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Ability to add/remove/re-order items in an auto-layout component

Yezgi_Baha

This is a reference to a topic that was closed without resolution:

I can’t express how frustrating it is when a designer has to detach one of your components simply to add a tab in-between existing tabs or a dropdown option above existing ones.

When I build a component I shouldn’t have to create 10 hidden layers as placeholders to make sure that the component works for a design with 2 dropdown options or 10 options. I should be able to include 1-2 items in the component and let designers add/remove more from there.

Lack or re-ordering capability combined with the lack of add/remove capability for items in an auto-layout component means our components continue to get detached shortly after use. It defeats the purpose of maintaining a component library. It becomes a template library instead.

    10 replies

    Michael_Wandelmaier

    Couldn’t agree more. This is the single biggest blocker to using Figma design systems for larger, more complex components and patterns.

    Apolline
    Ruth2
    Yezgi_Baha
    5 people like this
    • Apolline
      Apolline
    • Ruth2
      Ruth2
    • Yezgi_Baha
      Yezgi_Baha
    • leeharrisonmellor
      leeharrisonmellor
    • Dorothy Ryan
      Dorothy Ryan
    Dorothy Ryan

    Can we vote this up? This is a really annoying limitation of components. 

    Ruth2
    Yezgi_Baha
    2 people like this
    • Ruth2
      Ruth2
    • Yezgi_Baha
      Yezgi_Baha
    Yezgi_Baha
    • Yezgi_Baha
    • Author
    • New Member
    • 1 reply
    • April 18, 2025

    ​@Figma_Team any inputs?

    leeharrisonmellor

    This is a really annoying aspect of Figma. It’s a major blocker for complex components. For example, I have an RTE organism that sits within several components. The RTE contains rows of different heading/type/bullet/list styles that the designers need to be able to change the order of to build designs/prototypes. Having to detach the components creates havoc when you then try and create variations of the designs, relying on variables to resize/recolour the components.

    How do other users deal with this headache?

     

    Chris_Gatland
    • Chris_Gatland
    • New Participant
    • 7 replies
    • April 30, 2025

    Agreed 100%.  I frequently end up having to detach my own instances because the alternative would take too much repetitive editing.

    Imagine the scenario - you have a 7 item menu and you realise you need to add a new item at the top.  To achieve this, you either need to detach and hack the instance or you have to rewrite all of the text strings and re-assign icons to every list item (assuming you even have another dummy item at the bottom to unhide).

    I pretty often need to re-order menu items between design concept and final spec as the product evolves.  It should be a trivial task.

     

    Lee Costic
    1 person likes this
    • Lee Costic
      Lee Costic
    Gerlof
    • Gerlof
    • New Member
    • 4 replies
    • May 1, 2025

    This would be so great to have

    Lee Costic
    • Lee Costic
    • New Member
    • 3 replies
    • May 12, 2025
    Yezgi_Baha wrote:

    This is a reference to a topic that was closed without resolution:

     
    Reorder objects in an autolayout component instance. Allow for order overrides Share an idea
    Reorder objects in an autolayout component instance. Allow for order overrides. Allow users to reorder (drag or arrow) objects inside a component instance that has auto-layout on it. Especially useful for components that have repeated elements, such as a dropdown menu or a group of form inputs, navigation. This would be much quicker than manually changing each of the elements in-between where the current element is and where the new position is. Or for users that don’t have patience and break…

    I can’t express how frustrating it is when a designer has to detach one of your components simply to add a tab in-between existing tabs or a dropdown option above existing ones.

    When I build a component I shouldn’t have to create 10 hidden layers as placeholders to make sure that the component works for a design with 2 dropdown options or 10 options. I should be able to include 1-2 items in the component and let designers add/remove more from there.

    Lack or re-ordering capability combined with the lack of add/remove capability for items in an auto-layout component means our components continue to get detached shortly after use. It defeats the purpose of maintaining a component library. It becomes a template library instead.

     

    Agree with all comments here, I run into this at least once a week, very frustrating limitation. (I initially thought this was just a setting our component library architects had forgotten to enable, but no...it’s an actual Figma limitation!)

    Thoughts on this ​@seni ​@dvaliao @Celine_ ?

    Sebastian_Holzki

    Has there been any movement on that front? It’s a big limitation for design systems and using them

    Kevin_Voller

    +1 – This would be a great feature. In theory it could be implemented as a component property, controllable both in the canvas area and in the properties panel where it’d be reflected – drag and drop to reorder maybe?

    Jessica12
    • Jessica12
    • New Member
    • 1 reply
    • May 23, 2025

    Running into this problem right now in our design system. It would be so much better if I could just reorder in the Asset rather than breaking it to do so.

    Laura62
    Deb Tjoa
    2 people like this
    • Laura62
      Laura62
    • Deb Tjoa
      Deb Tjoa

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