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aaronjellis
aaronjellis
New Participant
Jul 16, 2024 9:53 PM UTC

Make Dev Mode Annotations Visible to All

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.

    216 replies

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    Ebuka.I
    Ebuka.I
    New Participant
    Aug 19, 2026 8:31 PM UTC

    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
      Aug 20, 2026 4:40 AM UTC

      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
      Sep 8, 2026 10:29 AM UTC

      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
        Sep 9, 2026 10:54 AM UTC

        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! 

          claus.stadel
          claus.stadel
          New Participant
          Sep 30, 2026 11:30 AM UTC

          Please add this - it’s a big issue that only our frontend devs (on dev seat) and designers can see these. They are also very relevant for backenders, PM etc.

            Carly A Reeves
            Carly A Reeves
            New Member
            Oct 26, 2026 5:09 AM UTC

            Well before Figma existed and decided annotations are only relevant to the design > development handover process, they were attached to all of our design and technical specification documentation for BAs, SAs, and many other non-dev stakeholders to review (stakeholders not requiring any other functionality provided by a Dev seat). Annotations are a simple, core need to communicate design intention – gating this behind a paid seat goes against Figma’s “One workspace for your entire product development process”. Doing more and more of my design in code and less interest in persisting with Figma.

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