Drag direction up and down using variables and conditionals

To be able to drag in different directions, your component must have a draggable object that must extend beyond the component’s bounds.

Just follow this guide:

1. Create a number variable;
2. Create a component set containing 2 variants (Minus, Plus);
3. Apply the variable from step 1 to the text layer of both variants;
4. Create a rectangle that is 3px higher than your variant’s height;
5. Put it in each variant;
6. Set this rectangle to the following coordinates:

   • Minus variant:
     X = 0, Y = -1;

   • Plus variant:
     X = 0, Y = -2;

7. Add 2 interactions to the rectangles with the “On drag” trigger:

   • Minus variant:
     On drag 1 › Set variable to decrease;
     On drag 2 › Set variable to increase and Change to Plus variant;

   • Plus variant:
     On drag 1 › Set variable to decrease and Change to Minus variant;
     On drag 2 › Set variable to increase.

Thanks @tank666 for sharing this idea. It works but it’s not exactly what I’m looking for.
When I drag up for example, the whole component duplicates and moves up change to a minus variant.

I even tried to create a component using the temperatures box only but then it doesn’t work for some reason. The component needs to be able to collapse and expand as well. I found that conditionals inside components when I change the variant. Not sure if that’s a bug or not.

Perfect. That worked like a charm. Thanks so much for your help 😀

Do you have any idea how to make it go in a loop? E.g. from 0 to 30 and then again 0. I tried different conditionals but I’m struggling which variable to use as a condition <=0 and >30.

Write conditions for each variable in both Minus and Plus variant interactions.

For example:

I did what you said and it still goes below zero. Not sure why. Each conditional here has the same condition just for a different variable. And I did the same for Plus variant with minTemp and maxTemp reversed. minTemp is 0 and maxTemp is 30.

Could you share a link to the file?

Hi,
See the file here:

I noticed it’s working when the increments are by 1 degree but when I change it to 0.2 it doesn’t work. That is odd. Why should a decimal make any difference to a mathematical formula?

Unfortunately, there are no tools for debugging variables in the prototype. So I had to go a little deeper.

I think this is due to the way Figma handles decimal numbers. Here are the values of the variables that are obtained using the API:

To fix your prototype, change the == operator in the conditions to <=, >=. Also, in the interaction conditions of the Minus variant, instead of the “minTemp” variable, use another variable or a value of 0.15 or something like that.

Since the variables are currently in beta, various bugs and shortcomings are possible. I suggest you to share your feedback on variables and advanced prototyping.