Figma Goes All In On Developers

Figma's doubling down on developers, and their acquisition of Dynaboard proves it. Very excited to see what's coming next
Announcement: dynaboard.com/blog/figma-acqu...
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S/O Ph4se0n3 for the awesome edit 🙏

[@tedchirvasiu]

DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS

[@effeKtSVK]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@atharva__shukla]

The keEEeeEEey to success

[@PerryWagle]

Mushroooom?

[@eihab]

👏👏👏👏👏

[@vaisakhkm783]

DEVELOPERS👏 DEVELOPERS👏 DEVELOPERS👏 DEVELOPERS👏 DEVELOPERS👏

[@effeKtSVK]

I’m so glad that Adobe acquisition didn’t go through, everything that Adobe touches starts to rot…

[@boredbytrash]

Figma‘s leadership were so sad tho, they hoped for billion dollar exit lol

[@xanderplayz3446]

The Adobe touch.

[@AnnaGottin]

Makes me want to plan in retaking my billing.

[@yodua8193]

​@@boredbytrash I mean who wouldn't

[@labhamjain3915]

so true I was so sad when I heard about the acquisition and I thought the deal is done when I stopped hearing about it one day theo randomly dropped video over no acquisition 😂😂

[@jouebien]

I mean figma had tools for web devs in it's base. But that's all been stripped out so they can charge you for dev mode. I hadn't done any front end for a bit and jumped into figma and was like WTF where did the code tab go? My old workflow was completely gone.

[@8BitsPerPlay]

They also can't implement things like dark mode for the full app. How long has community members been asking for Fig Jam boards to get proper dark mode.....almost four years now.

[@jouebien]

@@8BitsPerPlay It's obvious how hacked together it is if you've ever built a plugin. Like WTF are node arrays in reverse order to how they appear on screen? It makes the entire masking workflow confusing as you have to have things in reverse order.

[@DelandaBaudLacanian]

That sucks.. I'm definitely never using Figma then.

[@2dstencil847]

@@8BitsPerPlay Framer is 2nd alternative. But the conversion to HTML slightly non popular

[@codex4048]

It was always very clear in the UI that it was a beta thing and it happens a lot where early access is free for everyone, but paywalls are added later.

[@AntonioBrandao]

Im both a frontend dev and a UI designer using Figma and I made my own Node.js script to extract styles & automatically generate a Tailwind configuration for the design systems of my customers

[@BboyKeny]

That's smart!

[@somedude6420]

Cool!

[@marekbee]

did you share it on github? Would be super useful for me

[@CarotideEtude]

Same please

[@user-hx1lp6fc9r]

@@marekbeeIf I remember correctly some Figma plugins do just that

[@TopJimmyKC]

Over $400 per developer per year for Figma Dev Mode. Pass. I use Figma 3 to 5 times per year, as a Developer. And budgets are tight right now. Happy to be working amidst all of the tech layoffs.

[@lisander-lopez]

Yep! I am crawling back on some of these "subscriptions" happy to be working in these times as well! I hope my niche is untouchable

[@jim.....]

They need an option to constrain design based on a tailwind config

[@plusquare]

Or the opposite

[@klutch4198]

might as well add bootstrap, mantine, material, etc. xD

[@klutch4198]

imagine learning CSS

[@okie9025]

@@klutch4198those are component frameworks. Tailwind is a different way to write CSS, similar to SASS

[@ghfsd786fa]

@@klutch4198 but why?

[@desertislanddivs]

I’m a designer. Embedding with dev teams shaped me. I see this time as the same as going from practical effects to digital effects in movie production. Designers and their tools must refactor to be 1:1 with dev tools and processes or be left behind with the monster masks. Version control and issue tracking are two examples where the devs do it better in distributed teams. That doesn’t mean replacing devs. It’s just that code is where the constraints live. We all work better if we can all hear what the code is speaking to us. Otherwise it’s just rectangles and headaches. A canvas is great, but not enough.

[@brandonmansfield4328]

I agree with this. I've struggled with any design tool that doesn't constrain the designer the same way the code does. There is always a massive disconnect that can be really tough to bridge if design is separated from dev in the org. Which has been very common in orgs I've worked in. So devs are often handed designs that are very challenging for them to build with their tools and it just takes forever.

