none of them affected my workflow because of the autosave feature of Sketch.
- Tloewald 10y ago
  The videos he shows are examples of sketch's many micro usability problems (not so much crashes as frustrating glitches). I love Sketch, but it does have a lot of little issues.
- mortenjorck 10y ago
  I've been using Sketch on and off for about that long as well, and have probably only had that many crashes too. Non-crashing bugs, however, still abound: Even after installing the update just this evening, I ran into a new undo bug where an undo would jump back about ten or so actions, while redo would step through them one by one. And this is to say nothing of the perennial issues with object alignment, the inexplicable inability to move an object along an axis with the shift key, something I slogged through again this evening. That said, most of these things can be worked around, and the benefits of Sketch are enough that a lot of designers can overlook them. Personally, though, I'm probably going to switch full-time to Affinity Designer once symbol support is released.
  - rgoodwintx 10y ago
    Agree, if it's not the pinwheel as mentioned, it's a roulette wheel that randomly chooses some point in your history to revert to. It absolutely boggles the mind that they don't acknowledge this. I specifically read these comments hoping someone else would confirm the undo issues to get their attention. I actually own Designer (and Photo) but purchased Sketch to better integrate with some of our UX team workflows. Designer is stunning, rock solid, and I've never had a single crash or undo issue (or font rendering/scaling, or grouping, or or). Sadly no one I know uses it; it's all Sketch these days except for the Illustrator holdouts. I've asked a few of the prototyping tool folks like Framer to import the Designer file format like they do Sketch. I believe it's documented and would help encourage adoption...no news yet.
- tim_nuwin 10y ago
  He's also using Windows. I find Sketch pretty stable on OSX
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    I was certain Sketch wasn't available on Windows.
  - usaphp 10y ago
    Sketch is only available on OSx as far as I know
jaysonelliot 10y ago
Hear, hear. And with the introduction of Adobe XD, Sketch has a rapidly closing window to eliminate the worst bugs. In the last release, I was plagued by one where undo didn't work. Not only did it not work, it randomly shifted layers around the artboard or introduced other glitches into my work. I can't think of many actions that are more automatic than hitting undo — when that essential safety net becomes destructive, it's devastating. Hopefully 3.7 introduces much-needed stability. At the moment, Adobe XD is still new enough that it won't cause a mass exodus. No layers, for example. But a year from now, either Sketch will have worked incredibly hard to retain the users who stayed because there was no alternative, or XD will have matured and eaten their lunch.
- vogt 10y ago
  I sometimes hide under my desk after hitting command+z. That pinwheel of death is just unacceptable at the rate in which I see it while performing such a critical and rudimentary action. I still couldn't imagine going back to Photoshop, and I found XD unimpressive. As you say, about a year or so will tell.
- skeletonjelly 10y ago
  Off topic: I can't see Adobe XD without seeing the emoticon
  - tcfunk 10y ago
    This :) I haven't ever heard of Adobe XD, so parsing that sentence about it's introduction was difficult
    - demianborba 10y ago
      Hi @tcfunk, feel free to give it a try here: http://adobe.ly/xd http://adobe.ly/xd It's our first public preview (beta 1), so a lot of features are still being developed. Now that the solid foundation is there, you can expect more and more features with our monthly releases. There is a new release now in April. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. @demianborba
zippergz 10y ago
As buggy as it is (I agree it's got some issues, though I rarely have crashes), it's still far less frustrating than Fireworks was.....
Matsta 10y ago
Most of those tweets are from a few months ago. I've had similar things happen to me as well. In the last couple of months, I haven't come across any bugs, so I'm pretty sure they are putting more effort into making Sketch more stable. As a rule of thumb, wait 2 or 3 weeks before upgrading to any major update(I know lots of Sketch users do the same). Usually, in 3.x.1 updates they seem to weed out a lot of bugs. I've been slowly moving all my work over to Sketch in the last year, and now about 90% of it is all done in Sketch!
M4v3R 10y ago
Sketch 3.7 update actually broke file loading, after update I couldn't open my previously working sketch file. To their credit though they've replied and issued an update in 30 minutes after I've sent them support request.
FormFollowsFunc 10y ago
I've been using Sketch for a year and a half and I don't encounter too many bugs or crashes that would affect my workflow. It was buggier maybe a year ago but now I find it ok. Fireworks was a lot worse. I had to run a separate utility app that would autosave the Fireworks document every 5 minutes. I used the latest version of Illustrator recently to create a HTML theme from a design and I'm amazed at how little has changed - no exporting 1x/2x images without a script, no exporting of layers, editing a slice requires going to Object > Slice > Options in the drop down menus. Adobe XD looks like a rip-off of Sketch. We should support the small guy because we might be that small guy one day.
bgnm2000 10y ago
Just as a counter-point, I use sketch daily (and on 3 separate devices), I love it - never hit any bugs at all.

by sboak 10y ago

usaphp 10y ago

> "it continues to be plagued by bugs and crashes in even mundane daily use" Me and 5 of my friends who are also web/mobile designers moved to Sketch two years ago, during this two years I maybe had 2 or 3 crashes, and none of them affected my workflow because of the autosave feature of Sketch.

