Miggi shows how to use audio and cursor chat in Figma and FigJam. Audio is only available on paid and education plans. Cursor chat is available both in Figma and FigJam, while high-fives are only part of the FigJam for now.

Figma introduced new ways to communicate without leaving Figma and FigJam — audio calls, cursor chat, and high fives. Press forward-slash (/) on the keyboard to start a chat message. Chat and high-fives are truly innovative, delightful, and low-friction ways to communicate with your team. Bravo!

3rd-party developers can now build plugins and widgets for FigJam. Plugins in FigJam work similarly to Figma, and existing Figma plugins can even be republished for FigJam. Widgets are more like native FigJam objects — similar to sticky notes, shapes, and connectors — except they’re custom and built by you. For now, this API is in closed beta, but it creates an incredible opportunity for building almost anything inside FigJam.

A recap of the updates to Figma and FigJam that were shipped last month.

You can press Shift while clicking on individual publishing checkboxes to select ranges. You’re now able to open library files from the Libraries modal.

Gleb Sabirzyanov released a major update to his popular plugin for working with components.

A new app reimagining developer handoff from Figma.

Plugin parameters (currently in beta) provide a faster way to build more powerful plugins by using quick actions to accept user input, eliminating the need to create your own UI. Both plugins I built in the past don’t have any UI, so this would be a great way to easily add some configuration options.

Chromatic Figma lets you use other color spaces than RGB, such as Lab and Lch, to create good-looking and perceptually uniform gradients and color scales. Recently, I had to dive deep into color spaces and built my own tool while creating an accessible color palette at work, so it’s nice to find a plugin that can be used in less demanding situations.

Danny Sapio shows how to create sliders and loading indicators with Auto Layout.

A smart way to resize icons without having to detach components, hide layers, or add variants.

Really cool way to use Figma and Breakpoints plugin to show logo adapts to different spaces.

A few of the less known shortcuts and tips for effective use of Figma from Ansh Mehra.

Smashing Magazine’s new guide to useful Figma plugins, from color management and image assets to SVG shapes and animation.

A beautiful deep dive into Bézier Curves, explaining how they work and showing math behind them.

“For historical reasons, Figma used to convert between spaces and hyphens when dealing with SVG files. This made it hard to export icons from Figma to SF Symbols, so we fixed it.”

Anthony DiSpezio shows the new component insert menu opened by a Shift+i shortcut.

Demo of how the new Swap Library feature works. Great for migrating to a new version of the design system or toggling between light and dark modes.

It’s finally possible to move published components between files without breaking links to instances in the design system! Besides that, now you can swap out an entire library in a single bulk action and find the right component in a quick search modal. Fantastic update that I’m really excited about. See a backstory by Sho Kuwamoto on how they were built.

By default, drop shadows are no longer displayed through transparent areas of objects. Check out this thread by Rogie on how this feature came to life.