[@an-eios7125]

Oh? So the EU intervention to prevent a monopolistic deal with Adobe actually had positive outcome? SHOCKING !!!

[@thomassynths]

eu really likes free markets doesn’t it

[@jonhobbssmith]

@@thomassynths Yes, they do. That's why they stop monopolies from forming.

[@BboyKeny]

​@@thomassynthsMultinationals have unaccounted influence. EU wants to monopolize that influence, for safety of course.

[@YomiTosh]

More startup/business discussions please Theo!

[@a_d_z_y__]

Your explanation of how business acquisition works is really an approach I wasn't expecting, but darn that's interesting, feels primordial to know to better understand why business A bought business B and what does this even mean. That's a unique approach about tech news, which usually just goes by "this bought that" and explains the product of business B, but not how it affects a business and what's the point in doing this for business A. Thanks for that!

[@swimmadude66]

Former Dynaboard engineer here! I gotta say I love seeing people appreciate what we built, even if it came too late for the product itself. I won't comment on your speculation, but I share your hopes of Dynaboard being the missing piece in bridging the design -> develop pipeline for teams using Figma.

[@weiSane]

Theo man when shall we ever get to see you coding and learning stuff from you. You only do opinion videos 😢

[@huntermacias2023]

Facts - wish we could see him dive more into web dev and see how he approaches design and feature implementation

[@dakdevs]

It’s just not that type of channel.

[@patricknelson]

Dev Mode in Figma is great, far better than the standard design mode when doing development. I really like how easy it is to get details on spacing between items, the flattening of some of the styles so you can get details a little more quickly and easily. It’s nice and we signed up for a few seats for my team.

[@flipperiflop]

The integration seems neat. Can you make a video about refine? Never used low-code tools so it's hard to wrap head around how it exactly works.

[@geniusdynamics]

I think this is because of the new Penpot verion 2.0 that is about to be released

[@ZynthCode]

Ah, I see you are a user of culture =w=

[@Serizon_]

I know penpot is open source but does it allow developers to write code with it as well?

[@Volt-Eye.]

Thanks, i did not know about Penpot.

[@michaelion7753]

Figma wants developers to help improve software that will replace developers.

[@alkhamistic]

it's a nightmare going into developer mode now on figma. Can't even get the pixel perfect parts anymore

[@gixxerblade]

I wish my company would use a design doc. They occasionally use a figma but mostly it’s pictures of what they want on lucid charts

[@amaanshah9625]

It's pen on paper here

[@ghostinplainsight4803]

Pretty sure you can import your Angular/React/Vue components into Figma. That's pretty cool!

[@nevermindthelabel]

Had such high hopes for Dev mode. I loved Figma as a developer, and it totally bummed me out how they handled that. I guess some of the Adobe rubbed off on them after all

[@RicoCollins]

You had me at Refine. Today I learned...that this exists.

[@af4043]

Thank you for explaining how these acquisitions work. Honestly, I never knew any of this. I was always dazzled by the “start-up founders make millions after being bought by….“ headlines. Now I know the more accurate truth. Thank you!

[@ridass.7137]

Ahh dark bg at last 😌

[@godonholiday]

Usually when no number is mentioned… the buyer is helping them out. They will take the talent and deck and they get to keep face

[@doroutheo]

I live in London and get to go to their new office as they're showing us how to use their dev mode feature. Quite funny it's all paid for by Adobe

[@blueprint7000]

Developers should be able to design in CSS too !

[@brodacious1313]

They need style configs, and the ability to import popular ones (such as Angular Material).

[@LoftwahTheBeatsmiff]

Lots of good info in this.

[@slava_trushkin]

This is very good news. All current tools for converting design to code are various degrees of bad. All tools I've seen fail when dealing with responsiveness. Figma has really nice features for building responsive designs, but not converting it to usable code. So there is a lot of potential from this deal.

[@devileyes4u]

not even single one, they will failed....If someone need web site today and have no clue how to do this, they simply going to WIX.

