Sketch Copenhagen
Freddie Harrison (Mastodon, Pieter Omvlee):
Early on in the process, we prototyped various approaches to the sidebar and Inspector, including floating options (the new default in Tahoe) and glass materials. Ultimately, we went custom here, with fixed sidebars that felt less distracting in the context of a canvas-based design tool.
Another area we went custom with was document tabs. Having them run along the top of the window didn’t work well with the toolbar and ultimately felt too boxy and imposing. Instead, they now live in the sidebar, and are just as functional.
[…]
As well as shipping our own glass effect soon after WWDC, we’ve adopted Liquid Glass in subtle ways in Copenhagen. You’ll find it in the toolbar, minimap and notifications at the bottom of the Canvas.
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One of the first things you’ll notice when you work with the new Inspector is that most of the old popovers are now separate panels.
These new panels have a lot of advantages. You can move them freely around the window to bring them closer to your work. They also stay open if you change your selection and they’re still applicable, making similar changes across multiple layers more convenient.
[…]
We created a new set of icons (over 700 of them) — you’ll find them everywhere from menus, to the Inspector, and beyond.
This probably will not convert the kind of person who finds Liquid Glass revolting in its entirety, but I think this implementation is thoughtful and well-considered. Note, too, that Apple itself has not shipped any of its own Mac pro apps with Liquid Glass changes. The choices made by the Sketch team are instructional.
The Sketch design team should be the folks designing at Apple.
Haven’t they sucked up enough talent already?
Random thing that I love: the whole application is still just 215MB.
In general a nice update and so far the best implementation of Liquid Glass, but that toolbar is breaking me. Muscle memory I built since Sketch 3 (partly Sketch 2 even) gone and replaced by searching icons in an ever changing toolbar.
A customizable toolbar wasn’t really a viable option in this era of macOS.
Previously:
Update (2025-11-21): Simon B. Støvring:
Sketch just pushed another big UX shift along with severe new bugs in core features. This time the sidebar indentation is all over the place, so I can’t trust folder relationships, and it slows me down a lot.
I don’t have time to relearn my design tool every few months just because Sketch thinks it’s fun to shake things up.
[…]
The right choice for me is to roll back to the previous version of Sketch and wait until the early rough issues in the latest update are ironed out. I’m glad Sketch makes that possible.
To me it is equally bad with Figma although in different ways. Big difference is that it is not when you install annew version but “while blinking”.
Sketch made such a big deal about being a native Mac app a few years ago, as an argument against using Electron/Catalyst, but today the app’s (beautiful) new redesign doesn’t seem to use native controls or elements anywhere. Custom toolbar, custom sidebar, custom tooltips, custom ‘tabs’. I totally get it, but there’s a reason cross-platform toolkits exist, and I sure would prefer a full-featured native iPad version of my design tools than a Mac-shaped line in the sand.
Previously:
Update (2025-11-25): Pieter Omvlee:
I don’t think we’d have gone this custom if Liquid Glass looked more at home on the Mac than it does today. Let’s say our hand was a tad forced 😄
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Im super proud of the job we did with Sketch for Liquid Glass, but we shouldn’t have had to go this far in the first place if the design language actually supported what we can call ‘Pro Apps’. I mean Xcode looks like a toy now, that can’t be right surely 😝
Please reintroduce the “Share” button here. I use certain share extensions for my workflows, and the lack of a share button here is really breaking my momentum.
Just a Sketch appreciation post. I use it for every single blog post I make at the 9-5 and my own stuff. A fantastic feeling Mac app.
5 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
Why is everyone cheering on this monstrosity, when the last tweet in the last link tells the whole tale; designing a true macOS app is no longer “an option for us with what we were doing.”
Both the Mastodon link and the AppStore show the new interface in a short video. These people are proud of their abomination? This looks horrible. No, the devs should not be at Apple. What the heck does "customizable toolbar is not viable" even mean?
"A customizable toolbar wasn’t really a viable option in this era of macOS."
This is absolutely bonkers. Sketch should have become a web-first product a decade ago.
> Sketch made such a big deal about being a native Mac app a few years ago, as an argument against using Electron/Catalyst, but today the app’s (beautiful) new redesign doesn’t seem to use native controls or elements anywhere. Custom toolbar,
I dk what they are doing but the liquid glass looking buttons in the videos i just watched… it doesn't look so non-native to me? The native toolbar these days mostly wrap liquid glass NsButtons most of the time. But NSToolbar has some problems in Tahoe in certain situations. Buttons dance around oddly sometimes and there are some other issues so i understand why someone would want to avoid it in certain circumstances.
> What the heck does "customizable toolbar is not viable" even mean?
I think it means they didn’t want to reimplement NSToolbar completely and the customization palette, the drag and drop reorder + persisting it in userdefaults + posting reorder notification changes to all instances (assuming they support multiple windows). It can be done and has been done by third party devs but it doesn’t feel very rewarding spending like a week implementing such a feature that most people will never even notice b/c it isn’t different enough from the native toolbar
