Etiquette for Shared Files
Developing your ideas in a shared workspace can be fun and enlightening, but it does require some care and empathy for your peers. Here are some notes on how to work in our Shared Class File and what to do if something goes wrong.
Navigating the Shared Team Workspace
Community Etiquette
- Make sure to label your work with your name. We’ll go over this later, but there will typically be an area of the file that is just for you.
- Don’t edit someone else’s work — just leave a comment instead.
- Say hello with cursor chat if you want, but if someone doesn’t respond or doesn’t want to chat, respect their wishes.
Collaboration in Figma
Cursor Chat
While working in a shared file, you may see other cursors moving around the Canvas — those are your classmates! You can use Cursor Chat to say hi. Just type a forward slash (”/”) followed by your message.
If you find the cursors distracting, you can hide other user’s cursors with “View » Multiplayer Cursors”
Audio Chat
You can press the 🎧 headphone icon in the top toolbar to enable audio chat. You’ll have to ensure your browser or desktop app has permission to access your microphone.
This is only available to files within our Team workspace. Combined with the other collaboration tools described here, you may not need to Zoom with your instructor and can simply observe demos and chat in the file.
Following and Spotlight
You can follow another user by clicking on their avatar in the top menu bar. This will take over your screen and you will see exactly what they see, as they navigate the Canvas.
You can also request everyone currently active in the File to follow you, by using the Spotlight feature.
Comments
You can leave a comment anywhere in the Canvas by selecting the Comment tool (C) and clicking somewhere. You can reply to comments and thread replies.
While you’re working, you may wish to hide Comments without deleting them forever. To hide comments, press “SHIFT+C”.
You can Resolve a comment by selecting it and pressing the ☑️ checkmark button. Resolved comments can be viewed within the Comments sidebar if you select the “Sort/Filter” button.
Version Control
Figma autosaves your work.
It also includes a version control system that lets you view or recover work from a previous point in time.
The app creates a new autosave “checkpoint” after 30 minutes of inactivity. But there is theoretically a chance that another student could accidentally mess up your design before an autosave checkpoint is created.
My hope is that most exercises can be completed in one sitting. So, when finished, you will usually export your design as an image and submit it to Canvas as an additional safeguard.
How to manually create an autosave checkpoint
The easiest way is to select “File » Add to version history” or use the following shortcut:
- Mac: ⌘+⌥+S
- Windows: CTRL+ALT+S
You will be prompted to add a title to your autosave, which can help you find it in the Version Control timeline later. It will automatically show your username, so you can just write “Finished!” or whatever you like.
What to do if something gets deleted
If you accidentally deleted something: Undo! (Mac: ⌘+Z | Win: CTRL+Z)
If somebody else messed things up:
- Press ESC or click on an empty part of the Canvas to deselect.
- Find the filename in the center of the top menubar, and click the little 🔽 arrow next to the file name to select “Show version history.”
- Explore the version control panel in the right sidebar. You can see previous autosaves (Checkpoints) of the file, including times and users.
- Select a Checkpoint to view what the file looked like at that point in time; you may need to scroll around the Canvas to find the portion you’re interested in. You cannot select or edit anything yet.
- Click the ellipsis button (”…”) and then “Duplicate”
- This creates a new Figma file that you can edit — separate from the shared class file.
- Click the 🔽 arrow next to the file name again, and choose “Move to Project” » then Choose “Drafts.” (This moves your new duplicated file **out of** the shared Team workspace.)
- Select any desired content in the duplicated file and Copy/Paste it into the shared class file.
Other actions available for a given Checkpoint:
- Copy link: Get a sharable link to a specific Checkpoint, if you need to show your instructor for some reason.
- Restore Version: Please do NOT do this. If you restore the File to “Monday” any work done by your classmates on “Tuesday” would still be saved in the version history, but (potentially a lot of) other students would have to laboriously recover their work via the steps above.