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Alternates

Alternates (also sometimes referred to as versions or branches) allow you to create variations on a single wireframe design without adding more wireframes to your project.

Creating alternates can be useful during the early design phase when exploring concepts, and in later stages for reviewers to add their feedback. (Comments are also helpful for this).

Some possible reasons for using alternates:

  • You want to create only one wireframe per screen but have several ideas about each one.
  • You want suggestions for design improvements but don't want other people changing your wireframes.
  • You want to send your project around for feedback and track each person's feedback individually.
  • You want to try out new design ideas without including them in the wireframes for the current release.

Creating alternates

Creating an Alternate for your current wireframe can happen in one of two places. You can either use the Wireframe menu in the Editor's Top Bar.

Or you can do it from the context menu in the Navigator panel.

This will create a copy of the current wireframe as an alternate version for you to modify. By default, it will automatically be named with the word "Alternate" followed by some random numbers and letters to ensure that the name is unique.

When an alternate exists, an icon will appear next to the name in the Navigator panel indicating that there are alternates. When you are working on an alternate version, the Navigator panel will display the alternate name in parentheses.

To rename the alternate, you can use the context menu in the Navigator panel or the Wireframe Menu.

Editing alternates

Once you have created an alternate version you can edit it just like any other wireframe, including adding assets and symbols. Changes that you make will not affect the original wireframe (known as the Official Version). You can also add notes in the notes panel for the alternate to describe your thoughts on it, or communicate to others about it.

To switch between alternate versions of a wireframe, select the name of a version from the Wireframe Menu (or from the context menu in the Navigator panel). You can also switch back to the Official Version by selecting it in the list.

Promoting alternates

If you decide that you like one alternate better than the original wireframe, you can "promote" it to the official version, which replaces and overwrites the original.

Both the alternate that was promoted and the former official version are retained in case you want to preserve them as part of the change history. Otherwise you can discard them.

Duplicating alternates

You can also duplicate alternates from the Wireframe menu or from the context menu in the Navigator panel. Doing this will create a new, randomly named alternate that is an exact copy of the alternate you chose to duplicate.

Sometimes, however, an alternate grows into a wireframe all its own. If you would like to create a whole new wireframe based on an alternate, you can choose the "Duplicate As New Wireframe" option.

The new wireframe will be named using the Name of the Alternate and then the Name of the Original Wireframe. So if you had an alternate named "Rotated Header", in your "Homepage" wireframe, the wireframe created from the alternate would be named "Rotated Header Homepage".

Merging alternates

If you want to combine parts of an alternate with the official version, you can use the merge option from the Wireframe menu or from the context menu in the Navigator panel.

Selecting "Merge with Official" will add the contents of the selected version to the official version, to the right of the wireframe contents.

If the notes in the alternate are different than the notes in the original, they will also be merged, separated by a dashed horizontal line.

You can then manually edit the contents to create a new official version that is a combination of the preferred elements of each version.

Discarding alternates

When you have finished reviewing or integrating alternate versions into an official version, you can delete alternates you no longer want using the "Discard" option.

Alternates in Full Screen Presentation Mode

You can display your alternates in Full Screen Presentation Mode by using the context menu in the Navigator panel.

When you select a wireframe alternate in this mode, its name will appear in parentheses next to the official wireframe name.

Project alternates

In some cases you might want to propose a set of alternate designs across several wireframes. This might happen if you are reviewing someone else's wireframes and want them to see your proposed design changes throughout the project.

When you rename an alternate, you can choose from a list of existing alternate names in the rename dialog. Selecting another alternate's name groups this alternate with the others of the same name.

In the Navigator panel, next to the word Wireframes, a menu displays the names of all alternates that appear in your project.

Selecting an alternate from this list will select that alternate in all the wireframes that have an alternate with that name.

This is conceptually similar to creating a branch in a codebase, except that it only applies to wireframes that have specific alternate version names.

So, for example, if you create a series of alternates called "Leon's Proposal" and use the context menu displayed above to select that name, any wireframe with an alternate called "Leon's Proposal" would switch views to that alternate version.