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Hey all! Emil here from the Figma team that brought you Dev Mode and Figma for VS Code today! Really interested to hear what you think and also here to answer y

Hey all! Emil here from the Figma team that brought you Dev Mode and Figma for VS Code today! Really interested to hear what you think and also here to answer your questions. We are super excited to invest more into developers in the future, today is just the start of that!

yewenjie 3y ago
How has the release of giant LLMs and other LLM-powered design apps influenced your product roadmap in the last couple of months?
- trafnar 3y ago
  They bought an AI design tool company today https://twitter.com/jsngr/status/1671561341893742592 https://twitter.com/jsngr/status/1671561341893742592
  - uxamanda 3y ago
    I can't wait until that feature is available on a sites, so that I as a user can AI design my own interface and it hooks it all up to the API for me.
- kleneway1 3y ago
  I've been experimenting with using LLMs to map Figma designs directly into a working production-level codebase. There's quite a bit of compression you need to do in order to convert the raw Figma JSON into a format that an LLM can understand, but overall it actually performs quite well. Here's a quick demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9JRBw7kR9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9JRBw7kR9g
beanaroo 3y ago
This looks really awesome. Are there any plans to support teams that do not use VS Code or GitHub?
raphaelschaad 3y ago
Great work!
- emilsjolander 3y ago
  Thanks Raphael <3
megaman821 3y ago
Is there some way to export Figma's local variables to a CSS custom properties?
- actuallyakbar 3y ago
  Hey, Akbar here (Dev Advocate for Figma) - variables are surfaced in CSS code snippets. If you're looking for something more custom, you can take advantage of our new Variables Plugin API beta (https://www.figma.com/plugin-docs/working-with-variables https://www.figma.com/plugin-docs/working-with-variables) and export them with what you need!
- chuckn0risk 3y ago
  Hi Megan, Louis co-founder of Specify here. This is one of the reason we built Specify (specifyapp.com) which is a Design API that helps you sync design tokens and assets from Figma to any platforms and formats. Specify helps you get automated pull requests containing your design tokens and assets defined in Figma. You basically just have to configure Specify once, and every time designers update colors in Figma you'll get automated pull requests with colors transformed exactly how you want.
ypeterholmes 3y ago
Hi Emil. My question is about the prototyping. The proto tooling is improving but still pretty limited. Right now the approach seems somewhat disjointed, meaning some interactions utilize variants for state change, while others work across frames with the "onclick" interaction. But that could get really messy as this grows. Question: have you considered using a "dynamic panel" approach similar to what Axure does? That model was my favorite among the proto leaders.
zyang 3y ago
Does figma have an external bug tracker. While developing a figma plugin I ran into a CSP issue for loading UI web workers as blobs. Not sure if I should go through standard figma support channels or is there a dedicated channel for plugin developers.
- actuallyakbar 3y ago
  Hey, Akbar here (Dev Advocate for Figma). We have the Friends of Figma discord that has dedicated channels for plugin developers - https://discord.gg/xzQhe2Vcvx https://discord.gg/xzQhe2Vcvx. When you join - get the @Developers role in #interest-roles and @Developer Announcements in # general-roles if you want to talk plugin development!
sebazzz 3y ago
How does this compare to Zeplin? We currently use this for both design commenting by clients but our devs love it too.
welder 3y ago
Myself and a ton of other devs & designers need the ability to run plugins without having to select them from a menu first. For ex: Run a plugin when a design is opened, or when Figma launches.
cbovis 3y ago
As a developer consuming design files in Figma on a regular basis something that bugs me often is not being able to drop images into comments. For a tool designed for visual collaboration it feels like a sizeable oversight that for me at least hinders workflow pushing me into other tools rather than keeping conversation contained alongside the files being discussed. Any plans in this area?
Domenic_S 3y ago
Tip to future folks who jump on HN after releasing something: don't announce that you're here to answer questions and then answer only 2 questions (as of 5 hours after Emil's comment was posted).

yewenjie 3y ago

How has the release of giant LLMs and other LLM-powered design apps influenced your product roadmap in the last couple of months?

trafnar 3y ago
They bought an AI design tool company today https://twitter.com/jsngr/status/1671561341893742592 https://twitter.com/jsngr/status/1671561341893742592
- uxamanda 3y ago
  I can't wait until that feature is available on a sites, so that I as a user can AI design my own interface and it hooks it all up to the API for me.
kleneway1 3y ago
I've been experimenting with using LLMs to map Figma designs directly into a working production-level codebase. There's quite a bit of compression you need to do in order to convert the raw Figma JSON into a format that an LLM can understand, but overall it actually performs quite well. Here's a quick demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9JRBw7kR9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9JRBw7kR9g

beanaroo 3y ago

This looks really awesome. Are there any plans to support teams that do not use VS Code or GitHub?

raphaelschaad 3y ago

Great work!

emilsjolander 3y ago
Thanks Raphael <3

megaman821 3y ago

Is there some way to export Figma's local variables to a CSS custom properties?

actuallyakbar 3y ago
Hey, Akbar here (Dev Advocate for Figma) - variables are surfaced in CSS code snippets. If you're looking for something more custom, you can take advantage of our new Variables Plugin API beta (https://www.figma.com/plugin-docs/working-with-variables https://www.figma.com/plugin-docs/working-with-variables) and export them with what you need!
chuckn0risk 3y ago
Hi Megan, Louis co-founder of Specify here. This is one of the reason we built Specify (specifyapp.com) which is a Design API that helps you sync design tokens and assets from Figma to any platforms and formats. Specify helps you get automated pull requests containing your design tokens and assets defined in Figma. You basically just have to configure Specify once, and every time designers update colors in Figma you'll get automated pull requests with colors transformed exactly how you want.

ypeterholmes 3y ago

Hi Emil. My question is about the prototyping. The proto tooling is improving but still pretty limited. Right now the approach seems somewhat disjointed, meaning some interactions utilize variants for state change, while others work across frames with the "onclick" interaction. But that could get really messy as this grows. Question: have you considered using a "dynamic panel" approach similar to what Axure does? That model was my favorite among the proto leaders.

zyang 3y ago

Does figma have an external bug tracker. While developing a figma plugin I ran into a CSP issue for loading UI web workers as blobs. Not sure if I should go through standard figma support channels or is there a dedicated channel for plugin developers.

actuallyakbar 3y ago
Hey, Akbar here (Dev Advocate for Figma). We have the Friends of Figma discord that has dedicated channels for plugin developers - https://discord.gg/xzQhe2Vcvx https://discord.gg/xzQhe2Vcvx. When you join - get the @Developers role in #interest-roles and @Developer Announcements in # general-roles if you want to talk plugin development!

sebazzz 3y ago

How does this compare to Zeplin? We currently use this for both design commenting by clients but our devs love it too.

welder 3y ago

Myself and a ton of other devs & designers need the ability to run plugins without having to select them from a menu first. For ex: Run a plugin when a design is opened, or when Figma launches.

cbovis 3y ago

As a developer consuming design files in Figma on a regular basis something that bugs me often is not being able to drop images into comments. For a tool designed for visual collaboration it feels like a sizeable oversight that for me at least hinders workflow pushing me into other tools rather than keeping conversation contained alongside the files being discussed. Any plans in this area?

Domenic_S 3y ago

Tip to future folks who jump on HN after releasing something: don't announce that you're here to answer questions and then answer only 2 questions (as of 5 hours after Emil's comment was posted).