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Figma Platform

blog.figma.com

122 pointspestkranker21 comments

Figma use the word "open" to describe some restrictive APIs in their wall garden, which is disingenuous coming from programmers who know what "open" really means.

Usually collaboration is done using a Git-like external version control tool or just file syncing with Dropbox. Even Adobe Photoshop stores your data in files that you can share as you like. Figma's collaborative approach is certainly good UX, but on the whole a net-negative for the world if it catches on.

If your code is stored exclusively on GitHub and can only be edited through the UI then you are at GitHub's continued mercy to have access to your own data. You lose it when your subscription expires or when GitHub thinks they no longer like you. This is the general trend of software turning into services and they are actually locking you in with your own data. But it is also a challenge to provide seamless realtime collaboration on the same document if sits in files rather than on the web. The best of both worlds would be a software that has both the convenience and openness of individual files and has seamless collaboration.

Don't they have a .fig format that you can export/import, share? Plus they have the standalone "native" app, so I don't really get you here. Have you tried parsing a PSD file? Have you seen the PSD spec? It's pure nightmare afaik... Are you storing psd resources in git? Probably not. Then perforce? God, have you tried using perforce from the command line? What else do we have for big binary files and versioning? Not svn, not cvs, not mercurial, dunno...

But anyway... we're working with a fairly big (100+ppl) creative agency and they transitioned to figma - it's a joy to work with, I can finally use linux, no need to fool around with windows or a dumb os, the app is fast, exporting is great, collaborative features are cool... I'm pretty sensitive when it comes to apis and data portability, but heck, this tool is a godsend for us.

> Have you tried parsing a PSD file? Have you seen the PSD spec? It's pure nightmare afaik...

Of course, you can't forget this somewhat-legendary commentary on the PSD format: https://github.com/gco/xee/blob/master/XeePhotoshopLoader.m#...

It is a bad example because when you use git, your local copy is a full repo with the whole history so it not like your code is lost forever if github cancels your account.

It’s a good example because that’s what they’re saying. With GitHub you’re not limited to editing through the web UI. With Figma you are. Something like Figma backed by data you control would be fine.

@no-privacy's second paragraph is confusingly worded but I think this was the intent of the post - that comparing to Figma to Github is a good/bad example because they're easily differentiable/not alike.

Code is not lost forever, but you lose commenting on commit history, image uploads on comments, issue trackers , etc

Figma has some export functionality though, via SVG.

This is really amazing for the design tooling ecosystem. Sketch opened their file format, but Figma's APIs are actually a pleasure to work with. It was super easy for us to add a Figma importing to our design-to-React platform (Pagedraw), so you can now your draw your React UIs with Figma and ship them right to production.

disclaimer: I'm with https://pagedraw.io/, one of the integrations mentioned in the post

A few years back when the Mac App Store launched, I put an app up there and got a tweet from one of the future founders of Figma. I think he was in early college, or even high school. We corresponded a bit and I followed him on Twitter. Pretty interesting to see how much cool stuff he has done since then.

I remember that app :)

Figma’s really gunning at a Slack with this move, as Sketch’s plugin ecosystem is a huge reason as to why it’s successful. (Edit: this doesn’t bring extension support, but is definitely a step towards that goal)

For any other designers on HN, have you switched to Figma to Sketch, and if so, why?

Not a designer myself, but at our company Sketch is not an option because (afaik) Sketch files are not editable on anything else than macOS. So Figma it is.

I was really impressed (but initially skeptical) when I saw that their webapp is built with C++ and compiled for the web. Pretty cool to see their crossplatform efforts paid off:

https://blog.figma.com/building-a-professional-design-tool-o...

Woah, emscripten in production. Yeah, color me impressed as well.

Interesting, we have a Sketch to Invision workflow that works pretty well for devs who aren’t on Macs. The biggest turnoff for me regarding Figma is the fact that you need to have access to the web in order to use it. With Sketch, I can use it as long as my laptop has power. This is great if you have to do work in planes or hotels that have sketchy WiFi.

While not the full experience, Figma does work offline for already-imported files if you use their desktop client.

https://help.figma.com/faqs/offline-mode

You can edit Sketch files on Windows, using the Lunacy app[0]. It's not full featured yet.

https://icons8.com/lunacy

Figma route. Sketch is not exactly crossplatform and they seem to be proud about it - or at least a bit nonchalant. We voted with our wallet here.

Was not my decision at all, but so far I like figma.

Product homepage: https://www.figma.com/

I wish submissions announcing something new like this included something in the title to just say what it is.

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