Tloewald 10y ago
The videos he shows are examples of sketch's many micro usability problems (not so much crashes as frustrating glitches). I love Sketch, but it does have a lot of little issues.
mortenjorck 10y ago
I've been using Sketch on and off for about that long as well, and have probably only had that many crashes too. Non-crashing bugs, however, still abound: Even after installing the update just this evening, I ran into a new undo bug where an undo would jump back about ten or so actions, while redo would step through them one by one. And this is to say nothing of the perennial issues with object alignment, the inexplicable inability to move an object along an axis with the shift key, something I slogged through again this evening. That said, most of these things can be worked around, and the benefits of Sketch are enough that a lot of designers can overlook them. Personally, though, I'm probably going to switch full-time to Affinity Designer once symbol support is released.
- rgoodwintx 10y ago
  Agree, if it's not the pinwheel as mentioned, it's a roulette wheel that randomly chooses some point in your history to revert to. It absolutely boggles the mind that they don't acknowledge this. I specifically read these comments hoping someone else would confirm the undo issues to get their attention. I actually own Designer (and Photo) but purchased Sketch to better integrate with some of our UX team workflows. Designer is stunning, rock solid, and I've never had a single crash or undo issue (or font rendering/scaling, or grouping, or or). Sadly no one I know uses it; it's all Sketch these days except for the Illustrator holdouts. I've asked a few of the prototyping tool folks like Framer to import the Designer file format like they do Sketch. I believe it's documented and would help encourage adoption...no news yet.
tim_nuwin 10y ago
He's also using Windows. I find Sketch pretty stable on OSX
- st3v3r 10y ago
  I was certain Sketch wasn't available on Windows.
- usaphp 10y ago
  Sketch is only available on OSx as far as I know

jaysonelliot 10y ago

Hear, hear. And with the introduction of Adobe XD, Sketch has a rapidly closing window to eliminate the worst bugs. In the last release, I was plagued by one where undo didn't work. Not only did it not work, it randomly shifted layers around the artboard or introduced other glitches into my work. I can't think of many actions that are more automatic than hitting undo — when that essential safety net becomes destructive, it's devastating. Hopefully 3.7 introduces much-needed stability. At the moment, Adobe XD is still new enough that it won't cause a mass exodus. No layers, for example. But a year from now, either Sketch will have worked incredibly hard to retain the users who stayed because there was no alternative, or XD will have matured and eaten their lunch.

vogt 10y ago
I sometimes hide under my desk after hitting command+z. That pinwheel of death is just unacceptable at the rate in which I see it while performing such a critical and rudimentary action. I still couldn't imagine going back to Photoshop, and I found XD unimpressive. As you say, about a year or so will tell.
skeletonjelly 10y ago
Off topic: I can't see Adobe XD without seeing the emoticon
- tcfunk 10y ago
  This :) I haven't ever heard of Adobe XD, so parsing that sentence about it's introduction was difficult
  - demianborba 10y ago
    Hi @tcfunk, feel free to give it a try here: http://adobe.ly/xd http://adobe.ly/xd It's our first public preview (beta 1), so a lot of features are still being developed. Now that the solid foundation is there, you can expect more and more features with our monthly releases. There is a new release now in April. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. @demianborba

zippergz 10y ago

As buggy as it is (I agree it's got some issues, though I rarely have crashes), it's still far less frustrating than Fireworks was.....

Matsta 10y ago

Most of those tweets are from a few months ago. I've had similar things happen to me as well. In the last couple of months, I haven't come across any bugs, so I'm pretty sure they are putting more effort into making Sketch more stable. As a rule of thumb, wait 2 or 3 weeks before upgrading to any major update(I know lots of Sketch users do the same). Usually, in 3.x.1 updates they seem to weed out a lot of bugs. I've been slowly moving all my work over to Sketch in the last year, and now about 90% of it is all done in Sketch!

M4v3R 10y ago

Sketch 3.7 update actually broke file loading, after update I couldn't open my previously working sketch file. To their credit though they've replied and issued an update in 30 minutes after I've sent them support request.

FormFollowsFunc 10y ago

I've been using Sketch for a year and a half and I don't encounter too many bugs or crashes that would affect my workflow. It was buggier maybe a year ago but now I find it ok. Fireworks was a lot worse. I had to run a separate utility app that would autosave the Fireworks document every 5 minutes. I used the latest version of Illustrator recently to create a HTML theme from a design and I'm amazed at how little has changed - no exporting 1x/2x images without a script, no exporting of layers, editing a slice requires going to Object > Slice > Options in the drop down menus. Adobe XD looks like a rip-off of Sketch. We should support the small guy because we might be that small guy one day.

bgnm2000 10y ago

Just as a counter-point, I use sketch daily (and on 3 separate devices), I love it - never hit any bugs at all.