Common keyboard shortcuts for developers to perform actions like zooming, dragging the canvas around, copying the link to a specific screen, selecting the parent of your selection, exporting selection, and toggling a layout grid.

A new code plugin from Jake, Figma Developer Advocate: ​“This plugin allows you to write and generate code snippets for Figma nodes, which are rendered in the Inspect Panel in Dev Mode. You can make these code snippets dynamic, by referring to parameters provided by the plugin. Doing this for your component library will bring accurate code snippets to any project that incorporates your design system.”

The Dev Mode team shares their early pivot away from a codegen-first approach, the acquisition of Visly that accelerated their efforts, and what it means to break down the handoff wall.

“Join this learning session where we will share tips and address questions around how to onboard your engineers to Dev Mode. We’ll cover how to adjust your workflows to get the most of our new features, setting up your files and design system, and onboarding your developers.”

Jake Albaugh and Emil Sjölander discuss using AI-based code generation (codegen) tools for augmenting your design to development process, not automating it. ​“Codegen isn’t just an automated, hands-off replacement for translating design to code; it’s best as an augmentation for you to more quickly understand design changes, and to keep your team in sync.”

Molly with step-by-step instructions for using rem units in your text properties. The developers on your team will be grateful for using the same units as they do when it comes to the handoff time!

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.

Molly shares her 3 favorite tips from the Config talk ​“Designer and developer workflows unlocked using Dev Mode” — using ​“Compare changes” (my favorite as well, and the first thing I showed my team!), testing components in the Playground, and switching between the design and Dev Mode by pressing the Shift‑D shortcut.

“In this livestream, Jake, Lauren, and Emil dive into Dev Mode, the newest space in Figma built for developers.”

Emily Brody, Product Marketing Manager at Figma, writes about the go-to-market strategy for the Dev Mode and how the team prepared for the launch and triaged bugs, requests, and feedback during the first two weeks.

Christine Vallaure wrote about one of the most under-the-radar new features of the Dev Mode — units conversion. Now, you can design with pixels and then translate them to rem or other relative units in code. (Thanks for sharing the friend link with Figmalion, Christine!)

CSS Evangelist Kevin Powell made a video walkthrough of the new Dev Mode specifically for other developers. Share it with your team!

An insightful thread about Dev Mode from Joel Miller, a Product Designer on Dev Tools at Figma: ​“It’s the culmination of an ~18-month journey, filled with countless riffs, prototypes, reviews, PRDs, and PM mocks. Here’s my story of how we got here.”

Linear wins the most over-the-top plugin page award. The new plugin enables designers and engineers to collaborate seamlessly without the need to switch tools or context by creating and linking to issues directly from Figma, navigating design tasks in context, and collaborating across teams and tools.

If you’re ready to dive in, this help article is a good introduction to starting using Dev Mode.

“The Figma for VS Code extension lets you navigate and inspect design files, collaborate with designers, track changes, and speed up design implementation — all without leaving your development environment.”

An in-depth session with practical perspectives on how designers and developers can leverage brand new Figma capabilities to unlock tighter collaboration with one another, prepared by four Figmates — Developer Advocate Jake Albaugh, Group Product Manager Avantika Gomes, Designer Advocate Lauren Andres, and Software Engineer Jenny Lea.

This playground is an interactive guide to the Dev Mode, made with two audiences in mind. Designers will get to know how to set up files for handoff, connect design and code, and explain Dev Mode to developers, while developers will learn how to track design status and changes, inspect designs, get relevant code snippets, and use plugins to extend and connect workflows.

A new feature page for the Dev Mode, a space in Figma for developers offering features that help translate designs into code faster. This is a great overview to learn about inspecting designs, exporting variables as design tokens, generating production-ready code snippets, integrating Figma into your development workflow, bringing design files into the VS Code, adding structure to the handoff process, and comparing changes. Dev Mode is currently in beta and free to use through 2023.

Kris Rasmussen, CTO of Figma, answers a question of how a design tool can work better for developers by introducing Dev Mode, ​“a new workspace in Figma that’s designed to get developers what they need, when they need it, harnessing the tools they use every day.” Something I didn’t expect: ​“Today, we know that on our paid plans more developers visit Figma than designers.” With this in mind, it’s great to see new plans for developers: ​“Starting in 2024, you’ll have an option to purchase Dev Mode access only for $25 per seat per month on Organization, and $35 per seat per month on Enterprise.”

(If you’re curious about what developers think about Dev Mode, check out comments on Hacker News. While that community tends to be overly negative, it’s interesting to see what kind of problems Figma is addressing with this launch.)