In the past, the file browser and the community files required different thumbnail aspect ratios. Now, it’s standardized at 16:9 across Figma files, FigJam, and Figma Slides.

Figma added iPhone 16 (including Pro, Pro Max, and Plus), Apple Watch Series 10 (42mm and 46mm), and Android (Compact, Medium, Expanded) to the Frames menu. If you need vector iPhone 16 device frames for the prototyping, Keeyen published the community file with different models and colors.

Joey Banks shows one of the newly announced features. When objects are duplicated, rotated, and then duplicated again, Figma will continue that rotation with subsequent copies of your object.

Kaitie Chambers and Miggi kicked off the first episode of monthly Release Notes, where they dropped new features and recapped everything shipped in September. Readers of this newsletter will be already familiar with most of the changes, but there are some new things worth covering. 

UI3 rolls out for everyone on October 10th. The biggest change in the final version is the return of fixed panels — Figma listened to the feedback from the design community and closed the gaps. The panels still float when the Minimize UI (Shift-\) mode is turned on. Other changes include the always visible Auto Layout pixel values along the resize modes, the layer header showing 3 reorganized actions by default and one more when the panel is wider on larger screens, and showing the component library info in the component properties panel. It’s now even easier to set the Auto Layout object’s width and height to Fill Container or Hug Contents via the quick actions menu (Cmd-K) or a custom macOS shortcut.

After research or brainstorming sessions, FigJam stickies can now be sorted by color, author, stamp count, or stamp type in addition to the previously announced FigJam AI. Figma Slides now supports custom slide deck templates, which can even be published in the community. Slides are now viewable on your mobile device, so you can view and join a presentation from anywhere. 

My personal Figma account is on UI3, but I spend most of my days in a work account stuck on UI2. Surely I’m not the only one in this boat who found switching between two UIs quite distracting. Can’t wait to start using UI3 in my daily work.

Describing design details with plain text is a nice way to communicate the intent to developers.

You can now rename files in the desktop app by double-clicking the tab name.

A note to app developers: ​“We’re releasing a new embed kit that gives you more control and flexibility over how you embed Figma in your website or app.”

The desktop app on macOS now sports a refreshed app icon.

“We’ve added a new export quality setting to give you more control over the file size and quality of images when exporting frames and images from Figma as JPEGs or PDFs. A new quality dropdown in Advanced export settings allows you to choose from High, Medium, or Low quality when exporting as a JPEG or PDF. Low quality will compress your images the most, resulting in the smallest file size, and High quality won’t compress images at all. If you do not select a quality setting upon export, there will be no change to how your files are exported; Figma will follow existing default settings (Medium quality for PDFs and High quality for JPEGs). Also available in FigJam.”

“Org admins on Organization and Enterprise plans can now use Figma’s pre-integrated Google SSO app to configure SAML SSO for their org. Customers on the Enterprise plan can also use the pre-integrated app to enable SCIM provisioning.”

Figma just added 450 new Google Fonts to the app. Select ​“Google Fonts (8÷24 update)” from the font picker dropdown to access them.

“We’ve improved the experience for moving files. Now you can bulk move a group of files and find the right destination more easily.”

Constraints and a blend mode now display inline when toggled on, or the default is changed.

So much polish has been added to FigJam in the last few weeks! Now, you can change the color of connectors and their text independently.

Users in Enterprise organizations with workspaces set up can now publish libraries to a workspace in addition to a team or the whole org.

Small improvements to FigJam keep coming — now connectors can connect to the edge or arbitrary spots on an object, not just the NSEW cardinal directions.

At Config, Figma shared a roadmap to make Figma work better for freelancers and agencies. Last week, they launched the first step towards this commitment. Now, you can transfer work to your clients on Pro plans. In the process, you can keep a copy of the work for yourself, and clients can remove collaborators when accepting a transfer to avoid accidental upgrades.

Quality-of-life improvement in FigJam — regardless of connector and shape styling, they will always have the same optical spacing. Also, alignment indicators now appear only when needed and are hidden when the object is being moved across the board. So much cleaner!

Joel Miller, one of the product designers behind UI3 at Figma, walks us through improvements the team is making based on the user feedback: Clip Content is a checkbox again, constraints are more efficient to use, pixel values are brought back to the resize controls in Auto Layout, more actions are shown for a layer, library information added for components, frame orientation controls are back, and blend modes improved. Kudos to the team for listening to the community!