Features

Using animated GIFs as masks

Cool tip on masking, never realized it was possible!

til in @figmadesign: @miggi and I discovered that you can use gifs as MASKS in Figma. Like what?! 🤯 #figmatip

Here's a dancing gif (with transparent bg) masking a gradient gif: pic.twitter.com/x2gSryrw16
— Crystal T (@itscrystaltee) May 14, 2021

Issue #40
May 23, 2021
#Animation

Custom keyboard shortcuts for plugins

Using System Preferences on Mac to create custom keyboard shortcuts for your favorite plugins.

🔥 @figmadesign tip — on a Mac you can set custom Keyboard shortcuts for your fav Figma Plugins!

Under System preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts; add Figma and the name of the plugin (as it appears in the menu bar), and whatever shortcut you want.🥳 #FigmaTip pic.twitter.com/xurtBIQtmg
— Dave Williames (@DavidWilliames) September 4, 2019

Issue #40
May 23, 2021
#Plugins
#Shortcuts

Move Components Between Files — Master Plugin for Figma

Gleb Sabirzyanov shows how to move components between files using his Master plugin.

Responsive prototypes using smart animate

Good idea to show different sizes side-by-side in a prototype. An animation looks great, too!

Placing objects over Auto Layout frames

“How to move and place elements and objects over Auto layout elements and frames without placing inside of them. Spoiler alert: hold space bar while dragging them.”

Issue #40
May 23, 2021
#Auto Layout

Batch create Figma styles

“Using keyboard shortcuts and the Styler plugin, you can convert your Figma swatches and type hierarchies into styles in a flash.”

Issue #40
May 23, 2021
#Plugins
#Shortcuts

Styler

Styler is a plugin for Figma that generates styles based on selected layers. See the “Batch create Figma styles“ video above for a quick demo from Figma Designer Advocate Luis.

A few things I wish I had known earlier on for working in Figma

Joey Banks shares a few helpful shortcuts and tips.

A few things I wish I had known earlier on for working in @figmadesign—I hope one or more of these can be helpful to someone out there! 🙏

1) Hold ⌘ + drag a frame to resize it to ignore any of the constraints set for the items inside. ↔️
— Joey Banks (@joeyabanks) May 12, 2021

Multiple prototype tabs in the desktop app

No need to use Chrome for comparing prototypes between pages anymore!

Hey, guess what?

You can now open multiple prototypes from different pages at the same time on the desktop app.

Get noodlin' 🍜 pic.twitter.com/3yB56vo1Sx
— luis. (@disco_lu) April 26, 2021

Interactive Coin Flip

Gleb Sabirzyanov made a cool isometric coin animation entirely in Figma.

Keyboard Shortcut Annotation

Annotate your mockups with a nice-looking keyboard shortcut illustration. It’s super easy to customize and includes all the most common special character keys.

Issue #39
May 9, 2021
#Shortcuts

You should always name your layers

Cmd‑R is one of the most underrated shortcuts.

You should always name your layers and use this @figmadesign shortcut to help out. Learn along with #professorfigma pic.twitter.com/khDUNvd3ww
— miggi from figgi (@miggi) May 2, 2021

Issue #39
May 9, 2021
#Shortcuts

Double-clicking on the edge of a text box

Joey Banks on a shortcut to set a text block resizing mode.

Many of us may already know this shortcut, but just wanted to share in case it's helpful for any designer who's newer to @figmadesign! Double clicking on the edge of a text box will quickly allow you to set its size to be Auto Width, saving you a few seconds of work each time. ↔️ pic.twitter.com/PBUN8oLySE
— Joey Banks (@joeyabanks) May 4, 2021

“The Vectary 3D plugin for Figma is adding the missing third dimension to your 2D designs. Place your Figma design into a predefined 3D mockup or your custom 3D element. Set your desired perspective in 3D and place the result into the scene with one click.”

Issue #39
May 9, 2021
#Plugins
#3D

Figma tips: Building flexible components using the “slot” method

Designer Advocate Luis: “We often find ourselves creating lots of different variations of similar components, this can be tedious and difficult to maintain. Using a technique called “slots”, we can swap out components very easily from a single component.”

Our Favourite Figma plugins for 2021

The team at Mono shares their most-used and favorite plugins for 2021.

Issue #39
May 9, 2021
#Plugins

Reverse layers order in Auto Layout

I shared a tip on using 180° rotation to reverse layers order in an Auto Layout frame, so the first layer is top- or left-most.

🔥 Hot #FigmaTip: using 180° rotation to change layers order in @figmadesign Auto Layout. pic.twitter.com/XTvq2QsB5S
— Eugene Fedorenko 🇺🇦 (@efedorenko) April 27, 2021

Branching in Figma

Figma Designer Advocate Chad Bergman shares best practices for using branching.

Issue #39
May 9, 2021
#Branching

Introducing branching: space to iterate and explore freely

“Today, we’re introducing branching in beta to better enable collaboration at scale. Designers will have the space to iterate and explore freely, while preserving shared files as a single source of truth. Product Manager Meagan Gamache shares a peek into the 13-month journey to beta and what this means for design system management in Figma.”

Coming together at Config 2021

At Config 2021, Figma announced six new ways to collaborate and bring you and your teammates together — their 2nd product FigJam, branching (currently in beta to Org accounts), a new mobile app, voice chat, higher user limits, and publishing to the Figma Community for everyone.

#Features