Jambot is a free widget from Figma to interact with ChatGPT right in FigJam. Use it to create visual mindmaps, take a multi-threaded approach to brainstorming, or generate ideas with teammates and ChatGPT on the same canvas. Quite amazing that it was born during last month’s Maker Week and is already live!

Amber Bravo sat down with Jambot engineers and a designer to learn what inspired them to make the widget, and why they’re so excited to see ChatGPT go multiplayer. As a power user of Logseq, I loved this bit from Daniel Mejia on where the inspiration came from: ​“I’ve been a heavy user of these tools called Networked Thought — especially Roam Research and Logseq — which basically allow you to create pages that link between each other, so you can connect, organize, and trace ideas. More recently, I also found this tool called Albus, which adds a visual feel to interacting with AI, and so I thought there should be a way to connect these concepts to create a potentially useful alternative to ChatGPT.”

Miggi causes the ​“figception” by using Jambot to come up with ideas for making Figma content. Quite amazing to see how it can be used as a tool for thought (or even programming, FWIW).

A few improvements to variables: 1) in addition to scoping number variables, you can now also scope color variables, 2) select multiple variables with Shift or Cmd for the bulk edit, 3) code syntax for defining different names for multiple platforms, and 4) modes for instance sublayers. Variables are still in beta and it’s great to see how fast the team iterates on them.

In the last 2 months Figma quietly shipped more than 200 updates to the Dev Mode workspace 🤯 This article goes through the most important 35 changes and improvements.

“Our new Community Libraries Beta offers the building blocks you need to start designing, right at your fingertips. As part of the Beta, users on free plans will have access to a special selection of community wireframing, UI, and icon kits. Just click into the Assets panel and Library modal to browse through the featured libraries and design faster than ever.”

Figma is the General Excellence winner of the 2023 Innovation by Design Awards by Fast Company. Collins’s bold campaign for Figma titled ​“Nothing Great is Made Alone” had also won the Branding award.

Evil Martians is a product development consultancy behind some well-known services and open-source projects. In this post, they talk about the process of building a full-featured frontend application-style Figma plugin — with storage, auth, routing, and more. A fascinating deep dive for any curious developers!

An in-depth walkthrough of how to use Figma’s Auto Layout to quickly add padding and alignment rules to standardize your design elements from the Noun Project.

Somewhat related to the previous article, Ridd looked for a way to account for optical balance when icons are hidden from a button. Jordan suggested a smart solution of wrapping the label in an Auto Layout with an additional smaller padding that adds up with and without the icon.

A good-to-remember shortcut! Hold the Spacebar while dragging elements to maintain the hierarchy of the elements.

Zen Keys is a new plugin from Corey Lee that extends the Quick Actions menu to provide more keyboard accessibility for Figma features that don’t have dedicated shortcuts. Spend less time reaching for your mouse and lean into Figma zen mode with keyboard actions. (Something is cooking with the Quick Action bar, isn’t it?)

This plugin made my head spin: ​“Make procedural geometry, generate dynamic text, design color systems with logic and mathematical precision. Explore endless variations, and automate things that would be too tedious or even impossible to do by hand.”

Richard Ekwonye made an interactive guide on how Bézier curves work in CSS animations and SVG paths of illustrations and icons. Such a beautiful and hands-down way to learn!