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Impact of Variable Collection Reordering on Themes

Open six7 opened this issue 11 months ago • 0 comments

Issue: Re-ordering of Variables Collections and Its Impact on Themes

The recent update in Figma allows users to reorder variable collections, departing from the previous alphabetical organization. This change may affect how themes are linked and managed within the plugin.

Concerns:

  • There is uncertainty about the impact on the connection between the plugin and Figma if the order of collections differs.

Curiosities to Explore:

  1. When importing variables already connected to themes, if the order has changed, should we adjust the order in the Plugin? Is this desirable?
  2. If changing the order is not desired, can we implement a mechanism to postpone the export call to sync with TypeScript as the definitive source of truth on order?
  3. In the diff view, how can we effectively signal an order change upon import, considering that most designers may not be familiar with this feature?

Acceptance Criteria:

  • Evaluate the impact of reordering on theme connections.
  • Determine if current theme options can link to a mode ID instead of indices.
  • Develop a strategy for handling order discrepancies during import and potential alignment with TypeScript.

Next Steps:

  • Test the new order functionality and its effects on existing theme connections.
  • Define the approach for managing imports and exports in relation to the new ordering feature.

Slack thread: https://hyma-team.slack.com/archives/C04V8U8UH0F/p1743523750621709?thread_ts=1743523750.621709&cid=C04V8U8UH0F

Attachments

📷 Image attachment: CleanShot 2025-04-01 at [email protected] (PNG, 246 KB)

Show all messages sam wrote: In addition to choosing a color space in Figma, you can now re-order your variables collections, meaning they will no longer be in the default order of alphabetic.

How will this impact the way themes work on our side?

sam wrote: @keegan @robbert.bosker FYI - I suspect this might cause some issues on our end and we should test this.

If the order is different between the plugin and Figma, will the connection break or stay in-tact? We already know that if you change the names of collections or modes in Figma the connection breaks.

marco.krenn wrote: is the default mode still set through order or is this now something you need to active

mike wrote: I think we are or should be able to link a theme option to a mode ID instead of the index, I suppose?

sam wrote: Up until today, Collections appear in alphabetical order no matter how they are organized on our side.

Modes within a collection are determined by their order. In the plugin: • Top theme in a group = mode 1 (furthest left).

sam wrote: Curiosities to explore:

  1. when importing variables already connected to themes and the order has changed, will we change the order in the Plugin? Is that desired?
  2. If it is not desired, can we push back a call (export) to align with TS as the source of truth on order? In the diff view - we could signal a change on import, but most designers don't know how to use that feature to begin with and it often truncates the data needed to really see what's going on.

Today, import and export are 2 very separate actions with no US flows between them.

six.jan wrote: Nice! Lets create an issue about the ordering of Modes and Collection variables - that is something we'll need ti spend some time on

six.jan wrote: @issue_assistant create issue in tokens-studio/figma-plugin

six7 avatar Apr 01 '25 17:04 six7