[LAUNCHED] All plans should offer more than 4 variable modes

I can share some screenshots as well. This is an example using switcher sets for controlling these accent colors:

Looking at the variable collections, Color-accents-sets is the switcher that allows you to bridge between the primary and secondary accent color collections.

It’s a pain to set up and use but it does work.

Here’s an overview (highlighted collections used above) of all the variable aliasing I’d set up in this design system to allow switching for themes, accents, backgrounds, button states, image sizes, breakpoints, and finally fonts at breakpoints. I’m not certain it’s totally accurate since we have no node editor for variables but it should give you an idea how the aliases flow. As it says within, each collection named ______-sets is a switcher to use a variable for more than 4 modes.

These workarounds are nothing short of ingenious, and I really thank you all for sharing your hacks.

Having said that, this route feels like an algorithmic hell which will require extensive documentation for anyone joining a team, and the long term maintenance of this has me sweating.

This is precisely why we pay for professional tools. They develop and update core features which handle this logic seamlessly, allowing us to focus on our work. That’s the contract.

I don’t know of any other software platform (not even Adobe) which imposes random limits on core features on their upper tier plans. Come on now, $45/month/user is far from freemium.

Thanks for taking the time to share, I haven’t put it to real world test yet, just tested it as a concept. Glad to see it actually works in real scenarios!

If anyone is wondering, we use import/export variables to swap in and out saved themes.
It isn’t a particularly great solution and adds a lot of friction to the design team as nobody wants to touch it out of fear of breaking it. It has stopped us from using variables to explore lots of iterations, which I thought would be the main benefit of the feature.

I spent a lot of personal time moving to Figma variables and I feel like I’ve been tricked into a situation in which the Figma position is essentially just pointing at the enterprise price. I’m also disappointed I’ve had to use plugins to export variables rather than use the Figma variables API, which seems to be needlessly behind a enterprise pay wall.

There was a bit of an expectation that the 4 mode limit was a Beta thing, and was to restrict Figma users running into memory issues or ‘scale’ issues; this also turned out to not be the case, with no communication from Figma.

As a side note: I think the enterprise tier is a ridiculous price for 40 modes, i would expect unlimited.

I agree that this is a great paid feature, I’m happy we are paying. However, I can’t convince the org to hand over an extra $10k a year just for some extra variable modes.

I’m asking Figma now, (if any mod or design advocate is in here?) what is the long term pricing plan for Figma Variables. I feel some of us are owed an answer for this for being Variable early users from day 0.

Also a shout out to https://tokens.studio/, which we used before switching to Figma Variables. Despite some of the performance issues Tokens Studio has, they were clear about pricing and communicated weekly on the performance/features/issues they were tackling.

The 4 mode limit is also made a little worse without the ability to move variables between collections. Some of the workarounds mentioned in here are restricted by this.

Not letting this close! We have so many collections to make up for 4 modes pleasssseeeee

While the workarounds and plugins are appreciated and truly praiseworthy efforts, they are hacks. Plugins eventually lose maintenance, and workarounds only work when everyone knows the workaround. It is an inter-vertical, onboarding, and political hell.

When software as big as this tries to generate income from bits and pieces, it just smells bad. Figma is probably trying to earn back the promised $20b.

I can’t believe I’m spending several hours attempting a workaround just to make our designs more accessible. Small organizations shouldn’t have to pay a minimum of $5k a year in order to easily support standard, medium, and high contrast styling in both light and dark mode.

This feels greedy of Figma, and it’s greedy in a way that extorts people trying to design with accessibility in mind.

@dvaliao , what is the latest update from the Variables team?

iOS Dynamic Type has 7 sizes. I was all excited about using variables for font sizes, but it’s useless with only four. ☹

update: I just realized this thread is about Professional plan. I’m on the Organization plan which costs 3x as much as Professional and we only have 4 modes!!!

Another example: iOS Dynamic Type has 7 sizes. We need to specify these for every thing that uses text in our apps. It would be great to use variables for this.