Skip to main content

Combining Nested Frames Auto Layout & Constraints in Figma

Lesson 64 from: Figma UI UX Design Essentials

Daniel Walter Scott

Combining Nested Frames Auto Layout & Constraints in Figma

Lesson 64 from: Figma UI UX Design Essentials

Daniel Walter Scott

trending art & design

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2200+ more >

Lesson Info

64. Combining Nested Frames Auto Layout & Constraints in Figma

<b>In this lesson we will combine a few features we have already learned. We will take a look at combining nested frames, auto layout and constraints in Figma.</b>

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Introduction to Figma Essentials

02:53
2

Getting Started with Figma Training

03:06
3

What Is Figma For & Does It Do The Coding?

03:46
4

What's The Difference Between UI And UX In Figma

05:22
5

What We Are Making In This Figma Course

09:18
6

Class Project 01 - Create Your Own Brief

04:01
7

What is Lo Fi Wireframe vs High Fidelity in Figma?

02:34
8

Creating Our Design File & Introducing Frames In Figma

08:29
9

The Basics Of Type & Fonts In Figma

10:51
10

Rectangles, Circles, Buttons And Rounded Corners In Figma

06:50
11

How To Use Color In Figma

05:45
12

Strokes Plus Updating Color Defaults In Figma

09:28
13

Object Editing And How To Escape In Figma

01:47
14

Scale vs Selection Tool in Figma

02:39
15

Frames vs Groups in Figma

09:24
16

Class Project 02 - Wireframe

03:00
17

Where To Get Free Icons For Figma

09:10
18

Matching The Stroke Of Our Icons

05:16
19

How To Use Plugins In Figma For Icons

04:31
20

Class Project 03 - Icons

03:48
21

How to Use Pages in Figma

08:31
22

How to Prototype in Figma

10:46
23

Prototype Animation and Easing In Figma

10:53
24

Testing On Your Phone with Figma Mirror

05:40
25

Class Project 04 - Testing On Your Phone

03:51
26

What is Smart Animation & Delays in Figma?

08:44
27

Class Project 05 - My First Animation

02:01
28

Sharing & Commenting on a Figma File with Stakeholders

07:10
29

Sharing & Editing With Other Ux Designers In Figma

06:58
30

How I Get Inspiration For Ux Projects

06:39
31

How To Create A Mood Board In Figma

05:33
32

Class Project 06 - Moodboard

01:26
33

How to Work with Columns & Grids in Figma

13:54
34

Tips, Tricks, Preferences, and Weirdness in Figma

07:21
35

Color Inspiration & The Eyedropper In Figma

06:34
36

How To Create A Color Palette In Figma

09:02
37

How to Make Gradients in Figma

07:09
38

How to Create & Use Color Styles in Figma

08:01
39

Class Project 07 - Colors & Columns

04:00
40

Fonts on Desktop vs in Browser in Figma

01:30
41

What Fonts Can I Use? Plus Font Pairing In Figma

06:01
42

What Common Font Sizes Should I Choose In Web Design?

11:30
43

How to Make Character Styles in Figma

06:36
44

Lorem Ipsum & Placeholder Text In Figma

04:28
45

Useful Things To Know About Text In Figma

09:35
46

How To Fix Missing Fonts In Figma

02:42
47

Class Project 08 - Text

05:19
48

Drawing Tips And Tricks In Figma

09:38
49

Squircle Buttons with ios Rounded Courses In Figma

02:48
50

Boolean, Union, Subtract, Intersect and Exclude with Pathfinder in Figma

07:25
51

What Is The Difference? Union vs Flatten In Figma

03:36
52

Class Project 09 - Making Stuff

03:29
53

Smart Selection & Tidy Up in Figma

08:40
54

Do I Need To Know Illustrator With Figma?

04:15
55

Tips & Tricks For Using Images In Figma

06:11
56

Masking & Cropping Images In Figma

09:12
57

Free Images & Plugins For Figma

02:31
58

Do You Need Photoshop For Ux Design In Figma?

10:40
59

Class Project 10 - Images

01:17
60

What Is Autolayout & Expanding Buttons In Figma?

