What's new in Figma recap | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma’s spring 2019 updates focused on making everyday design work faster and more scalable. The biggest improvements expanded component workflows and introduced the public beta of the plugin API, enabling the community to build custom tools. The company also highlighted bug fixes and broader product refinements released over the previous three months.

Component Improvements for Design Systems

• Users can select multiple objects and convert them into Components in a single action.
• Right-clicking a component instance now reveals related Components in the context menu, making swaps easier.
• The Return to Instance button lets designers jump to a master component for reference or editing, then return to the instance they were working on.
• For local components, instance overrides can be pushed back to the master component, supporting faster iteration and maintenance.

Public Beta of the Plugin API

• Figma launched the public beta of its plugin API after extensive development.
• Early community experiments demonstrated how plugins could extend Figma beyond its built-in features.
• Examples included:
  • Generative design tools that repeat text elements radially.
  • Image-analysis plugins that extract color palettes from selected images.
• The strong early response suggested that plugins could support highly specialized creative workflows.

Quality and Workflow Improvements

• Figma dedicated a “quality week” to addressing and fixing a large number of bugs.
• The spring release cycle also included rapid improvements to features such as Smart Selection and other frequently used tools.

Figma’s spring updates strengthened its core component system while opening the platform to community-built extensions. Designers working with reusable systems could benefit from the component workflow improvements immediately, while the plugin beta offered a foundation for more customized and experimental processes.