To cut to the chase, we have a main project where we’ve created our Design System using Local Variables.
These Local Variables were then published as a library to use in other projects, however, when adding this library to another project, no collections show up in the Local Variables panel.
I have checked and all variables have the “Hide from publishing” option disabled. To add insult to injury, they do actually show up in the Library panel but that’s it.
Different Variable collections that were published:
I think Figma has to make the local variable panel more self descriptive though I’m not entirely sure how will they do that.
A lot of users are confused how variables published from another file is not showing up in their “local” variables. But please take note that only variables locally created on the file would show up on the “local” variables panel. But, you can freely use the published variables from another file via library.
Maybe, Figma should show the variable assets on the assets tab too
Wow, no kidding that the UX is unhelpful here. I’ve been scouring these posts and the docs to figure out why my Variables weren’t showing up. Until your comment I hadn’t considered that they were working, they just weren’t in the Variables menu.
It’s especially bad because I access variables from the new Actions button and the menu item there is just “Toggle Variables.” I never saw that these were called “Local Variables” until now, there isn’t even a title in the Variables window to indicate that.
Thanks for pointing this out, it was driving me and my developer crazy.
Yeah, I figured this that very night as I was going through the variables.
They’ll show up in the “Local Variables” panel if they’re created “locally” within the project.
Uploading them as a library, you’ll still have access to these variables directly, however, you won’t be able to modify them in any way.
My solution to this would be to just ditch the whole “local” variables idea, and just call them variables, furthermore, if they’re added to a project from a library, a copy of those variables should be made and placed within the other project to allow you to edit them. You can do that with components for example, so this should work as well.
