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How I Turned a Repetitive Design Task Into A Single Click with a Custom Plugin
Figma Plugin Design and Development
Project
Add Section, a Figma plugin for creating and maintaining sections with consistent padding
Problem
Figma's section tool lacked custom padding control, making proper file organization too slow to bother with consistently
My Role
Solo designer and developer
Impact
Approved on Figma Community, adopted by the team, and turned a task people were avoiding into a single click
The Problem
I organize Figma files by wrapping flows in sections with consistent padding: 500px around individual flows, 1000px around the groups that contain them. It keeps large files navigable and readable for anyone who opens them.
The problem was doing it properly took 10 to 20 seconds per section. Figma wraps selections in a new section with a fixed padding you cannot control, and since sections do not support auto-layout, every adjustment meant manual resizing. Across a large file, the cost compounded fast.
The team felt it in two different ways. Some people absorbed the cost and spent the time, manually nudging sections into place every time content shifted. Others decided it was not worth the effort and left sections inconsistent, different padding here, a skipped section there. Neither was a good outcome, and the two groups kept running into each other: the ones who cared about consistency were regularly cleaning up after the ones who had given up on it.
The friction was small enough to seem trivial and large enough to quietly damage the quality of every file the team shared.
The friction was small enough to ignore and large enough to matter.
The Solution
I built a Figma plugin that does exactly one thing well: add a section around any selection with custom padding.
- Select any elements, including frames, rectangles, or other sections
- Set your desired padding, horizontal and vertical independently
- Click "Add Section" to wrap the selection precisely
It also works on a single selected element, which Figma's native function does not support. That detail mattered more than it sounds: a lot of the sections I was creating started with a single frame.
What I Learned by Using It
Once I started using the plugin daily, I realized I had solved the wrong half of the problem. Creating sections was faster now. But maintaining them as designs evolved was still painful. Every time content shifted, sections needed resizing, and that was still manual.
I had built a tool for the moment a section is born. The harder problem was everything that happened after.
The Second Feature
I added a resize function based on that insight. Select one or more existing sections, set the desired padding, and the plugin recalculates and resizes all of them at once, consistently.
That is the part that made it genuinely useful rather than just convenient. A file stays consistent not at the moment of creation but across every change that follows.
The Impact
The plugin was approved on Figma Community and adopted immediately by the team. What had been a task people quietly avoided became a single click.
But the more useful outcome was the one you cannot see: the files got cleaner. Not because anyone tried harder, but because the right behavior became the easy behavior.
Check it out on Figma CommunityThe right behavior became the easy behavior.
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Get in touch
viktorpeschka
AmsterdamNL