[@marekbee]

But you understand that the code will be probably „locked in” on the platform behind a subscription fee?

[@user-qe2ps9vm9o]

What calculator is that?

[@harshmakwanaa]

how did you open the calculator? 2:19

[@jazzdestructor]

I wish refine would make a full fledge code editor like retool/replit using codemirror unless they use monaco editor but would love to see and contribute to it

[@jacobs492]

If Figma launches the ability to go from ideation to launched product the world of dev and design work will drastically change.

[@CodecrafterArtemis]

Honestly, every time I hear "AI-supercharged", my BS sense starts tingling. And from what I understand, they'll probably just let you turn Figma designs straight into Dynaboard apps. Feels less like "enabling developers to use Figma" and more like "loading basic CRUD designs off developers".

[@trejohnson7677]

what’s the last thing u made that wasn’t a sexy CRUD app?

[@JacobSucksAtCode]

let's goooo

[@theodorealenas3171]

I should probably spend some time with figma, because I'm biased. The only person I know who likes figma is a jerk, and in my experience, simplifying code can lead to interesting designs that you may miss when prototyping. But just suggesting CSS snippets seems absolutely based, ngl

[@haaxor1689]

I've tried the dev mode but the problem with it is that your designer thinks about how the design looks and not how it is put together, so with the dev mode export you can end up with nonsensical html structure with fixed position divs. If this is really to be usable "as is", then the designers would need to also learn about stuff like flexboxes and build the design with that in mind.

[@AlecMaly]

+1 to this man for always trying to disclose his bias.

[@kishirisu1268]

On my work I copy invisible styles added by designer to web site, if not Figma nobody will know that designer added so much invisible sht.

[@george_davituri]

Nice 👍🏻

[@YashKumar-ex9nj]

what browser is he using it is so good

[@musashi542]

Arc browser

[@VanillaSixtySix]

I'm a bit sad they decided to start charging for dev mode and that the org I'm at decided to not pay for it.

[@elgalas]

What browser is he using?

[@frankthegreat-]

arc

[@redhood7105]

Putting dev-mode behind a subscription doesn't seem like a very developer-friendly move, does it?

[@t3dotgg]

They should charge for dark mode instead

[@bryanzawlocki]

They really need to rethink their naming conventions for certain things to be more dev friendly, frames, sections, pages, to start. They’re not helping designers by giving design elements arbitrary names that are Symantec dev terms.

[@Milan____]

Really exciting to see companies reinvent EAI in 2024. That said, good UI is hard, so if anyone can find tools that help them deliver, I'm all for that. Personally, I think I'm going to reinvent the 3 column phpNuke design. On mobile.

[@simonj9945]

I like chicken noodles

[@GeorgeLathem]

Can figma make their actual app faster?

[@CsAlchemy-eg6ch]

I use painter for my ui ux

[@cmdaltctr]

Figma..sighs… where do I start? Instead of just saying flexbox, they invented a name called auto layout. Instead of making designers understand basic conventions of front end development where actual design made reality by those engineers, they invented a subset of new shit that convinced thousands of designers to learn it, new concepts that was not necessarily (just for the sake of creating a hype around their product) thus making the translation and multidisciplinary gap bigger. Its just corporate gimmick moves by typical American corporations and yall just follow it. They gain market share, get extremely rich, monopolies the industry, set some stupid industrial standards etc.

[@edenassos]

Stop crying, little one.

[@cytuber]

@cmdaltctr You're right. I never understood why they needed to give properties like flexbox, a new name. I guess they were thinking they were just dealing with artsy people and auto layout is more descriptive than flexbox but now, they are joining designers with developers, they should be using the same language.

[@tobiasjennerjahn8659]

Doing 6.6*100/20 instead of just 6.6/0.2 is crazy to me. I know it doesn't matter at all, but it's fun to see how people do math differently in their head.

[@Koroistro]

But does it work with HTMX. Also obligatory haha funny meme name joke, hopefully they don't Figma us for real.

