Git Like versioning

Wouldn’t this feature request then be called Git Like versioning?
You already have automated version control, it’s just a very simplified single branch version.

That’s correct: git like versioning. I would say it’s not really a version control right now but just a file history.

Version control is weak in Figma right now. It would be really cool to see Figma integrate with Abstract or create their own robust version management system. When you work at a larger company your design has to be peer-reviewed and there is often back and forth between design, PM, and development. It would be amazing if Figma had a way to view that back and forth as well as some form of “approval management flow.”

My ideal flow:

1. I open my design file on the master “branch”
2. I create a new branch called “new feature”
3. I create new designs and then submit the design for review
4. I can choose who I want to review my “new feature” branch
5. The reviewer can leave comments and I can respond until issues are resolved
6. Reviewer can approve the design
7. I merge the design into the master branch
8. If someone modified the same frames as me a conflict will appear and Figma will provide a way to decide which changes to keep.

+1 That’s a big issue at a larger company or when several designers iterate on the same feature. Version control is also very useful when you have to produce many variations for A/B testing.
It’s just how it is like in real life: you iterate, switch back and forth between multiple ideas and variations of the same design, you test, you adjust one of the versions, test again, add something from another variation, etc. Or you simply have to put that new feature on the shelf and get back to it later because priorities changed.

I’m not sure how ‘dark mode’ as a feature is apparently more important than this ! Please implement some form of version control Figma so we never have to deal with ‘X deleted Y by accident’ again!

Ditto, just change your canvas color people!

Right? Let’s vote this topic up!

I thought I was alone thinking this. This and many other suggestions such as layers search, for example, are far more important than dark mode. D:

Yeah, we need the ability to merge branches into master as well as the ability to push changes on a master to its branches (git rebase)

      A---B---C feature                             A'--B'--C' feature
     /                   --rebase-->               /
D---E---F---G master                  D---E---F---G master

And btw, the duplicated community files needs to somehow stay attached to its original file to listen to changes and enable update when the source is updated

THIS. Or at least “versioning” in general. To my understanding, currently the versioning really is only 2 versions:

1. Current version
2. Any older versions

A common use case for Design Systems in larger organisations, is to support different versions of the same DS (libraries) for different teams and/or products.

Right, what we have now is rather a basic history of changes. But I guess that’s not how many of us work, right? 🙂 I hope that the product/dev team at Figma will take this into account 🙂 Let’s vote!

Yeah, this is much less of an issue when there are fewer designers and little organizational hierarchy (which is often a nicer working environment!).

But for a lot of “enterprise” workplaces, this kind of functionality could allow much of this bureaucracy to be handled cleanly within Figma. I’d much rather this leverage could be applied in the design tool (either natively or via plugin) than elsewhere with a lot of additional overhead.

Just though I would put in my 2c. This is exactly what I don’t want from Figma 😂

I just came from using Abstract which I loathed for its git lit features. Way to much over head, you can communicate the status of things with notes around the page and file structure.

Sure, that’s only one of the possible use cases. You can still continue using notes if that works best for you, one doesn’t exclude the other.

How do you then handle new features without adding them to your main design system?

How do you handle then reverting back to a previous state without undoing all the work you have done (because there is only linear saving currently)

What happens when someone accidentally deletes something and you don’t notice it for about a week whilst still working on a file? Good luck trying to find that in the current implementation!

There’s actually an official Abstract Plugin already:

Not sure if it does the that it does with Sketch though.

Also, not sure if this helps, but we’ve seen the Figma team talk about this being a future vision for their product versioning system, so 🤞 fingers crossed.

Last but not least, to all the comments on Dark Mode being first as a feature request: please do not forget many, if not most, designers aren’t as evolved as many of us here that manage large product loads or design systems. Probably for them, what Figma has as a tool is enough, and having a dark mode is just a nice to have feature 🙂

🤞 I agree with the fact that for many designers the current version history is enough, I’d assume that many don’t even use this feature that much. But I think more advanced versioning could be offered as part of a paid subscription plan 🙂

I have experienced the need for this a lot recently. I have bad memory (due to an accident) and when a dev asked me about something on a project I started in Nov 2019 and did an update on in Sept 2020 and he’s not sure what is new and what isn’t, or why I changed something, I struggled to help him. Another designer also spent a bit of time on the file so it would be great for both of us if we had versions to look back on to see when and what things were changed (and also why). A commit history would come in handy in these situations

I am astonished by the dark mode request too.

Please vote, and we will beat the Dark mode request 😀

+1 On Git Like Versioning!

+1, really need that kind of feature for large design team

For me this is one of the biggest problems in Figma and the new Abstract plugin is oriented towards communication, not versioning. Hopefully this will get some traction.

@Diego That’s a good reason to vote 🙂

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

You really cant track what kind of change was made to the library file, change can be registered even from X Y position change, etc.

I would love to see some change list, as git has before and after. Specific information about what I’m about to update to the library. Selecting what changes to publish would be a good add-on also. I may have some drafts that I want to publish later time.

*3. Ask questions to bring the community into the conversation *
(e.g. Does anyone else experience this? Is anyone using a plugin or workaround to help solve this?, etc.