10:27
61

Class Project 11 - Buttons

01:15
62

Auto Layout For Spacing

05:47
63

How To Use Constraints In Figma

08:22
64

Combining Nested Frames Auto Layout & Constraints in Figma

11:54
65

Adding Text Box Autoheight to Autolayout in Figma

08:27
66

Class Project 12 - Responsive Design

02:19
67

Nice Drop Shadow & Inner Drop Shadow Effects In Figma

05:56
68

Blur Layer, Background Blur & Image Blur in Figma

05:57
69

How to Make Neumorphic UI buttons in Figma

07:37
70

Class Project 13 - Effects

01:53
71

How To Save Locally & Save History In Figma

05:42
72

What are Components in Figma?

06:19
73

Updating, Changing & Resetting Your Components

07:47
74

You Can’t Kill Main Components In Figma

07:22
75

Where Should You Keep Your Main Components In Figma

05:02
76

Intro To The Forward Slash / Naming Convention In Figma

08:55
77

Class Project 14 - Components

00:44
78

How To Make Component Variants In Figma

06:41
79

Another Way To Make Variables In Figma

06:14
80

How to Make a Multi Dimensional Variant in Figma

11:13
81

Class Project 15 - Variants

01:41
82

How To Make A Form Using Variants In Figma

12:52
83

Class Project 16 - Form

01:27
84

Putting It All Together In A Desktop Example

19:44
85

How To Add A Popup Overlay Modal In Figma

03:03
86

How To Make & Prototype A Tool Tip In Figma

07:26
87

What are Flows in Figma?

05:39
88

Slide In Mobile Nav Menu Overlay In Figma

03:55
89

Class Project 17 - Prototyping

01:10
90

How To Pin Navigation To The Top In Figma

10:17
91

How To Make A Horizontal Scrolling Swipe In Figma

06:36
92

Automatic Scroll Down The Page To Anchor Point In Figma

04:50
93

What are Teams vs Projects vs Files in Figma?

05:18
94

How Do You Use Team Libraries In Figma

11:03
95

The Difference Between Animation & Micro Interactions

02:55
96

Animation With Custom Easing In Figma

25:36
97

Class Project 18 - My Second Animation

01:54
98

How To Make Animated Transitions In Figma

12:34
99

Class Project 19 - Page Transition

01:31
100

Micro Interactions Using Interactive Components In Figma

05:54
101

Micro Interaction Toggle Switch In Figma

04:23
102

Micro Interaction Burger Menu Turned Into A Cross In Figma

04:23
103

Class Project 20 - Micro Interaction

01:35
104

How To Change The Thumbnail For Figma Files

04:10
105

How To Export Images Out Of Figma

07:40
106

How To Share Your Document With Clients & Stakeholders

07:09
107

Talking To Your Developer Early In The Figma Design Process

03:55
108

Sharing Figma With Developers & Engineers Handoff

06:07
109

What Are The Next Level Handoffs Aka Design Systems

03:18
110

Class Project 21 - Finish your design

04:57
111

What Next?

06:08

Lesson Info

Combining Nested Frames Auto Layout & Constraints in Figma

Hi, everyone in this video, we are going to combine a few features that we have already learned. Ok. We are going to look at kind of nesting frames within frames. We're going to look at auto loud constraints. We're going to make something like this where it is a nice little card. You can kind of see it here but it's scalable and reasonable. OK. And I can change the text. OK? So we're gonna combine the auto out stuff. Remember we did buttons so the box adjusts and get bigger and smaller plus the constraints which locks it in down the bottom. Just kind of a another use case to hopefully deepen our understanding of some of these things we've been learning. It is really cool as well. Once you've done that, if I go and copy and paste it, say to our mobile version, let's say that I really don't like my features in this one. Ok. I'm gonna change them up. I'm gonna use a different one. Ok? But you can see look getting ready for mobile. OK? Text adjusts everything's the same, it's reusable and ...

