Creating a Figma plugin is relatively easy. First, you’ll need to create a new file in your project’s plugins folder and name it whatever you want your plugin to be called. (For this example, we’ll call our plugin “Hello Figma!”)
Inside of your new plugin file, you’ll need to create a new Figma module. This module will contain all of the code that will be used to implement your plugin.
Once you have created your module, you’ll need to initialize it by calling the Figma module init function. This function willallow you to specify some important information about your plugin, such as the name of the plugin, the name of the Figma module that it belongs to, and the name of the module that will be used to load the plugin.
Finally, you’ll need to add some code to your module to create the actual plugin functionality. In our example, we’ll add a function called “helloWorld” that will simply print “Hello, Figma!” to the console.
First and foremost, Figma plugins have access to the entire Figma document. This means that your plugin can read and write any data in the document, including layer properties, selection states, and even plugin data from other plugins. This also means that your plugin can potentially disrupt the workflows of other plugins, so it is important to be aware of the potential side effects of your code.
In addition, Figma plugins run in a sandboxed environment which provides limited access to the host operating system. This is done for security reasons, but it also means that your plugin will not have access to any local files or network resources. If your plugin needs to access these resources, you will need to use the figma.io API.
Finally, keep in mind that Figma is a vector graphics editor and not a general purpose programming platform. As such, there are certain things that can not be done with a Figma plugin
Now that we have our plugin code ready, we’ll need to add it to the Figma project that we are working on. To do this, we’ll need to add a new line to the project’s .Figma file.
(For this example, we’ll add the line to the project’s config.).
After adding the line, we’ll need to call the Figma plugin init function once again. This time, we’ll pass in the name of our module as an argument.
Finally, we’ll need to add some code to the “helloWorld” function to actually do the printing. In our example, we’ll simply print “Hello, Figma!” to the console.
That’s it! Your plugin is now ready to use. To test it out, you can simply reload the project in Figma and you’ll see the “Hello, Figma!” message printed to the console.
