Finally dumped Auto Layout after that 3 AM collapse on a client project in Seattle

My entire navigation bar broke apart when I tried to resize a button because I had 17 nested frames and no one told me Auto Layout doesn't handle padding the way I thought it did, so now I'm just using manual constraints and honestly it's way easier, has anyone else hit this wall with Figma's auto frames?

2 comments

2 Comments

diana_bell747d agoMost Upvoted

Has anyone ever had Auto Layout just straight up lie to you about spacing? I set 12 pixels between items and it gives me like 8 or 15 with zero explanation why... drives me nuts.

charlie_stone727d ago

Hit that same wall about six months ago on a deadline and honestly wanted to throw my laptop out the window. Auto Layout feels like it should be simple but then you get these weird gaps or things exploding for no reason and you're just sitting there debugging frames at 2am. Manual constraints are so much more predictable once you get used to them, even if everyone online says you're doing it wrong. Figma really needs to fix how padding works in nested frames cause it's just not intuitive at all. Good for you for making the switch, I think a lot of people are quietly doing the same thing but just don't talk about it.