it's good to see a kind of another use case of some of those things we've been learning. All right, let's jump in. I'll show you how to do it all. All right, to make the combination, we are going to do it on our lonely old desktop. OK? We haven't done much on this one and this is I'm gonna use leave this here just so we can recreate it. So you know where I'm heading. OK? We'll change that color box out with an image. So first up turn on the grid. It's easy on a Mac. It's control JG. Sorry. OK. PC. I can't even remember what it is because it's way too hard. But we all remember the other shortcut. OK. Command forward slash. OK? And you can type in grid and just look at it here right at the top. All right. Uh So I want to draw a rectangle and we're kind of learning that uh rectangles are just like frames but with extra benefits. So instead of using the rectangle tool, I often will start with a frame. OK? So I'm gonna start with this frame. I'm gonna go out maybe four of these. Give it a background fill. Let me use one of my styles. OK? We'll start with that one and now I'm gonna turn columns off. OK? You notice there that the shortcut was already kind of preloaded when I went to uh command forward slash control forward slash cos it remembers the last thing. So you can actually kind of toggle between these things. I just hit, enter on my keyboard doesn't work for every single shortcut, but a lot of them do just toggle on and off. All right. So we've got this, it's a frame. Let's call it. I'm gonna call it card slash feature. OK? And now I want to put that rectangle in the inside. OK? That one there, let's move you across, grab me a frame. OK? And again, I could use a rectangle tool. Might as well just use a frame. OK? And I'm gonna drag this out roughly like this. Give it a fill of actually pick a color and I'm gonna break it and switch it to black. I'm gonna use my sweet short cut of just five along the top. You see it changes the layer to 50%. Now inside of this thing, we're gonna call this takes block. I don't know. Um let's grab the text. I'm putting it inside this thing and on top only to save time because remember if we made a rectangle and a text block and then we try and add things like constraints and auto layout, which I want, OK? Because I want it to be stretchy. Remember we can update that text and it gets bigger and smaller. It will do it anyway, it will convert it to a frame. So I might as well start with a frame and put the text inside of it. So I got it selected if I click there, you'll notice that it's gone inside that frame, you can drag it in afterwards. Let's go comfort. Now, a couple of things that bullet point just appeared because I used the hyphen that one there and it assumes that you mean, uh, a bullet point. So it's going to automatically changed it if yours does change and you don't want it to, you can go turn bullets off under the text thing. Now, uh problem with using that sweet shortcut of 50%. We've kind of learned this before that uh this frame parent frame, 50% does everything inside of it. 50%. That's not what I want. OK? Because it's, the text is getting washed out. So I'm going to go back to 100% who remembers how to go back to 100% 0 on your keyboard. OK? And actually just this part of it, just the fill, not the stroke, just the fill down to 50% ok? We're being a bit more specific. So we've got this frame. If I reorder it, it's not quite working. So let's get the first bit going. Let's get this frame to stick to this side. OK? And that is when we're looking at constraints. So there's kind of like three big topics here, right? There's nested frames which we've already done. So I've got this kind of outer frame slash rectangle with this inner frame slash more rectangles with text inside of it. So that bit's done. Uh We're also talking about constraints and so I want this parent thing to actually stick to the right now. Grab the parent frame squidge it around we and in my case, probably I want it to be the bottom because uh not the top. OK, because I'm going to resize this on different uh different layouts. So I'm going to say text block, you are stuck to the bottom. Now when you are new, you will find, it's very hard to know which of these you'll end up. Kind of just going this one and playing around with it, testing it, this one, testing it the inside one. Ok. So don't worry if you are that person, that's what everyone is after a while you get used to it. All right. So that's doing that part. Next bit I wanna do is I want to say, you know, I want two of these and the next one's going to be, you know, recycling. Ok. So I want it to adjust. So that is nothing to do with constraints. It is to do with the auto layout. Now, that's kind of confusing because we've used auto layout to do that fun stuff in the last videos. OK. Where it added things and replaced things. But remember we also used auto layout for that button that just got bigger and smaller, same feature, a couple of different uses. So let's add it all out and it shrunk it up which I'll fix in a second. But hopefully now it's going to work and it's pushing out from that way because the parent is stuck on the right. OK. Let's get that bit of spacing right again. I'm gonna undo it until, can you notice that? Like basically what it wants to do is put even spacing either side, I'm gonna go undo. There you go. So say you want to retain this. I don't really like it that long, but I wanted to show you an extra little feature in here while we're here. OK. It is the inspect, we're going to use, inspect later on in the course more. But it's kind of handy here. If I click on it, you can kind of just move your mouse. I'm not doing anything. Can you see? It's telling me all sorts of spacing based on the thing I have selected. I have the text box selected. So it's telling me the space on the inside of here, which is cool uh from the distance from the outside. I want the distance in here. OK. So I have to select on the text and it will tell me all sorts of stuff about the text. Like how far away is this from the parent? 