Auto layout makes contents absolutely positioned

@Figma_Moderation Is there a fix for this? This is becoming increasingly annoying, even the simplest of groups, a rectangle with text in it, applies absolute position to the text.

just why?

Hey there, so sorry for the delayed reply!

This automatic ‘absolute position’ was a new, expected behavior following Auto Layout updates made in July 2023. It’s automatically applied to elements that are not a frame to maintain formatting. If you remove absolute position, the elements will stack, which will show the previous default behavior.

This change was made to prevent a frame or layout that you’ve already created from visually changing when you apply auto layout. Even if that means that the auto layout settings you’ve applied might not exactly match what you intend. Previously applying auto layout to a rectangle with an element on top would have moved to elements to sit next to each other, so you then had to move them back or adjust your layers once auto layout was applied.

We understand that not every change will fit with every user’s way of working, but we appreciate your feedback on this. We’ll be sure to pass this onto our Auto Layout team to consider for future versions.

Please note that Figma_Moderation is not associated with Figma or our Community moderation team. The forum is primarily run by the community, so if you have an important bug to report feel free to submit a bug report to our support team directly via the form here: https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360001744374

This is the Dreamweaver equivalent of “ApDiv” and the automatic part of auto layout forces a rebuild of the component and slows down the productivity that made Figma great. Not to mention the inspect panel is full of garbage code.

Please can you point me to the Topic that reached this conclusion?

We understand your frustration. There is no specific topic we can share asking for this behavior.

Ultimately, it was a judgement call that our Auto Layout team took into account after launching Absolute position in Auto Layout. It was discussed and tested internally that the absolute positioning of a nested frame is a preferable outcome after adding auto layout, because the alternative would shift the overall size of the stack and its child’s position quite significantly.

The team has also confirmed that we’ve received pushback from the community regarding this change, so we can confirm that they’re already actively working on this to ensure a smoother and more efficient experience for our users. While we don’t have an exact timeline we can share, keep an eye out for future releases: https://www.figma.com/release-notes/

I keep getting this issue when adding autolayout to two frames. Usually, I would expect the new autolayout frame to hug both elements, and depending on where the two child frames were, they would either align top-bottom or left-right. However the issue I’ve been having is that when I try to add autolayout, the autolayout frame only hugs to one of the frames. This is extremely confusing and I can’t seem to fix it. I can’t seem to get it to hug both child frames without resizing it, however this doesn’t automatically adjust to hug, it just sets it to a fixed height or width.

I have figured out the problem - for some reason, when I create these autolayout frames, sometimes ‘absolute position’ gets set for one of the child frames without me pressing it. This must be a bug.

Just want to add that is also driving me and my entire team crazy. It took my simple Shift A action and added so much extra effort every time. I couldn’t find anything in the forum about it so had made a new post here: Random frames defaulting to Absolute Position when applying Auto-Layout. Glad to see I’m not the only one who has been frustrated about it. Wish they would revert back to the previous behavior 😒