Stay in the diagram flow, with Connector tool (X) now persisting by default; hit Esc or V to return to the Move tool.

Create shapes and stickies faster with new auto-create prompts at the top, bottom, left, and right.

Another personal favorite! 📐 Connectors will automatically straighten when objects look center aligned — no more wonky lines!

Stay in the loop on notifications when you’re in the desktop app, with a new notification bell that lives in your menu bar. Install or update the beta app to the latest version.

Search preview now includes recent searches and a list view shows file owners.

Text alignment shortcuts (⌘-⌥-L for left, ⌘-⌥-T for center, ⌘-⌥-R for right) also work when you apply them inside the text box.

Navigate to links in comments without the interruption of an interstitial.

No more group/​align/​ungroup — quickly align objects as a temporary group by holding Shift while pressing alignment buttons. (Option/Alt also seems to work.)

Retain formatting, including bullets and text styles, when pasting between text nodes.

Get more efficient in your selection — if a top-level frame is selected, Figma will now select any subsequent top-level frames registered.

Not mentioned in the blog post, but a very timely and important update!

Annotation is a lot smoother with Pencil strokes no longer getting clipped or disturbing Auto Layout in frames. See also Marcin Wichary’s short thread on how they got to this solution.

Figma shipped a batch of lovely small improvements. See demo videos in their blog post, or read a full list with a few behind-the-scene links below.

One of my personal favorites 🙌 Organize the gradient panel faster by double-clicking on gradient stops to evenly distribute them.

Sprig makes it easy to conduct high-impact research with your users throughout the entire product lifecycle. You can easily run concept and usability testing on one or many Figma prototypes within the same Sprig study.

“In this livestream, Designer Advocate Clara Ujiie and Developer Advocate Jake Albaugh walk through how to use the widget code generator to design and build your own widget for Figma. You’ll also learn about how to use widgets to boost collaboration, manage your work, and level-up designs.”

“In this stream, Figma Designer Advocate Chad Bergman and Product Manager Jacob Miller share how to apply polish to your components and publishing a v1 of your library.”

Rogie comes to the rescue and explains how to preserve a fill color when icons are overridden and swapped. It’s worth keeping a layer name consistent across icons in the library if you plan to use them in different colors.

Miggi with a mind-blowing trick for selecting items inside of the tight spots.

Zander Whitehurst shows how to create a cool interactive carousel in Figma. See also his quick video ​“Wireframe to Landing page” where he uses that carousel in a landing page design.