[@igoralmeida9136]

figma joe balls mama

[@alexstrz6995]

Love the video. As a cs student who's never had a web dev class much less ui or anything front end Related I'm kinda lost in all of these solutions to build something that you can show / display. Therefore these kind of tools that can just do it / give a template for it really have a huge added value for me and i know so little about them, so learning more about them is always a huge plus. Thank you

[@gixxerblade]

I’m a dev and I’m confused too. 😂

[@MusclesfromB]

Theo omg you have so much good information and videos. But holy shizz with your editing, it seems like you don't breathe between sentences and it's too much continuous rambling for me haha. So i watch them sparingly.

[@juliensloan]

What is figma?

[@SnailDOS]

Design tool

[@getweirdwes]

Figma nutz

[@ZephniStrife]

I was excited all the way up until "IDE"

[@lucastsen]

Figma ballz

[@RythonDev]

Is anyone else wondering how and why the Chainsmokers invested in this?

[@teaman7v]

Started moving away from Figam 6 months ago. I'm all in on Penpot when they launch 2.0

[@savire.ergheiz]

Yea goodluck cleaning it 😂

[@fachihul]

But have to pay for this.Please search alternative to figma for developer.

[@parthenocarpySA]

You have to pay for useful tools?

[@Volt-Eye.]

Penpot Open Source

[@fachihul]

@@Volt-Eye. Yes but any problem for open source?

[@Volt-Eye.]

@@fachihul no Problem with Open Source, I was just mentioning its Speciality. Also It can export code to native Html and Css. It is free. This is what I know.

[@user-lq7xz1th4x]

Figma's progress was incredible, but after they became a monopoly, they went the way of Adobe. Open your eyes, now you literally can't inspect css unless you pay. They branded it as "new and improved" dev mode and present it as innovation

[@runejensen3978]

Frontend outsources the frontend, and tries to bridge a gap to become backend.

[@isodoubIet]

Figma balls hahahahahha

[@joshyoung5055]

Came here for this lmao

[@kubukoz_]

never gets old

[@pipzgutz]

I thought Adobe already killed Figma?

[@andrei_fyi]

Figma is an anti-developer shitshow, their "dev mode" is now an insanely expensive feature that companies shouldn't and won't pay for. For enterprise it's $35/dev/month just to have a bit of a better experience when inspecting things around. There's no need for Adobe to ruin Figma, they can do it on their own.

[@OP-ig1fj]

cant sign up (??)

[@jnsdotgg]

hi

[@Nemo-yt1gi]

lol, funny how the Figma/webdesign subreddit really hates the idea of Figma integrating features that are more developer facing. People hate learning new things when they get comfortable.

[@DzintarsDev]

MS Access

[@edhahaz]

when the worthless Figma (business wise) finally runs out of money you won't be able to open your projects LOL. SaaS is great.

[@blipojones2114]

Ye i swear figma used to be an offline first tool..real shame.

[@ArminmoTV]

they don't wanna push devs to use figma they trying remove u guys

[@user-nj1qc7uc9c]

i STILL think its a ligma joke

[@hydranooni]

I'm a dev who hates devs

[@rudemption]

Neither. I'm a native android developer who hates react-native developers but watching Theo - that's it.

[@AdolfRizzler41]

Why hate react native?

[@davidhollenbeck1674]

dynaboard is currently $1 per end user per month at the $250/mo plan maybe a retool competitor but for anything public facing it's a hard pass for me

[@MehmetKoseDev]

Big startups buys small startups just because common investors does not want their money wasted on the small one and forcing big one to buy small one. Everyone walking happy away. So, is Figma betting on developers? Don't think so.

[@Frexuz]

Or just 6.6*5 😆

[@samoart]

First🎉

[@7th_CAV_Trooper]

Oh look, someone is inventing visual basic again.

[@mwwhited]

VC is such a joke.

[@magfal]

If you've got decent devs and a decent flutter codebase, Figma is no longer worth the effort. The time saved in the draft phase is negated by actually having to implement afterwards.

[@CortezBumf]

oh look another low code solution that will create more tech debt

[@djblast101]

Figma will die it's not the way sadly they are not innovating enough imo. Like tools like framer, plasmic, flutter flow are really building bridges dev and design. Figma just too slow too big and trying to be everything.

[@meonitelexdee3432]

Also Framer @Framer