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aaronjellis
aaronjellis
New Participant
July 16, 2024

Make Dev Mode Annotations Visible to All

  • July 16, 2024
  • 214 replies
  • 6672 views

Please make Dev Mode Annotations visible by all roles, not just Full Dev Mode seats. This can become costly for users needing context but not all the other dev-mode features.

Here’s the scenario:
We have a dashboard, with cards showing a customer’s account status. This status can be mapped from multiple back-end statuses, to show just one front-end status. For example, any of the following could be mapped to a single status known to the customer as “Completed”: canceled, terminated, sold, complete, etc.

This is something that the developer needs to reference, but then also the PM needs to reference in writing tickets (who doesn’t need full dev-mode access), the QE needs to reference for testing automations, and various other individuals on our team. Placing it in a comment makes it less clearly attached to the specific piece of the design, and requires us to keep documentation dispersed among different tools (Jira, Confluence, Figma etc).

Simply making Dev mode annotations visible to viewers would make for far less duplicate documentation or added dependency on other documentation tools for a designer and team.

    214 replies

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    Ebuka.I
    Ebuka.I
    New Participant
    August 19, 2026

    Hi guys !  just thought to add a +1, plus a workaround for anyone who's still experiencing this.

    ​@aaronjellis point about dispersed documentation is something i’ve also experienced :) 

    I built Annotations Manager,  a Figma plugin which adds annotations as real layers on the canvas so anyone can view them, you can also export the annotations if you need add them to a document or ticket.

    It's a workaround, not a substitute  native visibility would still be the better outcome and I'd like to see it ship. Happy to answer questions if useful.

    Here’s an image of how the annotations looks on the canvas (ps. you can customise the colour based on the type of annotation you add) and yes it does move when you drag frames around the canvas :) 


    Here’s the link: https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1588019164844957413

      Karin1
      Karin1
      New Participant
      August 20, 2026

      Hi guys !  just thought to add a +1, plus a workaround for anyone who's still experiencing this.

      ​@aaronjellis point about dispersed documentation is something i’ve also experienced :) 

      I built Annotations Manager,  a Figma plugin which adds annotations as real layers on the canvas so anyone can view them, you can also export the annotations if you need add them to a document or ticket.

      It's a workaround, not a substitute  native visibility would still be the better outcome and I'd like to see it ship. Happy to answer questions if useful.

      Here’s an image of how the annotations looks on the canvas (ps. you can customise the colour based on the type of annotation you add) and yes it does move when you drag frames around the canvas :) 


      Here’s the link: https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1588019164844957413

      Looking very interesting, I will take a look. I did a component in my library but it’s not that sophisticated as yours.

      monacoww
      monacoww
      New Member
      September 8, 2026

      Hi guys !  just thought to add a +1, plus a workaround for anyone who's still experiencing this.

      ​@aaronjellis point about dispersed documentation is something i’ve also experienced :) 

      I built Annotations Manager,  a Figma plugin which adds annotations as real layers on the canvas so anyone can view them, you can also export the annotations if you need add them to a document or ticket.

      It's a workaround, not a substitute  native visibility would still be the better outcome and I'd like to see it ship. Happy to answer questions if useful.

      Here’s an image of how the annotations looks on the canvas (ps. you can customise the colour based on the type of annotation you add) and yes it does move when you drag frames around the canvas :) 


      Here’s the link: https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1588019164844957413

      It works perfectly! At first I add notes with the FIGMA feature cause it’s easier and then I convert everything for my Product Manager with that plugin. Well done mate!

        Ebuka.I
        Ebuka.I
        New Participant
        September 9, 2026

        Hi guys !  just thought to add a +1, plus a workaround for anyone who's still experiencing this.

        ​@aaronjellis point about dispersed documentation is something i’ve also experienced :) 

        I built Annotations Manager,  a Figma plugin which adds annotations as real layers on the canvas so anyone can view them, you can also export the annotations if you need add them to a document or ticket.

        It's a workaround, not a substitute  native visibility would still be the better outcome and I'd like to see it ship. Happy to answer questions if useful.

        Here’s an image of how the annotations looks on the canvas (ps. you can customise the colour based on the type of annotation you add) and yes it does move when you drag frames around the canvas :) 


        Here’s the link: https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1588019164844957413

        It works perfectly! At first I add notes with the FIGMA feature cause it’s easier and then I convert everything for my Product Manager with that plugin. Well done mate!

        Thanks! I’m glad you found it very useful! 

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