Hey Figma friends.
Everyone is talking about drafts right now but I would like to talk about the new sidebar. While it is more team focused and looks cleaner, it loses some important functionality from the previous design.
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- If you work with multiple teams, you lose the overview of those teams in the new sidebar as well as the interoperability between them.
Example: how do I move a bunch of files to a project on another team? I can move one file with right click “move…” but that is not available for multiple files.
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- Starring a file or folder is a bit less meaningful now as it is now only team visible.
Example: I keep a file “scratchpad” starred to drop in random stuff that doesn’t belong somewhere else. It is now only available in its team view.
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Possible enhancement: Pin file or folder
Maybe in addition to starring a file/folder, it could also be pinned placing it just below the “Recents” and making it visible regardless of team view? Of course pinning presents new problems:
- If each team has a project folder named the same, pinning all of those could get confusing.
- Naming patterns could be used but that is intruding on naming conventions in those teams.
- You could put the team icon next to the pinned item but that could start looking busy.
- You could allow for teams to be assigned a color and make folder/file icon that color when pinned.
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There are many things to consider but I believe there needs to be a way to expose visibility of files/folders above and across teams. It is important to me, and probably others. I am sure more will be exposed as we all continue to work with the new design, both good and bad. From my experience, Figma responds well to the public and is constantly improving the product.
Just to add this in, this is not criticism but care. I love this tool and so many of the folks behind it are friends. Hi everyone!