5624 on that side? Ok. Away from this, I can click on the card and it will tell me the distance between that and the sides. There is a shortcut for it. That I use quite a bit. So I'm back on design as click on comfort and just hold down the option key on a Mac old key on a PC and it just kind of like temporarily jumps to it. Ok, so anyway, uh 56 is what I want. So let's go to let's go and make the text block auto loud. Why do we do to that one and not the text that can be confusing. Try it again. The other thing is what says the text can't do auto loud. That's why you can't do it to it because it is not a frame, auto layout can only apply to frames. There you go. Let's go to. What are we doing? I can't remember. Oh yeah, or loud. There we go. And it just jumped it in there and you're like, don't worry, I can find the padding. Where's that padding? It's hiding in here. You kinda can do it on mixed. OK. Uh That's all of the padding. This one here shows you the individual ones. So what was it? 56? Not, let's just do 5016. Come on. All right. So hopefully now uh let's give it a go. It adjusts. We can make more than one version gonna turn my columns back on. Look at that, let's make one command D control D on a PC and this one here is going to be recycling and the other one is gonna be base OK. Reusable. Awesome adjustable. And then, and then when I go, I can't need these guys to go to my mobile version. OK? I go over to this. I'm making an alternative, say I'm making an alternative uh product details. Page cos I've decided that I don't like that layout. OK? I'm gonna go into here. Actually, I just paste one of them. Got too many. You go, wait, you go away. Let's turn on the grids for this one. You same shortcut. I'm using command forward slash or control forward slash. I turn them all off. Good work. None of them are coming on for this one. I don't know why. Uh So now I can go, you and I can say actually I want this one to be on mobile, maybe like that to get the point, I guess. Um Is, it's a lot of work. It's not a lot of work. Once you've got a bit of experience, that's gonna be the, you know, that'll be your journey. There'll be a time where you actually will spend half a day getting this thing to actually work and you're like, it's not worth it. It took me half a day. I could just draw some rectangles then um And then there'll be a point where you're like, actually, I need to reuse this across a bunch of different things. It's, it's worth spending the time. OK. So um yeah, let's here we go. Um Let's switch out images. And tidy that part up because I want it to be like at the beginning with this image inside, I'm gonna show you something that problem. Not really a problem. And so the outside card feature frame, OK? I'm gonna say I don't wanna fill in here. I want a image. Great. I want so often start to go a bit fast with some of the things and just, I don't know, we're starting to get a bit better, aren't we getting a little bit faster? OK. I've got my thing and my image in here, it's stretchy, which is awesome. The problem is, is the framing is not right. OK. So I'm gonna have to switch it from fill to crop. OK? And I'm just gonna drag this down, holding shift. OK? So it goes in a straight line. Great. The trouble is my stretchiness is kind of broken a bit. The text is still good, but the image doesn't adjust. It's just one of the drawbacks of switching it to crop. OK. So if I do decide to kind of go all like this, I have to kind of select the outside frame, click on my image and go fill crop, drag it down. There's a bit of that going on. There might be a nicer solution later on in fig a in the future, but that's the kind of solution at the moment. So I'm going to switch out these images, all right. So I switched out the images and one of the other perks is, well, other perks just throwing another level on there is if I select all of these, I could turn into an auto allow. It's not what I need right now, you know, could rest them play with the adjustments. But we, we go back to just plain old um smart selection. So selecting them all, they all happen to be the right spacing apart. You could reuse the tidy up if they're not, but we can adjust the spacings and probably the funnest part is adjusting these around. So maybe just click the dot once and then drag it around. Need a new one, command D control D on a PC. Super good. All right. That is it. So I hope it was useful to see kind of another working version of some of the stuff we've already learned to maybe hope deepen our understanding of things like nested frames and constraints and auto out. All right. That is gonna be it. Uh I will see you in the next video friends.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials

BYOL_Figma_Cheatsheet.pdf
Exercise_Files_-_Figma_Essentials.zip

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES