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Comment by achow | Hacker News Reader

Comments so far are not mentioning the biggest advantage and motivation for switching to Figma:

1. Freedom from Mac hardware dependency

2. Cross platform compatibility. Heck even cross device - it would open up on iPad as well I assume (haven't tried it though).

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Almost every Figma user I know (and I know a lot) uses it on a Mac, so I’m not convinced that that’s a benefit they care about.

A lot of web developers have been put off Apple due to macOS and Mac hardware issues, and simultaneously attracted to Windows due to WSL. Figma gives them an option to switch.

As a developer consuming their designs on Linux, I care. Most platforms don't check that box.

Check out Avocode. It is designed to do just that and is cross platform (electron). It works with PSD, AI, sketch, and figma files.

Figma user myself. Use on Mac at home, on Windows at office. At office Windows machine due to corporate security policies.

I went from a macbook to a surface pro, Sketch was the only thing keeping me on the mac until I switched to Figma. I use it for UI design.

As a Mac user who has had to Switch my workstation machine to PC for performance anything that reduces my reliance on Apple hardware is a great thing.

Most designers use Macs, sure. But just giving a link to product owners, QA, clients, and developers is a whole lot easier than trying to get them to successfully use Zeplin or manually keep track of what static images I've copy/pasted in tickets etc.

Also: I use Mac at work and PC at home. So now you know one designer who uses Figma on PC.

Zeplin is just a link too.

That's what we've been using quite successfully for GUI apps development: designers work in sketch, everyone else consumes the result through Zeplin.

I do really love Zeplin, and I use it at work since my company prefers Sketch over Figma. It's great if you have to use Sketch.

you're living in a bubble then :) I also was a designer using mac but that was only because the tools forced me to, but in reality I can't afford a proper mac so I now have the option.

About 50% of our local office cares that their tools work on Windows as well.

Figma user. As I do real time 3D stuff I constantly switch between Mac and PC.

Our designer runs Windows. His friends running Windows. I'm convinced. They all use Figma.

It opens on an iPad, and with yesterday’a release of iOS 13.4 and proper mouse support its almost completely usable. I had issues with the viewport, but managed to create a simple UI flow with interactions and run a prototype.

>Freedom from Mac hardware dependency.

I view this as positive and negative.

It resonates with me because users should have the freedom. I ran Boston Sketch meetups https://www.meetup.com/Sketch-Design-Boston/ for two years and several users couldn’t participate because they were using windows.

I see it as a problem because designing on windows puts you in a different state of mind and atmosphere...and one way or another we are products of our environment.

I found out that the environment of windows reflects negatively on design.

I worked at TBWA advertising, I had a startup, and I recruit many freelancers all the time...

When I look at designers portfolios I can immediately know whether they are/were using Windows or Mac.

For design Mac is the winner.

For crunching numbers nothing beats Windows excel.

That's sounds very pretentious. I work at a product company, I ask my team (and myself) to use paper and pencil, which could be on any scrappy piece of paper or notebook.

This discussion is not about Windows vs Mac, and those who still discuss that, have not really moved with times.

[Edit] FWIW, I'm a Sketch user, adopted it very early. Now I have started using Figma on my Mac which already has Sketch; and I find it very liberating (can continue work when I move from home-office-home, without needing to carry a 3 pound machine), and also see no difference in my productivity - no performance issues, all features present that I need.

The fact that you suggest pencil and paper indicates you do actually see that the working environment makes a difference, however pretentious you may find it.

Are they really 'environment'? They are tools which do not place any restriction on where and when you can use them.

Choice of tools can be seen as part of the environment, in the sense that they affect the mindset and approach.

As in, if i choose to use a pencil, i’m creating a different kind of mental and immediate physical environment for myself to work in than if i sit in front of a computer.

Except for fonts, there are issues using custom fonts with Linux.

"Issues" might be a understatement. As the font-loading tool only supports windows and macOS, it's straight up impossible to have custom fonts in a official manner.

Seems to be some 3rd party solutions for this though, but since local font-exposing tools/servers are frequently used in vulnerabilities (Adobe's font loading tool that now comes built-in in Windows [and possibly macOS?] is one example, was recently exploited), it's a bit scary to run them.

THIS! I hate that Figma cannot support adding external webfonts when it is a webapp. This is the nr. 1 and only reason why I do not give them my money.

You can use the Figma Linux wrapper to solve that issue. I have thrown my MacBook in a corner since them. I'm fully designing and developing on Pop_OS since 3 months.

https://github.com/Figma-Linux/figma-linux

It's great that you can use it, but it's still quite buggy for a lot of users, for me I can't even load it without it crashing, there are issues logged in the github

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