Release Notes
The updated Slack integration for Abstract Notebooks automatically shares notifications for notebook reviews to one or more of your Slack channels of choice, and unfurls Notebook links pasted into Slack.
Sometimes your ideas need a little more structure. Whether you need to track a project, take structured notes, or organize data sets, tables are a great way to organize your thoughts. Notebooks users can now add and delete tables in their Notebook by selecting the table icon in the context menu. Tables can be retrofitted to your requirements by resizing columns, adding cell colors, and multi-selecting rows, columns, and cells.
- Added the ability to edit and delete recorded decision blocks. While it's important to maintain the history of decisions in an initiative, sometime you need to correct a typo or add clarifying details or links.
- Updated the custom templates administration page to warn administrators of unsaved template changes, improve cursor movement between title and template body, and add hover text to edit and delete icons to improve accessibility.
- Users can now highlight text in a Notebook, paste a URL from the clipboard, and the text will become a link.
Images and designs are vital components to a building out a Notebook and explaining your work. We have improved the drag and drop functionality when repositioning images and designs in a Notebook to make interacting with these components easier. Here are a few updates we made to improve repositioning images and designs:
- When an image or design selected, the curser will become a hand-grab curser .
- The image or design selected will dim to illustrate that it is selected.
- A thumbnail preview of the design will display it is repositioned
- The cursor will reflect the exact location where the item will be repositioned to.
Participants in the FigJam Plugin Beta can now use the Abstract Notebooks plugin for Figma to add content and groups to Notebooks from FigJam.
Notebooks contributors can now edit their Notebook settings to share a Notebook to anyone with the Notebook link. Unauthenticated users viewing a Notebook will be able to read the contents of the Notebook (written and image content, comments, and reviews) but will not have edit access. These unauthenticated users can create an account and request organization access to edit the Notebook.
Contributors can now add decisions to Notebooks to show how and why a design choice was made. Notebook participants can view the series of decisions made in new section at the top of the Notebook. Record a decision title and, if desired, additional information about why, where, and how the decision was made. You can even link to detailed conversations, whether those are in a Review, Comment, meeting recording, chat thread, or elsewhere.
We've collapsed the Reviews section at the top of the notebook to show only the most recent review by default. You can click "View all" to expand and view each of the notebook's existing reviews. We've also moved the "Request review" button next to the status selector to make more room for the notebook's title.
Abstract Home
- Design isn’t linear. Moving from project to project as well as designing and building in tandem can lead to losing track of where we started. On Abstract Home, your most recently viewed notebooks and pressing action items are listed for you so that you can continue where you left off.
Reviews
- Notebook reviewers can now see all their reviews at a glance on the review tab. Reviews are categorized by Assigned to me, My Reviews, and Completed reviews. Users of both Branches and Notebooks can toggle between the reviews that are visible.
Custom Templates
- Templates save teams time and ensure that Notebooks have consistent content. Enterprise organizations can now extend the default set of Notebook templates to include custom-defined templates which meet the specific needs of their organizations.
Notebooks Contributors can now resolve individual comments made by themselves or others within a Notebook to indicate that the comment does not require further conversation.
New Features & Improvements:
- Universal macOS Binary – Single build now supports both Apple Silicon (arm64) and Intel (x86_64) Macs.
- Improved Proxy Support – More reliable network connectivity in restricted environments.
- Updated dependencies for enhanced security and performance.
Update now for a faster, more secure experience!
Fixes
- An error that occurred while opening some XD files when they contained references to external libraries.
- Using arrow keys in a user selection dropdown no longer clears the search results.
- A small display issue with the new branch status badges.
- Several issues around loading and filtering Collections at the project level.
Branch status labels give more visibility and clarity around in-flight designs. Plus: what remote design leadership looks like before and after Abstract.
Features
- Branch status labels got a new look. You now also have two new status options: “In development” and “Paused.”
Enhancements
- User selection inputs now load more users as you scroll, without requiring a search term.
- Improved commit UI for a smoother experience.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a scenario where the activity feed may show an endless loading spinner while switching between branches or projects.
- Diverged branches now display in “quick jump” search results.
- Fixed a scenario where collections were not dismissible.
- Fixed a flash of the welcome illustration when restoring the application to a previous branch.
