Figma
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- grafician0
- This is pretty huge - variants in some of our components were getting outta control.duckseason
- Thanks for that. I was wondering how properties has changes the variations.Chimp
- duckseason1
Config (Figma's annual conference) is free and happening now.
- I attended a few sessions. Good stuff. First time I've seen a schedule cover just about every timezone on the planet. Super inclusive for an online conference.brandonp
- grafician0
- Plugins I use...grafician
- You might also enjoy Automator
https://automator.de…grafician - plugins = nightmare when osx updates, software updates, hardware updates.shapesalad
- because while the main software gets regular updates - plugins may or may not get updates. If you rely on one and it doesn't get updated = headache.shapesalad
- Figma and its plugins run in the browser...grafician
- only issue I got was re-installing all the plugins on new accounts (when needed)grafician
- How many do you use?Chimp
- Faker is pretty good.Chimp
- Spelll is a good one too for spell-checking a file.capn_ron
- I neeed that!Chimp
- How come you don’t use Traceit?maquito
- capn_ron1
Back in school right now. 2 classes and both are all Figma based. It is a pretty great tool, but I have a lot to learn. Gonna be using youtube and class to get this stuff down.
- mg330
For you Figma users who do collaborative editing, does Figma allow any file member to update live prototypes?
We use XD (I'm also not switching to Figma) and one annoyance is that only the file owner (even when it's in the cloud and set to collab editing) can push prototype updates to the live link. I've got a coworker working from South Korea right now, and it's gotten frustrating for the project managers to rely on her having ownership of certain work that needs updates pushed, and she can't do it during most of our American work hours.
- As long as they can edit, I don't see why not.kaiyohtee
- Yes, Figma eliminates this sharing issue, that's really the primary differentiator, why Figjam is a popular collab tool as wellwhatthefunk
- ^What they said. If frames are setup as a prototype, any edit by anyone with edit access is automatically reflected in the prototype.duckseason
- Yep, and people can request edit access and you can grant anyone permissions to edit or add people. Figma is great.nb
- Adobe has announced "Creative Cloud Spaces" in beta right now but it is (I think) intended to allow this in XD.nb
- https://blog.adobe.c…nb
- Plus you can just publish & share presentation pages while keeping the in-progress pages private. We do this, a bit more work, but keeps work hidden from otherswhatthefunk
- The way XD does it was intentional, just to give you an idea of how far behind Adobe is! lulznb
- Figma even allows branching! But only on the Organization tier which can get expensive.nb
- The new branching feature is ace! Finally we're as organized as the coders LOL.zarkonite
- Thanks for all the info! Hopefully Adobe solves this problem soon.mg33
- OBBTKN1
It's just like in the good old days: Illustrator vs Freehand vsCorel Draw
Now: XD vs Sketch vs Figma
Cough and spit!!
- CyBrainX0
If you don't work in UX/UI, is there any benefit to using it instead of Adobe software?
- Seems like a decent iconography tool?canoe
- I'm having a hard time imagining how or why somebody not in UI/UX would use Figma.MondoMorphic
- ...e.g., there are tools like Miro that are better for collaborative uses, Adobe tools are better for graphic design, etc.MondoMorphic
- I was just curious because I come across job postings for Motion Design that mention Figma. I think the problem is that a lot of people looking for someone...CyBrainX
- mocking up UX/UI designs asks for a motion designer.CyBrainX
- Figjam is a bit like Miro but freeChimp
- Figjam will not be free starting Jan 1nb
- The only reason a non-UX/UI designer would consider Figma is for the collaborative aspect of it. If you want that, then great. Also much cheaper than Adob¢.nb
- Of course it's not fair to compare price. Adobe offers a ton of apps for that money.nb
- ^most of them useless?grafician
- It's a visual cloud based collaboration tool. I use it for more than UX/UI work absolutely.atomholc
- I used Adobe XD for prototyping three or four times. It was fun to use and easy to learn. At least for what i needed it to.oey_oey
- Some prototyping like transitions in a website like hover and clicks I did in AE.oey_oey
- But for this client's website, I'm really thinking in using Figma because the client wants something I can not agree upon...oey_oey
- and I need to show it to her somehow and I don't feel like doing it with the website itself and have all the work done and then go back. the budget is final.oey_oey
- bocadeets0
Is it better to use the web version or the app? or does it not matter at all?
- There are a couple minor features in the desktop app that don’t show up in the browser. But mostly it doesn’t matter.nb
- The desktop app is basically a browser they made to wrap itnb
- desktop version is bettergrafician
- I prefer the desktop. I use the track pad to move around and on the browser some gestures are the same as the back button.Chimp
- duckseason1
@boca
We're using it more and more as our tool for all things digital – web, product, social, decks, and even white boarding. Illustrations are still mostly done in AI and dropped in; however, Figma is capable of handling it should you wanna put it the time to adjust your workflow. It's got a free "starter" version if you're ever interested inn kicking the tires.
- Seeing this...I kinda miss Freehand :/grafician
- Interesting, just trying to figure out why it might make sense (as a freelancer) to fit it into my workflow. I've recently abandoned Adobe for Affinitybocadeets
- And do most stuff in Affinity Publisher and Designer right now. Mostly layouts for print and social media stuff.bocadeets
- nice.utopian
- @boca actually Designer is very very good for this kind of illustrations with tons of layers and effects
and being optimised for Mac, runs very smoothly toografician - but I guess ppl do this kind of illustrations in Figma cuz it's free and cuz they can :)grafician
- duckseason1
My company does something sorta similar to streamline creation of our more generic social/banner ads.
