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Question

How to support a variable number of nested Instances?

  • December 22, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 193 views

I’m trying to create a “Chat Blob” Component that encompasses multiple “Chat Bubble” Components.

The Chat Blob is the layout for multiple messages from a single user. It reduces the message spacing, adds a profile pic, their name as a header, and checkmarks as a footer.

The Chat Bubbles are just text in a bubble plus a Click Interaction to show a time stamp.

However, I have no idea how to mock up a typical conversation since I can’t just drag the Chat Bubble Instances into the Chat Blob Instances. Additionally, the number of Chat Bubbles within a Chat Blob is highly variable… could be 1 message or 10 messages, depending on the mockup.

With my (limited) understanding of Figma, I see three approaches:

  1. Create a bunch of Chat Blob Variants that contain a set amount of Chat Bubbles within them. I.e. “Chat Blob (1), Chat Blob (2), etc.”, enough to encompass all my chat scenarios.

  2. Make the Chat Blob with a bunch of “placeholder Components” to later Instance Swap with Chat Bubble Instances, enough to encompass all my chat scenarios.

  3. Abandon having Chat Blob as a Component (or Detach them) and just drag as many Chat Bubbles as needed in each scenario, but lose the connection / editability of the Chat Blob Component.

I feel like all these approaches have downsides and wondering if I’m missing something. Fwiw, I’m coming from Unity and its nested Prefab system, which allows willy-nilly nesting as needed, so maybe I just need to check my expectations.

Thanks for any help!

Sorry to bump, still curious if there’s a best practice here. Thanks!


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