Jacob Miller, a Product Manager for Design Systems at Figma, gives an overview of everything launched at Framework — Code Connect for developers, typography and gradient variables, and the new Library Analytics API. All of the above is designed to drive design system adoption across the teams because ​“building a design system is only half the battle — the real challenge is getting it adopted by both designers and developers.” If you missed the event, that’s one summary you need.

“Create a FigJam board during or outside of a Google Meet call to jam remotely or in person.”

Developer Advocate Jake shows Jason Lengstorf how to bring your code into Figma with Code Connect.

“Code Connect is a tool for design systems and engineering teams to bring component code into Dev Mode. When inspecting a component with connected code snippets, developers will see design system code from their libraries instead of auto-generated code.” Currently in beta. Available on Enterprise or Organization plans only.

A short explainer on navigating a FigJam file — panning and zooming, keyboard shortcuts, and navigation hacks. I use FigJam for presentations, and navigating sections with a Tab or Shift-Tab keys is my favorite!

Now you can use the power of AI to generate and expand mindmaps and create visual timelines in FigJam. See examples in the gallery of ready-made FigJam AI prompts.

The new Dev Mode plugin for instantly generating React components from selected nodes. See how it works and why Vijay made it in the Twitter thread.

Fast Company calls Figma one of the ​“most innovative companies in applied AI” for boosting creativity and digital collaboration with the OpenAI-powered Jambot plugin for FigJam. Wild to think that it was born out of an internal two-day AI hackathon just eight months ago. (For additional context, see the above interview with Nilay Patel.)

Lauren Andres shows how Dev Mode, although built for developers, can also be a game-changer for designers and help drive organizational alignment, consistent product quality, and team efficiency.

An interview with Figma’s CTO Kris Rasmussen about Dev Mode and targeting developers. His take on low-code and no-code tools, like the two featured above: “…we’re actually really supportive of Locofy and also Anima — another example of one of these plugins on the Figma ecosystem. So we’re definitely thinking about their needs as well, as we continue to evolve.“ He added that Figma itself is looking at similar problems, but ​“at different ends of the spectrum”: ​“So we’re very much focused on helping to make the actual design process, the act of essentially visualizing what’s in people’s heads and aligning around it, more accessible and easier for the organization to participate in.”

“Swizzle is a multimodal, low-code tool for making web apps. Use natural language, visual aids, or just code to build faster than ever before. Deploy to GCP in one click.” Won 2nd Product of the Day at Product Hunt.

“Locofy Lightning converts Figma designs to frontend code in 1‑click, powered by LocoAI’s Large Design Models (LDMs). Get responsive, interactive designs & reusable code components with better class names.” Won 1st Product of the Day at Product Hunt!

Jenny Wen is the founding designer at FigJam and the person who brought it to market. In this interview with Ridd, she shares invaluable insights about FigJam’s product strategy, adding delight to software, and attacking ambiguity early in the process.

Figma acquired Dynaboard, a collaborative low-code IDE for developers building full-stack web apps.

Here is what stood out to me in one of the interviews with Dylan Field I shared last week: ​“Dylan considers using this fee to do more strategic mergers and acquisitions in the future, and has an insightful way of thinking about what kind of products that could be: ​“Let’s figure out the value chain of what it takes to think about, get buy-in for, design, code, ship, and measure software. How do we complete that value chain?”

Dualite converts Figma designs and prototypes to React and HTML/CSS. ​“Create reusable code components with semantic naming from Figma variants in a single-click. Use tagging for turning static layers to external links, input fields, buttons and embeds.”

I keep seeing complaints about the removal of code generation from the free view-only mode, and want to point out this section of the ​“Dev Mode is out of beta: what admins need to know” article. CSS, iOS, and Android codegen is still available but now is in the copy/​paste menu when you right-click a layer and choose ​“Copy as code”. For an overview of the other collaboration features available on the free plan, see Use the right sidebar with view-only access help article.

In case you said goodbye to Dev Mode last week, Molly Hellmuth recommends a few plugins to help fill in the gap — Annotate It, Print Variables, Frame History, EightShapes Specs, and Handoff Notes.

I’ve seen a lot of confusion over the removal of the Inspect panel and the introduction of Dev Mode, so happy to see a detailed walkthrough of the free viewer experience recorded by Tom Lowry. Pretty much everything from the old Inspect panel is still available for free, and Dev Mode builds on top of that foundation. While some will inevitably label Dev Mode as a ​“money grab”, I won’t be surprised if many teams will save money by converting full Design seats to standalone Dev Mode seats.

Always love deep dives from people behind the features! Product Designer Oscar Nilsson explains how Annotations came to be — for both design and development. On why annotations are in the Dev Mode: ​“We wanted one dedicated space to curate a spec for developers and call out necessary details or areas of confusion, so we ultimately decided that designers should go to Dev Mode to annotate. In doing so, designers would see exactly what their developer counterpart sees while annotating, and they could share a link to Dev Mode when they’re done. Our goal is not for Dev Mode to silo developers once a designer’s work is done — but to engage the broader team in the product development process, with annotations being a first, crucial step.”

On positioning in context: ​“Testing and iterating on our positioning logic became an adventure on its own. We explored a direction in which annotations hide until you click on a corresponding frame. That felt right in theory, but once we actually tried it, we realized that it was still easy to miss out on important annotations if you were just looking at a frame without actively selecting it. We then iterated on different versions of automatically expanding annotations based on zoom level and position, and it immediately felt more intuitive.”

Dev Mode moved out of beta last week, and in this article, the Figma team talks about their product philosophy, how they’re improving the experience for developers and designers, and what’s coming next. There are new features that bring design and code closer together, including annotations in Dev Mode, along with improvements to compare changes, plugins, and the Figma for VS Code extension.

How it started: ​“We needed a team that lived and breathed development like we did design, so in 2021, we acquired Visly — a team of eight designers and engineers who built a tool for developing UI components in React. […] The Visly team brought with them years of hands-on experience and months of research on developer tooling — in other words, they had the developer ​“intuition” we were looking for.”

How it’s going: ​“Dev Mode aims to make you more productive by connecting the tools you use and your code components to the design file. There’s no one way to work, which is why we built Dev Mode to adapt to a variety of tools, processes, and workflows. Whether you’re looking to link design and code with Storybook, ensure accessibility with Stark, or streamline project management with Jira, Linear, and GitHub, plugins allow you to extend Figma’s functionality to flex however your team works.”