Release Notes
The updated Slack integration for Abstract Notebooks automatically shares notifications for notebook reviews to one or more of your Slack channels of choice, and unfurls Notebook links pasted into Slack.
- Notebooks users can easily cut and copy images and frames in a Notebook using common keyboard shortcuts Cmd/Ctrl+X and Cmd/Ctrl+C.
- Images and frames copied and pasted into the same Notebook will retain all annotations and comments. Those pasted to differing Notebooks will simply paste the image or frame.
- Copy and pasted Figma frames will continue retain the link to Figma.
Get back to your original Figma file right from your notebook. Users can now link a Figma frame to a file, and Abstract will link all frames from that file across the organization.
Learn more here.
Paste Images
- Users can now paste images from their clipboards into their notebooks - no more saving content to your desktop!
Branches Pro administration
- Updated billing plans to include Branches Pro plan. New Branches organizations can now self-administer and select this plan, which allows unlimited Contributor seats to be added.
Improved Notebook Template Selection
- We've improved the experience to select a template when you create a notebook.
Project naming conventions
- Changed project naming conventions to remove restriction on project name uniqueness.
* Elevated static images to behave in the same way as imported artboards - users can now double-click to see the detail view and add comments and annotations to new images.
Figma and Sketch plugin updates
- Only show projects with notebooks that you can make updates to.
- (Sketch only) Adds support for dark mode.
Jira integration
- A new Jira integration connects design and development work together in a Notebook.
- See the status, priority, ticket name, and last updated date of Jira ticket links inside Notebooks.
New onboarding experience
- New users will now see a pre-made Notebook in a private project, walking them through the key features and capabilities of Notebooks.
Comment edit indicators
- If a comment it edited and updated, users will see the text (edited) inline with their comment.
Moving Notebooks between projects
- When needed, users can now change which project their Notebooks lives in to better organize their work.
Activity timeline
- The series of Notebook updates, reviews, and comments are available by clicking the activity icon in the upper right corner of the Notebook. Activities include the user making the change as well as the time it occurred and repeated events are consolidated into a single activity.
- For example, if you left 5 comments in a notebook, 1 comment activity will be logged to note that you've left 5 comments. Activities will be rolled up for Notebook content updates, frame additions and updates, and when adding reviewers.
This week, we began sending a weekly email which gives an overview of Notebook activity in each organization. The email includes:
- Notebooks that require attention (because of outstanding reviews, inactivity, or a notable change in status)
- Most active notebooks in the last week
- General activity counts in the last week (Notebooks opened/closed, and Reviews opened/closed)
Create focused comments and collaborate using annotations on imported Figma/Sketch frames
- Click [A] for a quick shortcut to create either a single-point or rectangular annotation.
- On/off toggle to temporarily hide annotations from view.
- Click an annotation box to scroll its associated comment into view.
- Edit an annotation after you’ve submitted your comment by editing the comment.
We've added the ability to post comments in review threads, making each review more interactive and iterative
- Any Contributor can comment in a review thread without having been requested for a review.
- Requested reviewers are able to comment and optionally submit their review as Approved or Changes Requested.
We’ve released a new Sketch Plugin which integrates directly with Notebooks.
- Add and arrange designs directly from Sketch into beautiful presentations that display your work and the context behind it.
- Access all your Notebooks from within Sketch, and publish any artboards or components you’ve worked on in one click.
- Update all your work in Notebooks in a single click, without leaving Sketch or having to rearrange or recreate presentations of your work for review.
This version contains various updates to ensure better app performance and stability
Welcome to the December edition of Abstract! We've made a number of feature enhancements and fixes in this build. For a quick summary, check out our blog post or read on for all the details.
New Features
- Commit changes without leaving Sketch using our new quick commit window
- Create Collections faster by selecting layers to add first in the new "Create+Add” flow
- Update Library references by right-clicking a file and selecting “Manage Libraries…"
Enhancements
- It’s now possible to deselect layers when Multi-selecting with shift + click
- We removed the 3 character minimum on project names
- Added a button to jump from collections to inspect a layer
- Clicking on an annotation will now scroll so the comment is in view
- The Sketch plugin now communicates when a commit is happening in the background
- Comment and history panels are now resizable
- You’ll find that the color green throughout the app is more accessible for your peepers
Fixes
- Using the CMD+O shortcut from within a layer detail will now open the file for editing in Sketch
- We fixed several issues that could occur when opening Sketch files
- We now display an error when the Sketch plugin fails to install, instead of silently failing
- The text of an annotation is now selectable and copyable
- Fixed several areas where long file names could break the UI
- All warning dialogs now respect macOS guidelines and ESC can be used to cancel
- It’s now possible to create a project and import files while offline
- Fixed an issue that would make it impossible to rename files with a “|” character in the name
- Fixed an issue that would show a “Sketch Not Installed” dialog, when in fact Sketch was installed
- Fixed several display issues when a contributor deletes their Abstract account
- Inspect: Fixed several issues with loading local overrides, layer style name, and text style names
- Inspect: Fixed an issue where “left” alignment would be displayed as “natural”
- Inspect: Generated css for gradients now respects overall opacity
- Inspect: It’s now possible to select and copy individual css properties
- Plugin: We improved dark mode support
- Plugin: We fixed an issue causing the Abstract plugin to stay on screen after the window is closed
- Plugin: Fixed an edge case that would allow commits to happen on the master branch
Fixes
- Fixed a performance issue which would result in cached files not being used and a slower file opening experience
- Fixed a performance regression introduced with a libraries change in Sketch 52
- Fixed an issue that resulted in blank files being opened; this was the result of us not forwarding errors from Sketch correctly and the error will now will displayed instead
Enhancements
- Added support for displaying layer style overrides in inspect
- Added CMD+O and CMD+SHIFT+O shortcuts to open a file
Fixes
- Items added to collections from the files view will now automatically update to the latest commit
- Fixed an issue that would cause older files stored in Abstract not to open in Sketch 52
- Fixed an issue where changing between pages would not update the UI if they had the same number of artboards
- Fixes some Sketch files on very old commits having missing icons
New Features
- We made it easier to add artboards to a collection with Multi-select!
