Components Browser (Beta)
A powerful window to manage and use your design components
The Components Browser: Search for any component and add it to the canvas
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.
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.
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.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.
You can hit the
tab or shift + tab keys to cycle through the three tabs.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
Using the Components Browser efficiently works best by opening it with a shortcut. You can do this in Runner Settings.
Components Browser settings
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
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.
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.
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
Last modified 2yr ago