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Documentation Interface and settings Document settings Assistants

Assistants

Last updated on 20 Jul 2021
3 min read

In the Assistants tab you can add, uninstall, update or enable Assistants in your document. You can also run Assistants and pop up the results window by clicking Run… in the bottom-right cornet of the Document Settings window.

Installing an Assistant

To get started, you’ll need to add some Assistants, and there are a few different ways to do that:

Adding an Assistant from the directory

On the Assistants Directory, you’ll find any Assistants that developers have decided to share publicly. You can click on any Assistant in the directory to view its full details, and choose Add to Sketch to open up the Mac app and add it.

You can open the Assistants Directory directly from the Mac app by choosing File > Assistants > Find Assistants….

Assistants developers can create a link to add an Assistant directly from the browser. When you click on one of these links, it will open the Mac app and display an alert asking if you’d like to download and install the Assistant Assistants. When you see this alert, choose Install.

Adding an Assistant from a URL or file

Open a document in the Mac app that you want to add Assistants to, then open the Document Settings window via File > Document Settings… and click on the Assistants tab. Click on More options in the bottom-left corner and choose either Add from URL… or Add from File…. If you have previously added Assistants to other documents you’ll see those listed.

Add from URL… will open up a dialog to enter a URL that leads directly to an Assistants file. Copy and paste in the URL and choose Install.

Add from Archive… will open up a file browser so you can choose an Assistant you’ve saved locally on your Mac. Assistants are stored as archive files, so their file extension will always be .tgz.

Installing missing Assistants

If you open a document that contains Assistants you haven’t already installed, you’ll see a ! next to the Assistants toolbar icon Assistants. When you open the results window, any missing Assistants will show a thumbnail with a ? in the Assistants tab. Click on that thumbnail, then choose Install to install the missing Assistant.

You can also click on the banner that appears in the all results view to install all missing Assistants.

Uninstalling an Assistant

To uninstall an Assistant, head to File > Document Settings…, Control-click on the Assistant’s name to open its contextual menu and choose Uninstall.

Enabling Assistants in your document

When you add an Assistant Assistants to a document it will be enabled by default. You can disable Assistants for your document and enable any previously installed Assistants.

In the Assistants tab, you can either use the checkboxes next to each Assistant’s name to enable or disable them for your document, or Control-click and choose Enable for Document or Disable for Document from the contextual menu.

You can enable Assistants via their checkbox item or via their contextual menu

Updating Assistants

When developers publish updates to Assistants, you won’t automatically be prompted to upgrade. Instead, you’ll need to install a new version as you’ve done with previous ones. You can have more than one version of the same Assistant installed.

Different documents can use different versions of the same Assistant. To change the version of an Assistant that a document uses, head to the Assistants tab, Control-click on the relevant Assistant and choose a new version from the contextual menu.