A powerful window to manage and use your design components
The Components Browser: Search for any component and add it to the canvas
Search and filtering sections
Search for all components at the same time or use the groups in the sidebar to filter on a specific set of components. You can also filter to only search within a selected Library.
Inserting components to the canvas
Drag and drop to add components to the canvas. You can also hit return and the selected componets are attached to your mouse cursor to then drop them anywhere ont the canvas.
Replace layers and apply styles
When you have a layer selected on the canvas, you can replace it with a selected Symbol by hitting option + return. When you have one or multiple text or shape layers selected, you can apply a style by using the same shortcut.
Batch rename components
You can drag components onto a group in the sidebar to rename and reorganize them. You can also rename a group in the sidebar to batch rename all of the containing components.
Components Browser: Keep window open setting
With the Keep window open setting turned off, dragging components will automatically hide the window. Hold Shift before you start dragging to keep the window open. You can then drop them on a group in the sidebar to rename them.
Renaming and reorganizing components only works for your open document. To edit components in a Library, open the Library first.
Navigate the tabs: Symbols, Layer Styles, Text Styles
You can hit the tab or shift + tab keys to cycle through the three tabs.
Zoom the thumbnails
The slider in the top left allws you to adjust the number of columns for the previews. Depending on the side of the window it can fit more or less columns in it.
Hit command - or command + to zoom out and in.
Zoom with the slider or with a keyboard shortcut
Set up a shortcut
Using the Components Browser efficiently works best by opening it with a shortcut. You can do this in Runner Settings.
Settings
Components Browser settings
Keep window open
By default, the Browser window closes when you drag any component out, just like Runner Search. You can set it to keep the window open at all times via settings
Thumbnail backgrounds
The background color of the thumbnails matches the system theme by default. You can also force it to always use either light, dark, or transparent backgrounds.
Refresh the results
When you design with multiple documents open, the browser can sometimes manage itself to get out of sync. Use the Refresh button in the toolbar to fix this.
Recommended setups
There are many ways you can use the Browser. Here is some inspiration on what could work for your situation.
Setup: Open the browser window whenever you need and keep the context of your document.
Setup: Keep the browser window open on a secondary display
Setup: Open the window in full screen to maximize the number of search results.
Setup: Keep the browser and document side by side. Hide the sidebar to use the space more efficiently