Enhancements
- Support for Sketch 52
- A new login flow design and branding update
- Support for authenticated proxies
- Draft branch reviews are now persisted so you won’t accidentally lose an in progress review
- Branch descriptions now appear on the branches list again
- Deleted artboards and symbols now show a visual preview
- We improved the visual style of artboard previews
- Artboard previews with comments now show a count of how many
- The file tree now has a search filter
Fixes
- Quitting Abstract now correctly exits all ongoing child processes
- Sidebar vibrancy now works correctly in Mojave
- Estimated width of overridden text layers now respects newlines in Inspect
- Projects are now sorted more naturally, accounting for number at the beginning
- Fixed an issue where some overrides were missing in Inspect
- Fixed another issue in inspect where it was possible to “select” multiple layers at once
- It is no longer possible to rename a branch with uncommitted changes, which would could cause uncommitted work to become inaccessible
- Artboards no longer appear as “changed” on a branch if they were only changed as part of a file version upgrade
- We addressed an issue where inviting viewers via email would try and add paid seats to the organization account.
- Lots more miscellaneous UI fixes
Enhancements
- We made several changes to improve the speed and concurrency of preview uploads, particularly when syncing large commits
- We improved filtering of debug logs to remove false positives and ensure that only logs from Abstract or Sketch are included
- Improved the logic around restarting Sketch after it has crashed, making file opening more reliable
Fixes
- Fixed an issue that would cause files to not open with no error when clicking on "Edit in Sketch"
- Collections are no longer confusingly displayed on the branch overview when your team is on the Starter Plan
- Comments with long words and URLs will no longer overflow the window bounds when editing
- Fixed an issue that could cause a forever-spinner on “Master files” when all files in a project are removed
- Fixed invisible background not ignored on artboard in inspect
- Fixed artboard preview sidebars animating in at different speeds
- Fixed a “Something went wrong” error on collections when the author of the collection had been removed from the project
- Fixed an issue where annotations would incorrectly show on file upgraded commits if they had been made on the previous commit
New Features
- Review Requests streamline your design review process and set expectations for feedback. Read the blog post.
- Layers now show the full comment history across all commits
- A shiny new “Highlight changed values” toggle in Inspect makes it easy to see which layers or properties have changed since the most recent commit
- You can now view all keyboard shortcuts from the help menu or by pressing CMD+/
Enhancements
- Improved sync performance (We’re now serving your project data via CDN)
- The commit composer got a facelift: you can also now click on thumbnails to see them larger and compare against the previous version before committing
- You can now discard individual file changes from the commit composer
- Stale branches are no longer hidden on the project overview
- Project cards now show a more accurate representation of who is working on a project
- We updated the styling of share buttons to be clearer
- Editing the project “About” section is now inline
- Synced Collections are now available offline
- Improved performance of comment loading
- Improved performance of notifications loading
- Abstract will now offer to move itself to your Applications folder if ran from elsewhere
Fixes
- Fixed an issue that would cause deleted layers to return during a merge under certain circumstances.
- Fixed several circumstances where the layer history or comments would fail to load, resulting in forever spinners.
- Fixed an issue that would make it impossible to navigate through layers while in overlay compare mode
- Fixed an issue that would cause the desktop app to appear as “Offline,” when in fact the internet was available
- Fixed an issue that would prevent commits from uploading to the server if you signed out of your account before the sync had completed
- It’s no longer possible to lose changes by linking or unlinking a library file while there are outstanding uncommitted changes
- We added a safeguard to prevent merging a branch twice by clicking the button really fast
- Fixed an issue where previews would not generate while offline
- Fixed an issue that would cause previews on a branch to disappear until the app is reloaded after discarding changes
- There were a number of places where you couldn’t select text. Now you can select to your heart’s content.
- Fixed an issue where the unread notification badge would get out of sync with reality after viewing notifications through the web app
- You can now delete a project that was created offline and never synced with the server
- Libraries in the file list are now sorted alphabetically
Fixes
- This build fixes an error that would prevent committing after creating new text or layer styles in a library file.
This build includes a fix for two pretty gnarly bugs that prevented files from opening correctly from Abstract and prevented previews from generating for affected commits.
Be sure to download this one. Special thanks to the customers who were able to screenshare with our engineers so we could piece the puzzle together. You are champions. 🏆💕
Hey everyone! Thank you for your patience with us releasing three builds in three days - please know that this is because we care, we're tracking errors and we're fixing them fast.
Your help reporting issues is greatly appreciated and, as always, you’re welcome to reach out to support@goabstract.com if you need help.
Fixes
- An issue that caused files to not open or successfully generate previews in some circumstances
- A crash in Sketch when using color picker for some documents
- Files automatically upgrading if you open them on other people's branches
This patch fixes an issue that was uncovered where uncommitted changes could be lost when opening a file for the first time in Sketch 51.
If you were affected by this bug please contact support@goabstract.com and we can help you recover work from a backup.