Components name in instances

[chris.bannu]

Hey guys,

I always wondered, why don't I see the name of the main component in my instance? To know which component I'm using, I have to either see at the layer, but what if I change the layer name? Do I guess?

Cheers,

Chris

[Spas K.]

Hey there! To find the main component, you can right click on the instance and then either on "Reveal Component in Assets" or "Edit Main Component".

[chris.bannu]

Hi Spas,

Edit main component simply brings the main components to the stage, it doesn't show the name. Forgot about the reveal components feature, but it would be much easier if the name of the component would exist in the right sidebar.

[Spas K.]

Well... "Edit main..." brings the component to the stage if you deleted it from all artboards and just the instances remain, and you can then also see its name, right? Isn't that why you need to know the name, to find and edit it?

Otherwise, you could have a button with the component name you can click to go to the main component, similar to what Figma has, which would be 1 less click than going the right click and "Reveal component" route 🙂 So I'd say it's not that bad and it's rather subjective.

How does the way it works now impact your workflow? What problem would that adjustment solve? Just trying to better understand the issue.

[chris.bannu]

Let;s say I have two button components, one of them is fixed size, another one has padding or stack, but they pretty much look identical, and in some cases you won't be able to tell which is which. If I edit the main component, I wanna make sure that I don't mess up the entire file by editing one that I don't mean to edit. Since they're pretty much identical, I rely solely on the component name.

[Spas K.]

But you can see the main component's name when you go on to edit it. The name of the main component in the assets panel and its layer name when it's on some artboard are always in sync. You can only rename the instances. And if you make edits to the instance, they only apply to that instance, so you can't mess up your file that way.

[chris.bannu]

I know, but when I look at an instance, and I wanna edit all the instances, I wanna know I'm editing the right component 🙂 And not the other one that looks almost identical 😄 The idea is that the name of the component could be visible when selecting an instance, I can't be convinced otherwise 😛

[Spas K. · Accepted solution]

You will always know you're editing the wrong or right component as you edit it, since you will be looking at its name. I think it's a minor quality-of-life issue, which in the worst case is adding one or two more clicks after you find yourself at the wrong component. I'd argue you should organize your components better, so they're easy to find on a design system artboard or something, rather than solely relying on the assets panel.

But sure, feel free to submit a feature request for it, perhaps its easy enough to add and the team might actually consider it for the near future 🙂