BYFP: Overview
Hi - I'm Sophie, from Figma's Product Education team. Welcome to the Build your first plugin course!
Plugins enhance your Figma experience. They're like the peanut butter to your jelly, the boba to your milk tea...or the pineapple to your pizza? They're programs built by the community that extend the functionality of Figma and FigJam.
Plugins are valuable pieces of software that let anyone contribute and customize Figma to fit every workflow. Figma's Community has hundreds of plugins that you can install with a single click.
Plugin examples
You can run installed plugins within a file without interrupting your flow.
Want to automate a repetitive task like designing for responsive breakpoints? Combine Brian Lovin's Responsify and Floweare’s Breakpoints plugins. Check out Clara's Figma Tip video to see them in action!
Need a quick way to replace placeholder content with real data? Plugins like Content Reel by the team at Microsoft can help you get this done in a flash.
Plugins, like Mapsicle, let you access a third-party API so you can insert realistic maps into your file. Some plugins also have a relaunch button, so our teammates can relaunch the plugin later and make adjustments as we collaborate together.
Some plugins even let you play games in Figma like Kevin Kwok's multiplayer Pong Game.
About the course
Can’t find a plugin you're looking for? You can build it yourself for you or your team!
In this video series, we'll learn together and build a plugin that creates a customizable post for a social media app design. We'll also show you how to publish the plugin to the Figma Community.
Even if you’re not a programmer, you can still follow along and embark on your journey to becoming a plugin creator. We'll start with a basic introduction, then we'll walk through how to set up your environment, before taking you step-by step-through building your first plugin.
I am so excited to take you through this course. We'll have a lot of fun learning together, and soon you'll be on your way to becoming a plugin developer!
Ready to get started? Sign up for a free Figma account, and download the Figma desktop app which we'll use to develop our plugin. See you in the next video!
Next steps
- Sign up for a free Figma account
- Download the Figma desktop app