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Question

Locked frames, which are absolutely positioned with constraints top/bottom & left/right, do not resize properly


Thomas_Reimer

Hi folks,

In our Design System, we utilize a Paper base component to standardize surfaces for things like Card, Menu, Popper, etc. The Paper itself contains information regarding surface color, elevation and border levels. It is nested inside the aforementioned components, absolutely positioned and constraints set to top/bottom, left/right, so it will automatically change its size according to the parent’s frame, and locked, so it does not bug the developers, when analyzing in Dev Mode, nor does the designer accidentally select and change it while trying to manipulate something else.

The issue

Let’s take a Popper as an example for my issue. The Popper consists of a header, content and actions.

Header and Actions are base components for the Popper and therefore nested like the Paper (which is the white rounded surface with the box shadow behind all these items). Last time, I made a change to the Actions, which increased their height by 16px temporarily. The Popper parent component, as it is set to hug, increased in height, and with it the Paper - nice! Now, when I finished editing my Actions, they went back to their original height, which is 36px. The Popper, as expected, decreased in height accordingly. The Paper not… what the…!?

The finding

The Paper, as being locked, does not change its size correspondingly to changes made inside the parent component which influence this parent component in all possible dimensions. It only grows, but never shrinks. When you remove the lock, the Paper grows/shrinks accordingly. This problem also addresses any other frame that is handled like the Paper in my case.

What is going on here?

3 replies

ksn
Figmate
  • Community Support
  • 1710 replies
  • May 22, 2025

Hey ​@Thomas_Reimer - apologies that this reply comes late. I just shared your post with one of our engineering leads, and they’re interested in seeing how your components are structured (so they can better understand the behavior).

When you have a second, can you please fill out this form, and let me know when you’ve done so? If possible, please share edit access to one of the files you use in your system (you won’t be charged for this) with support-share@figma.com, and include the title of the file. I know this may not be possible, so no worries if not.

I’ll make sure it gets routed to the right place for review. Thank very much!


Thomas_Reimer
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • 13 replies
  • May 23, 2025

Hey ​@ksn,

Thank you for your reply. I filled in the bug report and shared the file with aforementioned address. Please note, that currently these frames are not locked anymore to avoid running into this problem again. Do I need to prepare a component in such a way, that you can test this? I can replicate it everywhere.

Best regards,

Thomas


ksn
Figmate
  • Community Support
  • 1710 replies
  • June 2, 2025

@Thomas_Reimer - first, apologies. I know this is late, but I see you actively having a convo with a Technical Quality agent. With issues that seem really specific to an individual instance, we recommend filing a bug ticket directly, and filing separate ones for each issue (I think Priscilla mentioned this in your emails). This helps keep each conversation stay on track with the question/issue each ticket is addressing. I think for this topic specifically,  filing a support ticket was the best approach.

We encourage you to use the forum to engage the community on things like best practices, sharing your work, and generally connecting with others who work in Figma in any capacity. However, we also do want you to feel empowered to create conversation on things that we can improve on, and post issues you think may be affecting the community overall. I hope this makes sense!

 


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