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Gravit Designer 3.2 with Symbols is here

6 years ago from , Product owner for Gravit Designer

You know, we are doing our best here to give you as much value as possible with our free Gravit Designer. Download or use it online at https://designer.io.

For the latest 3.2 release, we have something special for you: Symbols. But they are not a mere copy of Sketch or Figma, they are way more advanced. You don’t need any tedious overrides but can edit all properties directly at the instances (in-place editing). Furthermore, you can edit the position of elements within instances, which enables you to create even more variations within one symbol – styling properties are still synced afterward. All cool features are compiled in our blog post.

Hand in hand with Symbols goes the new anchoring functionality (also called constraints in other apps), that also allows you to anchor elements within groups, and therefore Symbols. We also have a new group/frame switch for this reason now (thanks Figma for the inspiration).

More improvements:

  • Open recent files list: Shows you the last 10 opened files in the “File" menu.
  • Improvements to color swatches: You can rearrange them, they now show the opacity, RGB/CMYK indicator, export and import them.
  • Improved visibility of themes: We made sure that each theme is as accessible as possible.
  • New “Mask with Shape” option: Now available from a right-click, it also allows that the potential mask is above the content.
  • Snap Package for Linux: Hassle-free installation, everything in a single bundle.
  • Improvements to pages: Flip their dimensions and trim them to the content.
  • Ability to resize layers with the keyboard: The arrow keys combined with the + and - keys allow you to quickly resize layers.
  • Reduced file size of desktop apps: Chinese characters aren’t part of the application anymore, but can be downloaded afterward.

And much more. The full list of improvements and bug fixes can be found in our Medium article.

If you have questions or need help, please get in touch. Always glad to help.

19 comments

  • Florian GrauFlorian Grau, 6 years ago

    How do you guys make money? What's the endgame for that product?

    1 point
  • Thomas Lowry, 6 years ago

    Ahhh....is it just me, or did you fully use the same component icons from Figma for your Symbols?

    https://imgur.com/a/ayHvH

    1 point
  • Diego LafuenteDiego Lafuente, 6 years ago

    HI Christian,

    It's nice to see new things come out. I am wondering if Gravit supports constraints, which to me is the key of UI design. We need to create symbols that have constraints, symbols that grow when we put content on them, things stacks each, etc. Something like Subform app is doing.

    1 point
    • Christian Krammer, 6 years ago

      Hey Diego, that’s the "anchoring" functionality I’m talking about in the article. It’s available in the inspector in the top right. Hope that helps. If you have more questions, just ping us. Stacking is not available yet, though.

      0 points
  • Kenneth JensenKenneth Jensen, 6 years ago

    I'm sorry, but how does this not come off as a blatant carbon copy of Sketch?

    0 points
    • Ryan B, 6 years ago

      It pretty much is. But you could argue that for many things. Code editors, games (FIFA/PES), down to items of clothing (just being different brands). It's competition and personally I think that helps strive companies to produce better products.

      Just my opinion.

      0 points
    • Florian GrauFlorian Grau, 6 years ago

      Last time I checked Sketch was not a web app. /snark

      In terms of UI it's very similar. However, Figma is not so different from Sketch either. Did people complain about the similarities back when it launched? For me, the fact that guys from Figma and Gravit bring professional tools to the browser for free is enough that I don't care about UI similarities to Sketch.

      2 points
    • Marc EdwardsMarc Edwards, 6 years ago

      Are you talking about the exact implementation, or symbols in general? Symbols have been in many design tools for years (Freehand, Illustrator, Flash etc). FreeHand 8.0 might be one of the first instances of symbols. It was released in 1998.

      2 points
    • Christian Krammer, 6 years ago

      I’m very sorry that you don’t want to take our offer for a free Sketch alternative and rather pay $99 instead of using a "blatant copy". Meanwhile, you could try that, that or that in Sketch.

      1 point
      • Gene M, 6 years ago

        Do designers really care about the $99 price tag? We are not all college students living on ramen. Competition is great, but I would much rather see something that addresses a real pain point.

        0 points
        • Christian Krammer, 6 years ago

          Basically, I totally agree, if you are a designer and make your living in this job, then paying $99 shouldn't be an issue at all. But don’t forget the people in the world out there, who can’t effort that, but still want to design something, or want to get into design, or the "typical housewife, who likes to create an invitation for her girl."

          Designing is not always about us westerners or professional designers. Our prime principle at Gravit Designer is to give everybody the chance to design, independent of state or location.

          0 points
      • Kenneth JensenKenneth Jensen, almost 6 years ago

        All nice features, but not really something that would make me or my team switch, as you just can't replace the ecosystem that Sketch has in place now.

        Everything surrounding Sketch will take you years to achieve and I highly doubt you're going to keep Gravity free forever...

        0 points
    • Abhishek SureshAbhishek Suresh, 6 years ago

      Even if it is a blatant copy, I think you should also appreciate the fact that there is a team that has invested time, hard work and sacrificed time in the pub/with family to create Gravit AND keep it free.

      And from what I've learnt in my journey as a designer - Everything that is built/designed is always based off something. Some call it inspiration, some call it improvements, some call it copied/ripped off.

      At the end of the day its the same thing! The only thing different is our reaction towards it based on what we know. And trust me, if you can "un-know", you can see the best of everything :)

      1 point