Using variables to change variants

Learn how to use variables to change a variant on a component instance in your designs.

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[osiris]

When will Figma support typography variables?

[idontwantachaine]

Nice. But why do we have to do this on an instance? Why not on the parent itself?

[JonArmstrong]

Would be better to allow us to apply a variable group to a component and then have the instance have a dropdown with each of the variables in the group listed. Thinking about density and or sizing.

[JoshChadwick]

I use this to control screen size breakpoints. You can set the min/max for each breakpoint (so mobile content doesn’t get too wide) and set components to auto adjust if there’s mobile/tablet/desktop versions. I agree with another comment though, we should be able to set this at the parents level and not just on instances.

[anton_brauer]

Thanks! It would be great if you could add the ability to switch text styles. I would like to quickly switch layouts between ios and android styles and components

[jbmaxcluster]

Is there a way to move variables to a new/existing collection, or are Figma working on this? That would be very helpful because building a set of variables/collections sometimes needs some changes of the structure.

[anhtuanuxdesign]

What a simple and effective setting! Love it!

[danielazerlauth]

I thought implementing this would take me forever, but it worked automatically like a charm! thank you so much!

[rozzAugust]

Good example! Straight to the point :)

[dcompose]

Is there any way to add smart animate transitions?

[harley-dave]

Weird. There's a lot of work needed to make variables and modes more useful, as of now it's almost like forcing myself to find value in it rather than just proceeding with the workflow I'm used to.

[RavP]

Can we have a breakdown on how binding works for each variable type?

[chethankvs]

This is a very poor example. This will create scalability issues when you have to add or remove variants. You will have to update in 2 places every time.

I've been using modes for sizes and colors (light/dark), but I'll have to talk to our development team to see if they find easy to implement modes on front-end.

[ArtiomNeganov]

But how to make two hero instances at the same time, one for morning and the other - for evening? Where are variables scoping, the most obvious thing?

[Underhills]

Wish I could work directly with variables in work projects but I'm using a central designsystem where everything is fixed and administrated. It's practical of course but the downside is there's no creativity involved. I have made my own playground for private use and experimented with the features there, but it doesn't go any further.

[GustavoPolo]

This week I started using this with responsive modes :)

[catalin-ap]

For someone with a CSS background, it literally takes 5 seconds to understand this, like applying a class to a parent, that has a propriety associated to a certain child of that parent...

[junojo]

This is nice, but I don’t like they cannot swap text variables inside an instance. I hope they fix it soon.

[marcusgarvey]

my variants wont even change when i select them