Nested Symbols support

[rodi01]

Hi, I have a button as a symbol with with padding on it. I have another symbol with multiple buttons on it. If I try to override the text, it doesn't get updated.

Button Symbol

Card Symbol

Symbol in use

Thanks

[DWilliames]

At the moment Nested Symbols are unfortunately not supported — I will try and look into it more another time. I have already spent hours trying to get it to work — but it is extremely fiddly :/

The plugin will however, not be able to resize symbol instances within symbols. This is because Sketch currently doesn't support this. All the plugin does is resize the symbol instance to the 'optimal' size; it cannot resize the symbols within it.

[kylegilbreath]

+1 for this feature. We have components that rely pretty heavily on nested components. Would love to have this feature added. This has been our biggest pain point with keeping consistent padding on nested symbols without having to detach them from the parent symbol.

[taylorjhunt]

+1 from me as well, would be so powerful. Attached a gif of a use case. Works as a group but not as a symbol.

[mauricetimp]

+1 for this feature, would be so cool!

[anthonylgrant]

+1, would be valuable if this worked with nested symbols, linked across different libraries.

[ChrissN]

+1 for this feature, I think is a really important breaking point for this plugin, do it please and we'll give you a big thumbs up 👍 and dance out of happiness 👯‍♂️ 🕺

[tschmeisser]

oof, this would be amazing!

[chrisdelbuck]

Just going to hop on the bandwagon here and say +1. For design system implementations, relying on having nested symbols is paramount.

[EstherW92]

+1 for this feature 😄

[MSGuzy]

Sketch 49 Enhancements included: The plugin API has been extended with support for Symbols. Hopefully, that makes this possible!

[alyseadlard]

Just another +1 for this feature, would love to use in our Polaris UI kit. But sadly, not having nested symbols support might be a deal breaker. Thanks for this awesome plugin 👍

[bartvdb]

+1 .. imagine the possibilities. Grids with symbols thats fully realign themselves when text is overwritten

[johnpeele]

Another +1

This plugin could easily replace the Relabel Button and Anima Auto Layout plugins for us on our design system files!

[aminta]

+1: I use a symbol for each text style, so I have only nested symbols as texts!

[johnpeele]

@aminta Would you mind explaining how you use this plugin with text symbols? Thanks!

[Gabrielmittleman]

+1. This would be HUGE. Get this sorted and this will be the # 1 essential plugin for all design systems. Great work so far!

[aminta]

@johnpeele Sure! Instead of text layers, in my "atom-design-method" I'm using - for each text style - a text symbol, so I can change them in symbol instances (i.e. I can change the text style of a button without changing the symbol but only the instance)! The joining of a such powerful plugin like "Paddy" with text styles as nested symbols would make PERFECT whole my design workflow in Sketch!

[DWilliames]

Thanks everyone!! It's great to see the support; and I'd love to get this to work. @MSGuzy unfortunately, that change won't actually help me out; since I was already using a different Sketch API that already supported Symbols... however; changing nested symbols dynamically within each symbol instance is a whole other ball game 🙃

Just as a quick update to this feature... looking into it more; it would basically entail a complete re-write of Paddy! Which I am totally up for doing; I just don't know how long it will take; given my limited capacity to work on this.

It would also involve doing some 'hacky' stuff to make it work. Meaning instances of these Symbols which have nested Paddy elements would not play nice with other apps such as Zeplin. Since it would involve doing some hacky stuff; it means it is quite likely that future Sketch updates may break it; so it might be a bit fiddly.

But if everyone is still up for it; given those caveats! Then I might as well get to re-writing Paddy 😉🎉

[fancymans]

@DWilliames thanks for the update. Personally, I'd prefer less "hacky" solutions as they are prone to breaking. I don't think the benefit outweighs the cons in those cases. For example, if Sketch updates and the plugin breaks, many who rely on the plugin may be out of luck! I think that if you have to rewrite Paddy from scratch, you might as well do it when you know for certain that it will scale. 🙂

Plus, there are enough quirks with Sketch and the myriad of other plugins as it is, so I would like to see Paddy stay as stable and reliable as possible. Paddy is already a great convenience and productivity booster, so I would consider nested symbol support as icing on the cake.

[MSGuzy]

@DWilliames I tend to agree with @fancymans, I wouldn't want something that is likely to break in a future update. Hopefully Bohemian adds overrides for text styles

[alikgs19]

+1 for this feature!!!