We set up our base assets each quarter and are able to quickly swap out messaging by entering it into the Main Component and having it populate a couple dozen sizes automatically. From there just export and reset.
- itsn't all this component stuff the same as symbols in Flash back in the day? I'd make empty text symbols, that then read data to be populated.shapesalad
- If Figma had AS1, or some ability to code and export to web... would be nice, a step back perhaps to flash days, but nice.shapesalad
- < Thanks, this is very similar to what we want to do. Ideally my team wants to NOT have to reset, but that may be the option. to make this work.jaylarson
- Yeah, components are essentially the same idea as Symbols. There is an API that some folks have done some interesting stuff with.duckseason
- eg. Uber used it to create an internal web repo for assets that folks can access that uses the Figma file as its source.duckseason
- bocadeets0
Old-school designer here....Do you guys use Figma only for website and app designs and prototyping? Or do you use it for everything (social media graphics, layouts, pitch decks, etc) nowadays?
- jaylarson0
Yep, that's exactly how I have it set up and it works. (and thank you for your effort!, srsly, i had a laugh a yr copy!)
My problem is I want to have this on a on another frame to function as a template so designers can just create a new file, pull in this as one large component, and save it out without having to place any fields—they're already on a page—and just enter copy.
When I try and put these on a separate frame or separate out, The functionality breaks and I need to manually reconnect the components and instances.
I'm still wrapping my head around in Figma... I really appreciate all the comments, thanks guys!
- sauce:
https://www.figma.co…jaylarson - Try using a design library? Be sure to drag instances from the assets panelnb
- And if you’re trying to move a master component you need to CUT+paste. Copy breaks the connectionnb
- Yeah, if you wanna use across files, publish the components to your team libraryduckseason
- sauce:
- jaylarson0
Hi QBN, I need your help!
I have a frame that I want to function as a live mockup. Inside that frame I want to have fields where I can enter text and see it render live 1:1 in a mockup.
I can make this work using Components and Instances—UNTIL I want to make the whole frame a Master Component itself (like a master slide). These form fields functioning as Master Components (MC) to populate Instances in the mockup.
What I've seen is that I can't have MCs nested within other MCs. And when I duplicate MCs they become Instances and my functionality breaks.
Is there another way I can do this? Maybe with variants? Plugins (although I'm concerned they may break)? Am I just missing something basic?
- Figma app or Figma mirror could work and then you don’t really need the master components at all...nb
- Or, don’t worry about everything being a component. Just make a master component out of your parent frame, and put an instance on the device.nb
- I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to do but it seems very easynb
- whatthefunk0
Question about presentations.
Figma is great for UX & Design folks as well as devs, but I'm experiencing some challenges presenting with product folks and stakeholders. Everyone loves the presentation layer of Invision (it's like a PDF, can toggle back and forth between screens, and it's easier for those who just want to see all the screens in a flow view compared to either a prototype or a link so some random collection of screens) but there's no Invision for Figma.
I've read that some agencies/companies introduced a presentation layer that is a page within the Figma file either exported as a PDF per rounds of feedback including components of all app screens or shared directly. This way design/code can still collaborate in the 'messy' area, but a cleaner presentation can be exported for stakeholders.
Any thoughts on how to do this for a large app project? I'm describing some projects that have ~30-40 screens and trying to get stakeholders to get into a figma screen is proving difficult - thoughts? Thanks
- Don't you create a final prototype in Figma for the deck?
OR you can easily export a .PDF and present that...grafician - Are you saying Figma's Presentation View doesn't cut it? I find it almost identical to Invision's minus the ability to pull up that drawer that shows all screenduckseason
- You can also create multiple separate flows which can be toggled between if you need to focus on a specific set of actions.duckseason
- https://www.figma.co…
This looks like the way to do it, no?whatthefunk
- Don't you create a final prototype in Figma for the deck?
- kaiyohtee1
Finally started a gig where I too get to use Figma. It's nice to feel excited about design again.
- maquito5
Ok, so after 14 years of Adobe, I’ve had one month using Figma as the one and only tool onboarding my new position (Sr. Product Designer).
During this process, I felt just a bit nostalgic with photography as a key component of my design thinking. However, I must admit Figma is one of the tightest design tools I’ve ever used. Sssso intuitive, like, damn! Also, the features re: components, variables, etc., is insane.
I think they could really enhance their product with some pixel-editing features; but I’ve been checking on their plug-ins daily, and they are absolutely insane.
Never thought I would be able to make such a big trip re: my MAIN workspace at my age. Stoked.
- zarkonite0
You can use draft mode to fiddle around and then update the components in your team's assets when you're ready. All of it is recorded in the version history. What exactly are you missing as a feature?
- akiersky0
Not quite a full git-style solution like Abstract, but looks like it does have some basic version control built in: https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/…
Really wish our team had switched to Figma over the cobbled together Sketch+Cloud+Zeplin+Invision+Abs... ... so many places to update everything and it all half-works-together
- Abstract looks neat: https://www.abstract….ideaist
- been using abstract for 2 years now, love it. Similar issue with Figma, how to manage...whatthefunk
- Al_dizzle0
^ that could work actually...
...Im just used to using abstract, I built my last team's workflow off of that... so Im trying to wrap my head around a new way of controlling the process.
