New Auto Layout, Hug content and Fill container

Ask the community
1

R.I.P.
image

I used this resize box for 50% of my work time with auto layout. If something was scaling or resizing in the wrong way I was immediately jumping to that little square, fixing issues in one click. But with the latest update, he is not with us anymore.

I am very upset with this loss because having only dropdowns means x2 clicks from now on for very common and widely used action.

What are your thoughts about it? Am I missing something? Was anybody tried to bind custom shortcuts to quickly change between Fill container and Hug content?

2 Likes
2

Would be fair to say there are few shortcuts to work with

3

The Pro Layout Panel plugin solves this issue completely and is a joy to work with compared to the native UI (even the old one). Since Figma is trying to make AL controls for everyone, not just for pros, they have to make compromises. And I think it’s much better to use a separate tool specifically designed for those who use auto layout pretty much all the time. Here is a little video showing how easy it is to work with it:

(I’m not the creator of this plugin, I just love it so much!)

4

Thanks, I didn’t know there was such a shortcut. Funny thing is, yesterday I was reading the article about Auto Layout and that shortcuts wasn’t mentioned there. I’ll ask Figma support to update the article, I think I’m not the only person who prefer to check changes in text format rather than in a video.

Thanks again for your reply, that shortcut was exactly what I was looking for

1 Like
5

Thanks a lot for the plugin hint, definitely will give it a shot :hearts:

Regarding the compromise here with moving the hug/fill controls to the top section with all the size controls - I see the logic behind it, like hug/fill is operating with the size of the frame, so you place it there. But at the same time this is more specific type of resizing, which works only for frames with Auto Layout. So having it’s own panel in UI was also a logical thing in my opinion. And they had the box for the “pros” and the dropdowns for people that prefer using them.

Making AL controls available for everyone is a good thing, but I really don’t think that removing the old resize box really makes a step here. Basically, you had 2 options - use the box or dropdowns. Now they throwing away box, leaving the dropdowns and adding the shortcuts. Why not leave the box and add shortcuts so that there will be 3 options for working with resizing in AL? For me in their attempt to make AL controls available for everyone they making it unavailable for users like me, who don’t use shortcuts for everything and prefer to work with Figma’s UI where if efficient enough to not use the shortcuts :slightly_smiling_face: And at the same time, having a shortcut on a mouse click - you can simply miskicks, especially when you have highly loaded interface with AL in AL in AL. And instead of changing Fixed to Fill/Hug you can easily fall down one level in your layers and/or change the properties of the wrong AL. So for me using Figma UI controls would be preferred in this situation :thinking:

Anyway, I’m just grumbling at this point :smile: Thanks a lot for the replay, looks like this plugin solving all my issues :+1:

2 Likes
6

Thanks the article. Like @Maksym_Prykhodko said, it is not very user friendly to hide an existing option. I also think it prevents new users from discovering the option.

7

I came here to complain about the same thing. They announced the changes alongside the new alt-double-click, which does help you avoid the new dropdown sometimes, but not all the times. It seems to only work one way: Fit → Fill, but not Fill → Fit. It also doesn’t work on paths, so if you drop a line into an auto-layout you can’t alt-double-click to have it fill the space and form a divider.

I’ll get used to it, but I’m surprised this double clicking doesn’t go further.

8

Is it possible to also add keyboard shortcuts?