- Added a “No Section” option for projects where sections have not yet been created.
- Fixed a crash in the “manage reviewers” dialog.
- Fixed a flash of an error "This section already exists" when creating a new project section.
- Fixed project settings to allow you to update project asset generation settings.
- Fixed an issue when re-reviewing a branch you’d potentially see text from your previous review.
- The reaction emoji picker dialogue is better positioned on the screen so you won’t miss it.
- Closing a collection opened from the master branch collections no longer redirects to the project collections.
- Personal organizations no longer show a call to action to “Invite teammates”
- Comment counts are now accurate for layers duplicated across pages.
- Fixed an issue where the project collections screen filtered to “Master” would show collections other than those created on Master.
- Attempting to create a project with a duplicate name now correctly shows an error.
Enhancements
- This build adds support for Adobe XD v28
Fixes
- We addressed a compatibility issue with macOS versions Mojave and High Sierra.
Enterprise customers, merge restrictions are here! You can now decide who can merge branches to master for each project. Also, read our roundup of the news you might have missed on Design Twitter.
New for Enterprise
- Merge restrictions
Enhancements
- We launched a new wizard experience to help Org creators get their team up and running.
- We added two new branch statuses: In Development and Paused.
- We centralized all admin controls under Organization Settings.
- We added a quick jump input box to the desktop app’s title bar.
- We added an author filter to the branch list.
- We updated the Edit menu for files and layers.
- We added navigation breadcrumbs on project and branch views.
- We improved the flow for managing contributors from the Billing page.
- You can now assign a section to a project while creating or editing it (previously this required organization admin permissions).
- Previews on the layer canvas and thumbnails now render in retina.
Performance
- People management screens now load progressively.
Fixes
- Notifications will now always refresh when your computer wakes after sleeping.
- @ mentions are now displayed in the order of closest match, rather than alphabetically.
- We fixed an issue that prevented admins from reviewing designs where their feedback had not been previously requested.
- We fixed an issue where XD files incorrectly displayed the ability to Edit latest in Sketch.
- We no longer limit branches to 3 levels of nesting in a project’s left sidebar.
- We fixed the order in which pending commits are displayed on layer detail.
- We fixed an issue where the right-click menu wasn’t working on branches in left sidebar.
- We fixed an issue where deleted branches didn’t appear in archived tab immediately after deletion.
- We fixed an issue where the Inspect sidebar crashed on style overrides with unset borders.
- We now display required reviews first on the Reviews page.
Surprise! We’ve added to our Abstract team with the acquisition of Flawless App. Also, we’ve made it easier for you to get help by connecting you with our Support Team right inside the Desktop app.
New Features
- You can now contact support from our Desktop app.
Enhancements
- We brought back the ability to create a Collection from the Collections tab. Any Collection created via this route is tied to the Master Branch.
- We added support for Adobe XD version 27.0.
Performance
- We improved how search results load when you @mention someone.
- @mentions will now only load an Organization's members as necessary.
Fixes
- We fixed an issue where opening a file might open an older version than expected after working on multiple Branches or merging a Branch.
- Deleted Branches no longer appear to be accessible under the “archived” Branches filter
- We fixed an issue where the confirmation modal was hidden if you tried to delete a comment from Full Screen mode.
- If an Org admin is designated as a project admin, they’ll start receiving access requests for that project.
- Inspect: We fixed an issue where the properties sidebar would crash if a layer was borderless.
- Inspect: We now display font-style when its detected.
- Inspect: We will no longer scale fixed text layers outside of symbol instances.
- Inspect: We will now estimate the width of text layers in Adobe XD files.
Enhancements
- We added support for Adobe XD version 26.0.
Performance
- We improved our Sketch plugin to reduce spinning beachball experiences — the plugin will now quickly save changes in the background. We no longer recommend turning off Sketch’s Autosave.
Bug Fixes
- We fixed an issue where loading Sketch files (versions 61+) could cause a crash.
- We fixed a bug that sometimes reported unnecessary changes for Adobe XD files.
For the first release after the holiday break, we focused on some less visible improvements to performance and bug fixes. Read our guides published this month on how to build your DesignOps team and your design system with Abstract.
