Today we released something called Asset Handoff that bridges the gap between design and development. We’re excited to show it to you.
Automatic Asset Generation
LayerVault is now able to generate assets on the fly. Assets are aggregated, nicely presented, and shareable. Here’s how it works.
LayerVault scans every PSD, recognizes filenames in layers or groups, and automatically generates assets. No menu options to find and no settings to enable. LayerVault simply generates assets when you indicate that you’d like us to.
Details about how you can name layers is available on the Asset Handoff support page. If you’ve used Photoshop asset generation tools in the past, this shouldn’t be new to you.
Assets are aggregated across an entire project and displayed on a single, shareable Handoff page. It looks something like this. Handoff pages are generated in real-time and are always up-to-date with the latest version of your assets and mockups. Babysitting not required.
Announcing Asset Generation for Sketch
As we were developing Asset Handoff, we didn’t forget Sketch users. There are plenty of ways to generate assets with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe has even integrated one into the app itself. Today, we’re thrilled to announce a Sketch asset generator. The Sketch ecosystem has been growing at an impressive pace and we have done our best to support it.
With this release, LayerVault doesn’t just support Sketch, we are materially improving the experience of designing for the web with Sketch.
The Asset Handoff
LayerVault’s Handoff℠ page contains all of the mockups, assets, resources, and tools that developers need to build designs. By being built directly into LayerVault, the page is created automatically and in real-time.
Asset Handoff pages will automatically create ZIP files of all the generated assets in a file, as well as all the assets in the entire project. As with the rest of this page, ZIP files are updated as you work on your files.
Asset Handoff pages are available in the sidebar of your project. Simply click the new “Assets” link. Invite your developers to LayerVault and keep them up-to-date without effort.
Context View and The Toolbox
We didn’t stop at generating pixel perfect assets and simply making them downloadable. Developers need more than just raw files.
Each file has the new Context View: a full-screen preview of a mockup, useful developer tools, and assets shown in context. Context View is just awesome. Click a highlighted asset and it’ll start a download. Hover over it and we’ll tell you its filename and dimensions.
Context View also gives developers our revered toolbox: an eyedropper for colors, a smart ruler for specs, and a tool for copying text straight out of a flattened rendering.
If you’re building a mockup, you no longer need to open Photoshop.
Try It Out
Whether files are synced with Dropbox or the LayerVault App, your PSD or Sketch assets are always available on an Asset Handoff page. If you’re a developer, this is going to make your life a lot easier.
LayerVault now syncs design projects, provides advanced version control for design files, allow teams to gather feedback, presents design work, and now it’s the best way for developers to work with designers.
Don’t have an account? Sign up for LayerVault to a give it a try. If you have questions or feedback, feel free to reach out.