Feature suggestion - Rename artboards with number sequence, from left to right based on their X and Y positions.

[vwsvws]

Thank you for such useful plugin! I use it almost daily. Here's a quick suggestion:

It seems like currently RenameIt use the order of the layers to apply number sequences, but what if there is an option to use the X and Y positions of the artboards instead?

I organize my artboards in rows, each row is a sequence, from left to right, top to bottom, to create a visual hierarchy. When I rearrange some artboards, even though my rows are now in the right order, the order of the layers are usually not, so when I use the plugin to rename the row with ascending number sequence, the numbers are not in the right order, unless I also reorder the layers.

This seems like a common practice amongst all the designers I know. Is there a workaround?

[krisniles]

Same! Sequencing based on artboard Y positions would be amazing. Without this, I find myself using Enumerator, and not able to use RenameIt for most renaming.

[nOttenga]

Same here! I love this plugin, but without this feature it's really complex to use - you can sort manually the artboards on the layers list but it's too long to do.

[rodi01]

Do you guys have any suggestions as to which direction the sequence should be prioritized? Ideally, it would support both directions but for now, if I were to rename columns and rows second would it make sense?

Like this example

103

[nOttenga]

I usually structure my sketch file in rows so yes, this priority row by row, from left to right would work perfectly for me

[krisniles]

Renaming across the row (Y position) is my primary use-case. That's 90% of the battle. Renaming across both rows and columns (as shown in the image) would be awesome, but not as critical. Does that answer your question @rodi01?

[rodi01]

I'm working on it, I'm hoping to get it done by the weekend.

[rodi01]

If anyone wants to help me test this featured it would be appreciated. You can download the DEV version of the plugin here: Rename-it-4.5.0-Dev2

I'm still working on the UI but it should be 100% functional.

Thank You!

[krisniles]

@rodi01 - Apologies for the delay! I gave it a run through, and it's working fantastically! I shifted artboards around, misaligned them a bit, renamed a whole x/y offset collection, but couldn't get it to break.

The only thing that was slightly confusing was this: When selecting artboards that vary across both X and Y positions, and then choosing to rename based on X position, the preview lists the artboards in a non-intuitive order (x position, then y position?). When the two above conditions aren't true, the preview reads 1,2,3,4 ..., which feels right, because that's ultimately the end result (even though it wraps across columns, etc). Lemme know if I'm missing something there.

[krisniles]

Food for UI thought: Adding a dropdown that shows the rename pattern (stealing a page from the Craft plugin). With this approach, you could always show the preview as the sequential order the artboards will be renamed in, since the rename pattern is clear.

[rodi01]

@krisniles wow! thanks for testing the feature and for your detailed explanation.

In regards to the preview being out of order, I was planning to fix that in the final release. Good catch.

I love your UI/UX suggestion for the order dropdown. For the initial release, I won't have time to do the last item since the same can be accomplished by using the keyword "%n" in lowercase. I do think that's a better move going forward, so I will change that in the future.

Thanks for all your suggestions. Hopefully, I'll get to finish the final release soon.