I’ve noticed Figma adding absolute positioning to certain elements in an autolayout frame automatically. This is unexpected, unpredictable and simply annoying behavior. Adding several more steps to creating a simple autolayout.
Most autolayout frames don’t have an absolute positioned element. So it would be best to leave this button as a manual toggle.
I’d be happy if we could turn this behavior off via a user-setting.
Vote for the feature request if you agree!
I’ve noticed this too, it’s very frustrating.
Hey there, thank you for your feedback! I’ve changed the category from “General Discussion” to “Share an Idea”. I am going to share this feedback internally with the teams for consideration.
Also, feel free to upvote this post. This helps us roadmap future updates.
Thank you!
I have the same issue, very confusing
I was such a huge fan of absolute positioning in Figma when it was first introduced, and still am. But the fact that it automatically happens in some cases for auto layout is certainly frustrating because I don’t always notice it and end up confused on why my components are acting weird. It would be great to have the option to turn off the auto-absolute positioning feature. I hope to see this change in the very near future.
Absolute positioning should never happen automatically. It’s always an exception, particularly when developers are expected to look at the design in terms of intention and structure. And it can cause so many unexpected issues in design and code when it comes to responsive behaviour, reflow and the cascade. Now with every new AL frame I need to toggle absolute positioning on all children on and off, to ensure I don’t miss any. I love most of what Figma does; some decisions are slightly annoying, but this one drives me up the wall daily. Although I do see real value in having it, I would prefer no absolute positioning at all, than have it being applied automatically; particularly in the context of a layout feature that is specifically supposed to follow a set of (flex) rules.
This behavior is so frustrating. It should be a bug fix rather than a feature request. Automatically turning on absolute positioning for SOME objects in an autolayout frame is just bizarre and frustrating.
This feature should stay in Suggest auto layout, but removed from the regular one
This happens to me all the time, I even looked it up and figured out what the heck it was a few months ago so I finally understand why it happens. but then I forgot the name and I have been googling for several days now to find it again and I STILL haven’t found the way to REMOVE it without having to watch a video. Why on earth is there not a context menu option to remove absolute positioning when it is not something that I asked for? It should be easy to get rid of. Instead I’m randomly copying other elements to try to get one that doesn’t have it. I know there’s a way to do it but seriously I should not have to go on a help document deep dive to find this.
Hello please fix absolute position. I’m getting frustrated when I hide something in a component, and after unhiding that element, it goes to the absolute position for that fix issue, which I’ve copied again and again. I find it very frustrating. Fix that ASAP.
This is so frustrating. Please fix it