Layer Rename Sketch Plugin

Home / Layer Rename Sketch Plugin

December 8, 2019

– a plugin for Sketch

Tested with Sketch v. 45.1

Rename multiple layers at once using RegEx and flags

Select your layer(s)
Hit ⌘-⎇-R
Enter your regex, or just tab if you want it all
Enter your replacement pattern
Hit enter, and profit!

Select layers – Pro style

Deselect all
Hit ⌘-⎇-F
Enter your regex, flags, and/or relative path
Hit enter, and profit!

Protip: if you skip deselecting, if will look through the ones selected Also: ⌘-enter is faster then clicking the second button

RegEx?

Regular Expressions are very powerful. To learn more and try some more, visit regexr.com. Some worthy mentions:

Select all .+
Use capture groups item (\d+) (\w+) will match item 57 flower with $1 as 57 and $2 as flower
In rename, use the capture groups; $1-icon $2 would give flower-icon 57
Adding a prefix or suffix is very simple, check out this question for some demos

Flags

Ordered numbers? Dimensions? Find ‘n Rename got you covered!

Using %N in the replacement box, you will get an ordered number, starting with first selected layer as nr 1!
Going for reverse? Try %-N
Like math? %n makes the counting start as zero 🙂
While we’re at it, zero pad with %NN
Want the index of the item in the container? Try %I and %i
Get what kind of layers it is: %k, or %K for something like Shape/Group/Artboard/Page/Slice/Bitmap/Text/Symbol/SymbolMaster/Path
In the search expression, variables locked,hidden, as well as shape etc are available
Dimensions! Guess what %x, %y, %w, %h will do?
Ready? Get the container/group’s properties as well!
Just hit %p.t for title/name, or whatever other flag you want!

Relative find paths!

Write : in the end of a search expression, followed by any of the following, stacked how many times you desire, to navigate the layer tree:

> all children
< parent
2 third layer in parent (counting starts at 0)
2n every other layer
+1 layer after
-4 layer four layers before This means you could write something like this: input (\w+):<+1>3n+1 and in the replacement box write $1 label decoration %I to rename every third (skipping the first) layer, in the group right after the group containing the selected field. Better yet, it does so even if you would have tens (or thousands…) of those “named input fields with labels having lots of strange decoration”… Ok, but seriously, pretty handy.

Transform cases flags

You can transform string cases using flags when replacing. Try writing the following in the replace box: \T $1 this becomes \U uppErcase \E or What?, it should give you ThisBecomes UPPERCASE or What?;

\L lowercase, ie. “make the following characters lowercase”
\U UPPERCASE
\C camelCase
\K kebab-case
\E end, ie. stop changing the case
\S snake_case
\T TitleCase
\W word case

Example workflow: Rename using child layer name

Use case: You’ve got a bunch of similar structured groups with layers inside of them. All the groups are just called “Group”, however the first layer inside has the right name! You would like to rename the parent group to the layers name, and then maybe rename all the layers. No problem with LayerRenamer!

First, select the parent artboard (or just deselect all layers to select the page, if you want to rename the artboards)
cmd-alt-F, and write Grou… + hit enter to select all layers whose name contains “Grou” (ie. Group 1)
cmd-alt-R, keep the first box empty (to choose the whole name), and in the second, write icon %>0.t, hit enter
This will replace all selected groups names with “icon ” followed by their first child layer’s name (%, flag/start navigate, > children, 0 first, .t title/name)
Now, select all the groups first child; cmd-alt-F, write :>0 (: start navigate, > children, 0 first), and hit cmd-enter to start the filter from the currently selected groups
cmd-alt-R, leave first empty, put image or something in second, hit enter
Enjoy all the extra time you suddenly have left over 🙂

More advanced:

Beta: Copy outline

Use case: The folder/layer structure you’ve got in the sidebar could be made to closely resemble the actual markup or css, etc. Together with the plugin, you’ll also get an action called “Copy page outline”. Just select a parent layer or deselect everything (to export the whole page), then run the action. This is very much just a hint of what to come, nevertheless handy as it is.

Installation

Download and unzip LayerRenamer
Open the .sketchplugin file
Have fun!

Notes

Leave the search/find field empty to match everything Leaving the expression field empty defaults to !path && !artboard

⚠️ Seems like you can’t select both layers and their containing group simultaneously. Because of this, if the group is matched (or combined shape container for that matter), it won’t match anything inside of it. Add expression !group (or !shape) to search its content instead.

Contribute

Feel like adding / fixing something? Create an issue and/or send a pull request! 😀

Say thanks

If you enjoy this plugin, please consider buying me some oatgurt. You can also drop me a line or follow me on Twitter. Got an idea for a new plugin? Send me a tweet!