Override direction of smart layout for individual symbol instances

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1

Hello! I’m new to Sketch and so far loving the experience! Anyways, I was thinking that it would be nice if we could override smart layout direction for each instance of a symbol - from left to right to center for example.

Currently, if I have (for example) a button symbol, I need to create 3 variants of it for the left to right, center and right to left, if I want to use this button for all 3 alignments.

Yes, it’s possible to manually drag and re-align a instance to it’s place after I change a text inside it, but it would be cool if we didn’t have to do it.

Regardless if you consider this feature or not, thanks for the amazing Sketch experience so far!

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Hello Ondřej :wave:

First, thank you so much for joining us in this community. I hope you find all the support you need to continue doing great things with Sketch.

Regarding this, I believe the best option would be to use the experimental feature Smart Layout for groups.

You can apply different layout settings without the need to create a symbol.

Here is a video:

Still, I like your idea of overriding the layout settings of a symbol on the override panel, so that I will share your feedback with the team.

Nonetheless, let me know if this works for you.

Cheers :pray:

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Thank you! I really appreciate your reply. It’s super cool that people can get in contact with Sketch staff that quickly and effortlessly here!

Anyway to the topic… In the project I’m currently working on, I’m already using this, and unfortunately, this solution works only until the point, when I want to start cleaning things out and converting some of the patterns I’ve been using into symbols to keep things consistent and updated.

I don’t even need to be able to switch smart layout in instances from (for example) vertical to horizontal, it would be enough to be able to switch from LTR to center and keep things horizontal :slight_smile:

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Hello Ondřej, :wave:

It’s great to see that you’re exploring our experimental features. You’re definitely ahead of the game.

In regards to your request, I did some searching for a plugin that could fulfill it, but unfortunately, I didn’t come across any. I’ve already submitted a feature request for it, but I think it would be beneficial to involve the community and hear their thoughts.

From my side I’ll keep a close eye on this topic and keep you updated on any possible solutions that I may stumble upon.

Cheers :blush:

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This is actually the very thing I came here to suggest! I appreciate the video showing the different alignments with groups, but I would also like this to be an override setting for symbols.

For instance, I normally set my buttons to expand horizontally from the center, with the default text of “button”. But if I want to nest this in another symbol (such as a modal footer), then I have to create another symbol to expand left or right whenever I want to change the text of the button