Applying auto layout to component sets results in unwanted behavior

Figma introduced some new behavior where, when you add auto layout to a parent frame, child elements of a certain width are automatically set to horizontal fill. Most of the time, this has been helpful and saves me time.

However, I generally apply auto layout to my component sets to organize them better, and now when I apply auto layout to a new component set, it applies the new fill rules to the components in the set, which 99% of the time has been exactly what I don’t want to have happen. Usually I want components in the set to remain fixed width, and when they are automatically set to fill, the dimensions are often changed and I have to re-set them. It’s been a pain.

So this is worth thinking about, because I’m sure the Figma team doesn’t want to introduce inconsistent behavior for automatically applying auto layout, but in the context of working with component sets I do not want these things to be happening automatically.

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I’m in complete agreement here. I don’t want Figma to assume I want a Fill setting for my component when it is nested inside another auto layout component. It often is exactly what I don’t want.

I can see that it may be useful to others, so perhaps this is something that could be controlled via a setting of some sort.

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