Skip to main content
Neil7
New Participant
August 24, 2023

Variables menu to support display long variable names

  • August 24, 2023
  • 13 replies
  • 1400 views

We are transferring design token names to variables in Figma.

Token names are by necessity quite long (they cannot be shortened without losing meaning).

Examples:

dimension-action-padding-vertical-with-label-l
dimension-action-padding-horizontal-with-label-l
dimension-action-padding-gap-with-label-l

When I click into an input field eg. auto-layout/vertical spacing I cannot differentiate the variable names in the list because the window is not rescalable. See image.

I need to be able to see the full names. Preferably immediately without needing to hover over each item in the list.

Thanks keep up the exciting work on variables guys and girls!

13 replies

Almas_Robert
October 25, 2023

Hi

I’m using the desktop app. When I list the variables to assign one to a property in the right panel in design mode, there is a problem to see the variable names. If the variable name is long, and/or the default value is long, it is really hard to guess what is what.

Unfortunately when hovering over the variable name do not show me the full text.

Same issue, when using variables in the prototype interactions. For example using the Set variable action. In the drop-down, you can not see the variable names well.

The best way would be some dynamically wider drop-down, and see the variable names in full size, but at least the on hover display also would help.

Hoby-Van-Hoose
New Participant
November 1, 2023

I fully agree. We always need to be able to see the full names of our variables and modes.

I’m at the point with several variable sets where I’m trying to decide the least terrible way to shorten the names of variables, just so we can tell them apart in selection menus in the Figma interface. Parts of words are bad, while acronyms and single letters are tied for worst. We shouldn’t even be considering this.

djv
Figmate
Community Support
November 2, 2023

Thanks for the feedback, @Almas_Robert!

We’ll pass this feedback onto the team for consideration.

Guy_Lepage
November 23, 2023

+1, being able to expand names both on the variables window and when selecting variables is pretty critical.

kmh
New Member
January 31, 2024

This comes back to the issue with the entire right panel being fixed-width, but having much more features in it now. The same truncation issue comes up with component variant property names and their values.

Dan_C
March 27, 2024

Any update on this - major ui bug and should fixed asap considering this is app is largely for deigning UI.

Screenshot 2024-03-27 at 15.01.37
Screenshot 2024-03-27 at 15.01.28

Katrina2
New Participant
May 7, 2024

We’re working on component tokens in our team and variables can become quite long.

It is really hard to pick the right variable, when you can’t see the part of the name, which is differentiating them.

I don’t know why the left side panel with layers is flexible in size. But every panel or menu on the right side is fixed in size, cutting things off. I’m stumbling upon this issue regularly and find it really annoying.

9136
New Participant
July 2, 2024

Interferes. To begin with, at least add a way to see the full name on hover.

Peter_Muller
New Participant
August 22, 2024

+1, at least full name on hover, but even better resizable table columns or panels

Neil7
Neil7Author
New Participant
August 22, 2024

We finally implemented our tokens in Figma.

We used folders for naming which worked much better than long names and is more intuitive and similar to ‘old-school’ Figma styles

eg. Token Name:
CODE
sys.color.action.basic.default

FIGMA VARIABLE
SYSTEM >
color/action/basic/default

Figma still has not fixed the issue but I believe we found a better way for designers to understand.

image