Groups Sketches into a project

[Motoed-Work]

In the old version of the app, it was easy to create a different sketch within a project. In the new version I see an icon for my old projects that looks like a small table of thumbnails which I tap to open those sketches on their own screen.

When I create a new sketch today, it creates a new "project".

I do not see a way in the interface to create a new "grouping of sketches". Everything is a single "artboard".

In all the tutorial help is says "we've completely redesigned the experience for navigating all your creative projects and documents making it easier to stay organized."

But it doesn't appear to be intuitive or able to create a project made up of multiple documents (sketches).

[Sue Garibaldi]

Hi Motoed,

Sorry it's not more obvious in this UI....

Just tap on the project to which you want to add a canvas (you want to be in the view where all of the thumbnails for that project are on your screen) THEN tap the + icon. That will open a new artboard in that project.

Let me know if you have trouble.

Sue.

[Motoed-Work]

Thanks for the reply, That wasn't really the part I found confusing. In the new update, I'm only able to create new canvases... I'm not able to create a new "project of canvases". 

I added a screen cap for clarification... Rows 2 and 3 were created in the old update.

Row 1 were the new canvases created in the newest update. I would like to group these in a single project for organization, but don't see a way to do this in this update.

[Sue Garibaldi]

Hi Motoed,

Oh, OK, got it. We received many many requests to not start a "project" with five blank canvases. So we eliminated four of them. Now a project begins with only one blank canvas... with the ability to add more as needed. 

And you can group all those single canvases together into one. I can explain how to do that but first I'd like to know what version of Sketch you're using (tap on Settings then About Sketch) because there was a bug in the last version of the app that would delete single-canvas projects instead of moving them. So, please check first that you're using Sketch v4.0.2.

Sue.

[Motoed-Work]

And I would agree the 5 blank was confusing.

I just realized what is happening. I didn't realize that when I was tapping on the thumbnail for the project that I was being taken into the project to create additional documents. I was under the impression I was going directly to the "sketch workspace".

I think the confusion was that in previous versions, you couldn't create a document without it already being inside a project (from what I recall).  I think the from the view above I posted, you can click "new" and create a new project AND a single document inside it and you start drawing. This gave me the impression that I could only create a new single document project.

I see now that I can go into a project, select documents and then select "move" to migrate them into a single project now.

Thanks for your input. Hopefully I was able to shed some light on how I got confused.

[Sue Garibaldi · Accepted solution]

Motoed,

Prior to this version you didn't have to be in "edit" view but it was different. It's especially confusing when all the projects in the gallery are single-canvas projects; it still requires two taps to get into the drawing. (We're hearing about a lot of confusion from people who think they're in edit view and are still in project view. Our designers are working on some sort of resolution to that problem.)

At any rate, I'm glad you're squared away. Do update the app though, to 4.0.2, if you haven't already. It's not pleasant to watch work disappear.

Sue.

[Motoed-Work]

I did just update. Thank you.

I appreciate the support on this.

From a UI design standpoint, I can't see much I'd do differently to make it more obvious. I was thinking different colors for project workspacebackground, document background color and workspace outside the artboard inside the sketch, I realize it already does that.  My other thought was to do a "zoom into a project" action... but it also does that already.

I think the only suggestion I was thinking that isn't in the app that might be just enough and really simple is a label under the "circle plus" icon that says "New Project" and it change after that that says "New Document".

OR... update the description inside the "what's new" screen to spell it out a little bit. I looked through everything and I'm really surprised I couldn't sort this out.

Thank you.

Sketch was always a "doodle' app for me.  These updates have me wishing I had spent more time with this longer. It's becoming a very valuable tool that can do some pretty amazing work.

[Sue Garibaldi]

Thanks Motoed.

I'll share your comments about it with the product team. They provide some good insight.

And.. I'm glad you're liking where Sketch is headed; thanks for taking the time to mention it.

Sue.