Currently when working with multiple documents, if you have overwrites on a component. And you modify that component, and then paste the component or artboard into a file that has an outdated version of that component.

It will paste the components but reset the overwrites and set the component back to it's default state. It doesn't inform the user about why it just resetted all their content. Which can be extremely annoying to the user, as this seems very weird. (Which is why there are also several support tickets of people running into this issue).

After talking with support, I now understand why it happens. However I strongly believe that informing the user about this issue would greatly improve the user experience. We didn't understand why it happened, and as such spend 6 hours readding content to the document.

I have made a simple quick mockup what this model could look like to indicate what I mean. This is obviously just a quick draft, and the style and copy should be better. However I feel like any information to the user would be better then just resetting all overwrites and not telling the user why they where reset. (As it's quite easy to miss if a libary or document assets are outdated)

Selection and operations on multiple objects has a considerable improvement potential to better meet the professional needs.

I would love to be able to conveniently select, then change and also add, subtract to etc. to the relative position of multiple selected elements like in Sketch.

Use case: While cooperatively working with a XD file a designer Ted want's to check, if one specific element used all over his huge design went a little bit off of their desired positions., which causes flickering in the prototype. Optimally Ted does the following:

1. Ted selects the suspected Element to find out the exact name and correct position. It's "Toolbar", X:0 Y:220


2. He uses search in the layer list for the word "Toolbar". If "Toolbar" would be a component Ted would right click > select instances and skip step 3 but it's a group.


3. Ted selects all Toolbars at once in the layer list by clicking the fist one holding Shift and clicking the last one.


4. Ted checks the Transform panel. If at least one of the layers is off, the corresponding input shows dash instead of the relative position.


5. Wow. Both are dashes (good he noticed it) Ted writes "0" at X Position and 220 in the Y


6. Good Job Ted!

What we do instead?

We can't select multiple elements in the layer list if they are on the different artboards or search is applied.

We can't see the relative position of multiple elements, but see absolute values relative to a center of the Pasteboard, even though they all are on artboards and none really cares about values like X:-23615 Y:15566, because they are useless and unexpected.

We can't check if the components were offset until clicking them one by one, which is suboptimal taking into account how many of such instances it could be.

We can define / add subtract / multiply/divide a size of multiple elements, but ... can't do the same with the position. This can be done better.

Hello XD team,

I am working on a large design system and even if a lot efforts have been done on the components in the previous patches, I would like to share my thoughts on the two following points.

I collaborate with product owners, project managers and developers. These profiles have been formed on XD (basics principles and how to use our design system). As far as I know, they struggle on updating values as text or icon within components. They have to click a lot time to "correctly" point on the element they want to update, resulting in a lot of little unwanted modifications (moving elements, changing sizes...). In the end, they are affraid to manipulate the components. It would be great if we could have some forms inputs on the components panel, where they could directly type their content (title, paragraph...), select the icon (dropdown list ?) they want etc... This way, they could adapt the components to their needs without manipulating the layers and actives ; avoiding errors.
Is there any plan to have a min / max width / height for the components ? I would like to create some constraints on my components (cards, buttons, inputs etc) to make them compliant with our guidelines. For now, people can create a 20px or 2000px button which is basically non-sense.

Thank you for your advised feedbacks,
Bertrand

Many of my components have standard locations on an artboard. I would like components to snap to that default location.

At a minimum the default location needs to be specified in the following ways:
a. As an xy co-ordinate from the top left of the Artboard.
b. As centred at a y co-ordinate

However, it would also be good if the distance from the bottom and right-hand side of the artboard could also be specified, and also the distance in terms of fractions of artboard height and width.

I envision the component snapping into the correct position whenever a component is dragged from the component panel into the rough vicinity of its default position.

If it is dragged to a position well away from its default position then it should be placed as it currently is placed.

The same behaviour should occur for components dragged from outside the artboard, and .... if a paste at current pointer location is implemented.

I often create a series of artboards that I want to use in several flows, or more than once in the same flow.

The "return to previous artboard" functionality is inadequate to allow this to happen.

E.g. A series of artboards that show an image being loaded and edited. I want to transition to this series of artboards in many places throughout my workflow, and once I have progressed through these image editting artboards I want to return to the artboard that I was at before I transitioned. Because I am not returning from the first artboard in the set I cannot use the "return to previous artboard" action.

I.e:
< Originating Artboard A> -> <Artboard 1> -> <Artboard 2> -> Return to Originating artboard A

< Originating Artboard B> -> <Artboard 1> -> <Artboard 2> -> Return to Originating artboard B

Currently I have the following options:
a. Duplicate the Artboards (Ie Artboard 1 and 2 in the example above). This means that if I modify the Artboard (1 or 2) I have to repeat the modifications in all the duplicates.

b. Make all the content of the Artboards into a component, one component for each artboard (I.e. a component for artboard 1 and a component for artboard 2). This works for some situations where minor layout mods are made, but feels messy to me, and more importantly does not help if I want to add another artboard.

One way to achieve the required functionality is to llow artboards to be grouped together, and add a trigger action "Return to Artboard previous to group"

A more sophisticated version would be to allow the creation of Artboard level components. I.e. A component that contains whole artboards, and allows modification of things such as layout, triggers and actions, addition of new artboards in the "main component" and overrides in the component instances.

Its becoming tedious and frustrating that when I want to preview the webpage I'm designing, I have to go to EACH component and switch them one by one to their default state.
Then, when I'm going back to designing, I then have to switch them one by one to their hover state to make the changes I want. (I switch them to their default state in the first place because I want to get the full affect and to see the transition so just leaving them in the hover state while previewing isn't really an option)
It would be enormously helpful, and save a lot of time, if it would be possible just to right click on a group layer (or even the entire art-board layer) and select a "Toggle Hover State" or "Toggle Default State" option. This would then automatically switch everything it that group or art-board to their hover or default state!

If there is a shortcut for this already, then PLEASE let me know!