Launched: Absolute position in Auto Layout

Yes, that would be awesome, and not only that — just general absolute positioning of objects inside of auto layout would be perfect. Simply switch off auto layout for one element and enable regular constraints. It will have to respect constraints as if its parent frame was resized manually, but instead the frame will be resized as auto layout.

I think its part of bigger problem. We need z-index for autolayout so element can be stacked 😊

Z-index is the layers panel. 🙂

+1 Yes please! I’d like to have this option since day one of switching from Sketch. Autolayout is great but static objects within an AL frame would be awesome. I don’t see any problems with that, just take it out of the AL stack and apply its constraints.

1. Currently, is it impossible to use auto layout with background as a component.

2. For exemple: I need to create banners filled with a pattern. I created several patterns on my library as a components. So, I can’t select an asset on the Fill settings menu to use it as a background of my banner with auto-layout properties.

3. Is a plugin available for that? It would be a great improvement for the Auto-Layout feature.
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This would be awesome. It seems like this would be a low cost implementation for such a huge win in layout. I agree in treating this as a Support Absolute Positioning in AutoLayout feature. I bet if this was the name of the post this would have a lot more votes right now. I know several people on our UX team have already brought this up internally.

Just changed the title, good suggestion!

Would be great if you could set a layer to ignore the auto layout restraints so it becomes an absolute positioned element.

It would make you a lot less reliant on having a lot of nested auto layout groups.

Im finding auto layout with the interactive components great but would what would really make this a Super Power would be to allow stacking of elements inside the auto layout on the z-index.

Tool tip interactions is a good example of that.

With the component interaction I can animate the tool tip on hover in and out of the info icon, but if I add that to an auto layout of like in the example the tooltip instead of hovering above all content in that stack would pushes everything down to make room. Yes, I could make two frames to achieve that but animating and placing at a Zindex above everthing in the auto layout would be better for maintaining interactions across a design system.

I figured out a workaround for now but having the ability to say this layer appears on top of everything else would be very useful with Auto Layout.

1. Describe the problem your experiencing and how your idea helps solve this

It would be very useful to have elements that can respond the legacy layout options within an element which has an auto-layout set up. Basically being ignored from the distribution.

2. Add as much context as possible (screenshots, Figma files, mockups, etc.)

I can imagine in the layout options of the element there could be a way to set it as floating.

Seems like something that is relatively common in design (e.g. popup x icon to close it or tooltip arrow) and it would be great to have it in Figma.

I voted for this, but actually you could have Frame 1 as a normal frame with Card at the bottom. Dynamic/Text content would sit above Card within an AutoLayout group that’s set to Centre and Scale. Although this isn’t ideal and more pain to set-up.
What I usually do is to leave the Card out and apply Corner radius, background colour, effects, etc. to the AutoLayout frame… which of course causes pain down the line.

Currently I put the Autolayout component in a new group, lock it using the padlock, and then place other shapes/icons on top of the locked layer. Not ideal but works

+1 for ignoring auto layout in stack

I feel this pain, right now it is impossible to create complex windows and dialogs that auto layout. But… I don’t like this solution. Having some elements to ignore auto layout will end up a huge mess, where it impossible to understand why one element is positioned the way it is.

The good solution will be to extend Auto Layout to Z-index, similar to what SwiftUI does with ZStack.

Here I’m showing how can it be done.

Yeah we need this bad

I think overlapping in the auto layout must be a core feature.

YES! Need the ability to ignore auto layout.

I’d love the ability to ignore the auto-layout of a element in an auto-layout group. That ignored element could then be absolutely positioned relative to its parent (the auto-layout group).

This would take auto layout to the next level. Needed oh so badly. When needing to do asymmetrical layouts or add design elements ‘randomly’ placed behind text etc with non-standard offsets, we really need the ability for elements within auto layout to essentially ignore all positioning. Absolute position as the title states is exactly what is needed to be applied to elements. Help us, Figma Team. You’re our only hope.

+1 for this

+1 for this. would really help to add stuff like three-dot-menu dropdowns to components/variants

There’s also the option to hold spacebar before dragging elements on top of auto layouts to ignore positioning. But there’s no solution when it’s already inside.

I should probably create another thread because the spacebar behavior is a bit bugged too.

Would like to see this feature in some future version:
Absolute positioned objects inside Auto Layout Frames

Thank you for the spacebar hack 🙂 I was looking for that shortcut for a long time and finally found it 🙂 This really helps a lot