Enhancements
- Non-visual changes are now displayed individually rather than grouped. We also added the ability to filter non-visual changes by their change type.
- Buttons in the titlebar now have tooltips.
- Tabs in the layer preview got a visual refresh.
Performance Improvements
- Selecting and navigating in Inspect is now faster.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where we’d attempt to install the Adobe XD Abstract plugin, even when XD wasn’t installed.
- Fixed a bug that resulted in error state in Inspect for some files.
- Fixed an issue where the total number of Collections on a Branch was displaying incorrectly.
- Fixed an issue that resulted in incorrect scaling of groups for symbol instances in Inspect.
- Fixed a bug that prevented focusing Linked Libraries on Branches.
- VoiceOver now announces Branch names accurately.
- Fixed some areas where tooltips would flicker if the cursor was in *just* the right spot.
- Set maximum resizable width for Layer sidebars based on window size.
- Fixed some dark mode styles in the emoji picker.
- Text close to images in the activity feed is now enlarged.
- Branch names in Collection thumbnails are now clipped to one line.
- Fixed a bug where closing a Collection opened from the project overview routed the user to Branch overview.
Enhancements
- XD public beta now includes support for files created with XD 25
Fixes
- We fixed an error when updating a branch with a deleted file that could prevent the update from completing.
- We fixed the behavior of the back button in a newly created collection.
- The total count of collections on a branch is now always correct, previously it got out of sync in some situations.
- Fixed accessibility window title on macOS.
- Fixed incorrect size of windows on differently scaled monitors.
The wait is over — we’re excited to announce Adobe XD file support is in public beta for all Abstract customers! You can now version and manage your Adobe XD files right alongside your Sketch files. Enable the Adobe XD public beta for your Organization today.
New Features
- Adobe XD public beta.
- You can now reorder Collections within Branch overviews.
- Annotations now appear with cropped previews in Activity feeds.
Enhancements
- We improved copy on the Branch menu.
- We continue to improve keyboard navigation throughout the application. You can now use the keyboard to navigate between layer thumbnails.
- We improved some error message copy.
- Under Inspect options, you can now toggle on grid and layout canvas settings, even if they aren’t enabled in Sketch.
- When you click on a notification for a comment on a Commit, you’ll now be taken directly to the comment itself, rather than an overview of the Commit.
- When you click on a notification triggered by a comment or reply on a branch, you’ll be routed to a standalone view of that thread on the Branch.
- When a user is mentioned in a Branch Summary, they’ll be notified just like every other instance of being mentioned.
Performance
- You can now rename and delete files quickly.
- We included improvements to help files open faster.
- The notification menu loads more quickly.
- You are less likely to see a loading state in the commit window.
- We improved loading times for newly created Collections
Fixes
- We fixed various visual and layout issues.
- If you change your password, we will log you out of other sessions.
- Fixed a bug where preview images would not load if using presentation mode directly from a Layer.
- Fixed an issue where closing the Layer Detail would navigate you backwards, instead of closing.
- Fixed an issue where links to specific Branch comments were broken.
- The TAB key now navigates to the next item in Quick Jump search results.
- Fixed an issue where the number of Collections was incorrect on the Branch overview.
- Assets: We fixed a bug where Sketch Assets would not consistently load when clicking a Layer in the sidebar.
- Branches: Fixed an issue where double-clicking Create Branch would create two Branches.
- Branches: Fixed an issue where empty files on parent Branches were incorrectly deleted after updating its child Branch.
- Commits: Fixed an issue where double-clicking Merge Branch would create two Merge commits.
- Inspect: Fixed a bug where layout guides would jump when zooming in and out of Inspect.
- Inspect: We now preserve symbol overrides for different properties on the same Layer coming from multiple levels of the hierarchy.
- Inspect: We fixed an issue that could result in an empty shadows property to appear in generated CSS.
- Libraries: It is no longer possible to select an archived library or a library from the current project.
- Libraries: The Manage Libraries and Add Files menu options will no longer appear for Viewers.
- Notifications: Deleted comments no longer have an extra actions menu with no purpose.
- Notifications: If you sign out of one account and into another, Notifications from the previous account no longer persist.
- Projects: Fixed an issue where filtered projects with a space character at the end would produce strange artifacts.