Display designs at 100% and scale down from there

[dfmedrano (Jorge)]

The idea is to have a new option in the Web app to display prototypes at a max size of 100% and scale down from there. In this way, people who play the prototype will see the intended size without stretching the contents, and if they’re using a smaller screen it will scale down, like in the browser.

This topic comes from this post from @steve.parker

The ideal setting, which was an option in Invision, would be to display the designs at 100% but never bigger than 100% and then scale down the design if a user had a browser smaller than the design.

[Jean-Francois-b]

I don’t quite understand how that would be different from the current Protoype behavior? Are you talking about Prototypes or Prototype links without the Web app UI?

Current Prototype have 3 options, Fit, Fill width and Actual size.
Only ‘Fill width’ seems to allow for than 100%.

Prototype links seem to locked on ‘Fit’. And don’t go over 100%.

That works ok for me, and I’m not sure how your change would affect those behaviors?
I don’t have the issue that protoypes on ‘Fit’ show the complete artboard and don’t scroll. Maybe it’s an issue with Artboard Templates?

Also, I always want my mobile prototypes to be able to occupy 100% width. Even if my Artboard is 320 and I’m on a 360 width phone.

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I’d be more interested in actuallyresponsive artboard prototypes. Adjusting element sitting on the artboard with the Resizing panel, and being able to have a responsive prototype always at 100%. In the App, Desktop prototype player, and Web player. It introduces obvious issues, and is it’s own feature request really

[dfmedrano (Jorge)]

Hi @Jean-Francois-b

Thanks for sharing this reply! I’ll go into each part separately and work from there.

1- What would be different in the current Prototype behavior?

To add an option that shows artboards at their max width only, like the Fit option but that also scales them down on smaller screens, like the Fill width

Currently, the option “Fill width” scales down if you use a smaller screen, but it also scales up if you’re on a larger screen. For instance, this is a 1440 artboard on a 1920 screen set with Fill width. Since it’s viewed on a larger screen, it scales up, which may not be ideal in some scenarios.

 

2- Prototypes on Fit that show the complete artboard

When you use an artboard from a pre-saved template you’ll get the result you mentioned: the artboard will show the template’s height and if it’s taller, it will scroll, as in this example:

 

But if you use an Artboard that’s not pre-saved as a Template and you set the display to Fit, then the whole artboart will be fit into your browsers viewport and the taller it is, the smaller it will appear and it will not scroll.

 

3- Mobile prototypes at 100% width

You can get this effect already by using Fit Width, which is quite useful to test any mobile screen size. However, if you play the prototype in a desktop screen, it will keep filling the screen’s width, stretching the design.

4- Responsive artboards

Can you share with us an example of the adjustments you mention? There’s the Adjust content on resize option that you can use together with the resizing constraints to have elements on your artboard adapt to new Artboard sizes.

We’re aware that we’re missing the Fill width and Actual size options on the Mac and iOS apps, those currently display artboards with the Fit option

[Jean-Francois-b]

Hi Jorge,

Sorry for the late reply.

Ok, so I didn’t encounter this problem because mostly I use a pre-saved Template all the time.

In that case, isn’t this more of an issue with how the ‘viewport height’ of an Artboard is managed together with the pre-saved Template, and how this mechanic isn’t clear on how it’s used by the App and Viewers?

I feel like creating a new option to view Artboard isn’t resolving the base problem but patching an issue down the road? Maybe it’s just because of my own limited view and use cases.

If all Artboards had an additional property for their viewport height ( ie. width, height, viewport height ), than we wouldn’t have to create pre-saved Templates so much and custom Artboards could scroll properly too. Setting such value would make Fit work all the time.
That property could also have a possible value of full-height or 100%, and it that case you would see the old behavior in the Viewer, with the scaling under 100% and full page view.

4 - Responsive Artboards

Exactly, I would use those options on the Artboard, but I would like to see an option in the viewer called Responsive where my Viewer can be resized and the Artboard and content react accordingly live. It would be like resizing an Artboard in the canva, but just in the Viewer. So non-destructive, and just meant for testing.

An example use case is I like to design at a smaller breakpoint, like 1440, but my monitors are wider. When I test/view my design, the Viewer is small, and doesn’t give the ‘feel’ of a website taking all your screen. I might not always create an extra Artboard for the bigger breakpoints for all my pages, but would love to be able to get a better sense of it.

I understand this wouldn’t be a fully responsive page without a lot of other options that are much harder to implement, like max container width, element resizing, auto-grid, font-size change, etc, but for small viewport difference I’d like that.
Also most Artboards and content wouldn’t be created to be compatible with such a feature, so maybe it would just be available when the Adjust content on resize option is active.

In all, this is a related but really completely different issue than your original post, sorry.

[dfmedrano (Jorge)]

Hi Jean-Francois,

Seems like I took some time to reply too , my apologies.

You make a great point here: the mechanics of how scrolling is triggered from a pre-saved size are not always clear. Although I feel we have two different issues here:

The first one is improving the mechanics and interaction to create scrolling artboards and the second one is how we currently handle viewing options.

I think there is a missing scenario, related to the second issue and pointed out by Steve in a comment in the previous post, where you want a size to fit the viewport’s width in smaller screens, but not in larger ones, to avoid the design from “stretching”

I agree that this shouldn’t be a new option, but rather a new behavior added to the existing Fit Width option.

About creating pre-saved templates we do want to improve how this works, and letting you create scrolling artboards more easily.

Thanks for sharing about how a Responsive option would work for you. This is also something we want to address, and I’ve added it as a new Feature Request.

I wanted to mention that the current Fit Width option could help in your use case, depending how you want your design to adapt.

For example, if your design uses a centered layout like here in the Sketch Forum, you’ll find that Fit Width will stretch it, that’s where a Responsive option would come in; but if you want your header’s elements to adapt to bigger widths, then it Fit Width will do the job.