Figma removed `window.figma` on view-only pages today
forum.figma.com
forum.figma.com
As a developers i found it simpler to access css from figma via the old inspect vs. having to toggle in and out of dev mode.
It is shady to take a commonly used feature and move it behind a higher tier after years of offering to people already giving you money. Just classic VC driven startups trying to screw over its loyal customers.
I'd be much happier if they just gave me the old UI with a higher price point, just so I don't have to switch between the two modes.
The changes were a clear step backwards and this change shows some real pettiness. I guess if you’re on top, money is better than goodwill. Seems like they’re turning the monetization to 11 now after investors couldn’t cash out with Adobe. Let’s not forget that it was Adobe that ultimately called it off.
Otherwise known as "enshittification".
But I don't have the expertise to know for sure.
The thing that made Sketch lose against Figma was that they never really tackled the issue of collaboration until Figma came along, leaving it for 3rd parties like Invision and others to solve.
Now they have most of the collaboration features they were missing, but by then it was too late and Figma had all the mindshare.
But if Figma keeps following this route, who knows. We might see Sketch grow in mindshare again.
Why Figma won is, at least in my own experience, due to two areas where they roundly beat Sketch: auto-layout and performance.
Auto-layout was one of those squandered first-mover advantage stories: Sketch had it first, but built it into the symbol/component system and never envisioned it as a global feature. Figma did, and it was a total game-changer. Overnight, everything else felt like using Photoshop in comparison.
Why couldn't Sketch just generalize its own auto-layout feature? They finally did (only about three months ago!) but I suspect it had to do with Sketch's architecture, which leads into the second Figma advantage: performance.
From the start, Figma turned the native-app-versus-web-app intuition on its head. Being browser-based, it should have been much slower than Sketch... but due both to Sketch's legacy as a general-purpose vector graphics app and Figma's stellar engineering org, Figma was leagues faster when it came to the kind of big, complex files design orgs deal with on a daily basis.
Between these two things, the writing was on the wall. I hope Sketch has a chance to come back, though – missteps like Dev Mode give them an opening now that they've had several years to catch up.
- No more file-sharing issues. Designers are not good at using tools like git. I used git+lfs to store my designs, but most of the design team used Google Drive or Dropbox. In both cases, you end up in a situation where the file you are looking at is not up-to-date. Figma removed that issue.
- Design reviews: Collaborating on the same design as in many Figma demos is rare. However, playing with the design in a remote session is common during a design review.
- The pace of updates: Figma moved faster to improve the editor's UX. The auto-layout, styles, components, and variables are good additions to everyday work. It took Sketch a while to update the editor's UX.
There is no return once the team purchases the Figma subscription instead of renewing Sketch. When I started using Figma (around 2019), I hated its slowness and missed some Sketch features. Our UX team adopted Figma, and only a few designers continued using their Sketch license (I was one of them). But, it didn't make sense to not align with the rest of the team (for the reasons mentioned before). I haven't used Sketch since then. Sketch added many sharing features, but there isn't a solid reason to go back and convince the team to migrate their designs.
I just hope they don’t go too deep into Figma’esque cloud features (at least without being able to opt out) because Sketch is a really superb standalone piece of Mac software and I appreciate it for that.
For feedback and handoff the web tool is free and works in any OS that has a browser.
Yet it entirely lacks value.
Greater design positions don’t rely on Mac’s lol so why should more simple design?
Yet, I still don't believe "most" designers use Sketch, except in some "niches" like startups for example, or really design-heavy industries. Probably differs wildly by country too. What I've seen used most in the wild is Figma and Adobe tools, a lot of times on Windows.
edit: there is a free tier but core functionality like "create a variable" or "reference a variable" is Pro-only :P
And the CSS code output can also carry design tokens.
I've had to do a fair amount of this with a Chrome extension I maintain that hooks in to routing (creating bike / running routes) sites, and fortunately these mostly use React and I'm decently familiar with how to hook in to that.
But is there a limit here? Is there a way to actually keep code from being inaccessible to the console (aside from obfuscation / compiling to wasm)?
Generally, there are three paths to profitability: 1) increase pricing, 2) decrease expenses, or 3) offer new products and services with superior margin.
It seems like Figma has chosen to implement 1) but sell it to customers as 3). However, in contractionary periods like we are in now, 1) does not work -- no matter how much lock-in you have and how you sell it.
Postman was cool, until they started squeezing out pennies, and now we switched to Bruno (until the cycle repeats).
The good thing is that along the way, evolution takes place. The new product moves fast, while the dominant product starts to have trouble catching up due to codebase size and legacy.
Depends if you care about the people (customers, employees) or the money more.
Then again, people that are still Figma customers should be okay with that. They didn't jump ship after the initial Adobe takeover announcement, so they are clearly not concerned about enshittification and price-gouging - so let them have what they want.
As the person mentions, they're pretty deep into Figma so perhaps they believe that people will just keep eating their bad decisions.
I assume that something changed with the failed sale to Adobe? Figma seems to be enshittifying. The sale to Adobe was already dubious and obviously for the cash, despite the PR stuff they put out. Adobe also doesn't need any more market dominance so I am very glad it failed.
God I hate software.