Sketch Symbols is a plug-in for Sketch that lets you mimic basic Smart Objects / Symbols functionality by automatically syncing changes between layer groups named in a particular way. As an added bonus, you can mark certain text layers in your symbols as dynamic and have their styles replicated, but not their content.

1. Download the plugin.
2. Double-click the file Sync Symbol.sketchplugin inside Symbols/. Sketch should open automatically and tell you that a new plugin was installed.

You should see the Sync Symbol entry under the Plugins menu now.

1. Create a layer group for your symbol. (Cmd + G)

2. Add ": symbol-name" to its name to mark it as a symbol. E.g.: "signup button : button-default".

   

3. Copy the same symbol to other parts of your document. You can change the name before the colon to whatever you like. E.g.: "ok button : button-default".

4. Make changes to any of the copies of the symbol you've created. With the symbol or one of its layers still selected, press Cmd + E to sync these changes with other instances of the symbol.

Bonus Tip: Open Preferences and under Layers uncheck "Append 'Copy' after duplicated layers", so you don't need to tweak the symbol name after you duplicate it.

Put a $ in front of the name of any text layer inside a symbol to mark it as dynamic. When you sync changes between symbols, dynamic text layers will not be replaced. Their styles, including font size, family and line height will be updated, but their content will remain intact. This lets you define a single symbol for a button, for example, but use different copy for each instance of that button.

1. Open Sketch's plugins folder. You can do that easily by choosing Custom Script from the Plugins menu, then click the gear icon and choose "Open Plugins Folder".

2. Open the file "Sync Symbols.sketchplugin" in your favorite text editor.

3. The shortcut is on the first line:

   // Syncs all instances of a symbol tagged with ": symbol-name" (cmd e)
   

Change it to whatever you like (ctrl shift s, for example), and you should be good to go. The following modifiers are all valid: control ctrl alt option cmd command shift.

Right now there's no automated way to update plugins. You'll have to replace the plugin files manually.

1. Download the latest version of the plugin.
2. Open Sketch's plugins folder. You can do that easily by choosing Custom Script from the Plugins menu, then click the gear icon and choose "Open Plugins Folder".
3. Replace the file Sync Symbol.sketchplugin with its new version from the archive you downloaded.

You don't need to restart Sketch. It will pick up the changes automatically.

File an issue on Github, send a message to @tisho on Twitter, or email t@tisho.co.

Bohemian Coding for creating Sketch in the first place and @bomberstudios for the wonderful sketch-commands bundle, which proved a wonderful source for learning and inspiration.

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2013 Tisho Georgiev

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