Create one prototype across the pages in a file

I am new to Figma, and my design team is being encouraged to use Figma (as opposed to Adobe XD or other tools) by our software development team. They use Qt for embedded software dev & really want to be using the Qt Bridge for Figma to enable better collaboration between design & dev teams.

However, not being able to effectively prototype with links across pages is a major reservation of mine. THIS FEATURE IS NEEDED. I really can’t see building hundreds of screens with multiple flows in one page, or having to be duplicating UI screens. There is not good excuse for why this has not happened yet, since users have been asking for it since at least 2018.

My team is inclined to build our components and libraries in Figma, and our style guides, to share with SW team, but continue to use Axure for all workflow documentation and embedded software prototyping, which we have been loving for the past several years. While Axure is more complex to use, it is also more robust for prototyping at the micro interaction level. It will require extra steps to have to export all our components from Figma for use in Axure, but it is what it is.

Until Figma can give us the capability to link across pages, I can not recommend using it for any prototyping beyond basic sketches.

Is there EVER going to be a response from Figma on this? Sheesh.

I live in hope that they’re working on this in secret as they don’t want to get our hopes up. One day they’ll release it and we’ll all be happy!

Yes, surprised this is not possible.

This isn’t remotely ideal, but one way I’ve accomplished this is using the “External Link” functionality and linking between prototypes.

It’s only borderline usable in the browser, and opens a new tab every time, but helps create a more seamless presentation when jumping between major workflows.

Generally, I don’t find working within one page for a large application that bad. It’s just different from how I used to work. There are downsides to each approach. Lately, I’ve kind of embraced the idea of “I have one big infinite artboard” to play with but run into the pain of finding artboards.

And of course other people have this pain as well:
/jumping-to-a-specific-page-frame-using-a-search-box/347/36

But at least there’s a plug-in (FlyOver) that can curb that point point. It just forces you to define these jump-off points.

Ideally, I’d rather be able to navigate between Flow starting points.

Anyway, thought this might be helpful context.

Building software is hard. Especially when it’s a big foundational feature like this. Personally, I’ve found Figma an amazing tool. None of them are perfect. Figma’s speed is what initially converted me from Sketch. I hope they keep leaning into that.

Hi there! There’s something i would ask for, for efficiency in making many features on a product my team decided to make a separate pages for each features so that the screen would only be focused on each flow and features. It also helped my devs for looking on what features they’re working on.

But when we make the prototypes, we have to make the screen as a components and duplicate all of the screen into a new separate pages focus only on the prototype which takes some time. While it helped when there’s some minor change on the main component’s screen such as color and text.

It doesn’t help that much when there’s a change to the flow. Is there any way to connect the prototype across pages? Thank u!

Hey everyone, just wanted to chime in and say thanks for all of this great feedback. Our prototyping team is well aware of this need and while we can’t share specifics on our roadmap or make any promises, I can assure you it’s something we’re exploring. 🙂

Can’t wait for an update regarding! It is our main pain points with Figma so far…

Really looking forward to this. As it stands now, we are forced to put everything in one page to be able to create a well functioning prototype.

This is one major feature that will keep me using Sketch and InVision for my serious prototypes. Even lacking the ability to arrow through all the pages consecutively is a huge miss, in my opinion.