Token Types
Sizing

Sizing Token

The Sizing Token was one of the first token types we supported in the plugin.

Since then, a lot has changed.

The Design Tokens Community Group hosts a token specification on the W3C community group pages for web standards. Although it's in draft form, the tools and technologies working with Design Tokens are trying to align with the W3C DTCG specification.

The W3C DTCG specification does not recognize Sizing as an 'official token type' and instead has defined Dimension Token as the preferred token for size-related design decisions.

If we want to fully align with the spec, it requires Tokens Studio to phase out the Sizing Token.

However, we believe the choice should be yours!

  • If aligning with the W3C DTCG spec is important to your project, we suggest using Dimension Tokens instead.
✦

There is no immediate plan to discontinue support of the Sizing Token. We want to build a thoughtful solution to help Tokens Studio users migrate from these 'legacy token types' to Dimension Token if that time comes.

→ If you love Sizing Tokens and want to make your voice heard, we've set up a forum in Featurebase where you can leave your comments!!

Design decisions defined by Sizing Tokens

The Sizing Token defines the height or width of a design element.

Sizing Tokens can be attached to Number Variables in Figma.

→ Jump to the Export to Figma overview for more details on Sizing Tokens as Variables

Design properties

A Sizing Token can be used to define several different size-related design properties.

  • You choose which side of the element you want to apply the token to by right-clicking on the token to see your options.
    • If you click to apply this token to an element without accessing the right-click token menu, size will be applied to all sides.

The following sections appear in the order of the Sizing Token menu.

All

The All property applies the same size value to both the width and height of an element.

Width

The Width property defines the horizontal size of an element.

Height

The Height property defines the vertical size of an element.

Min width

The Min width property defines the smallest allowed horizontal size of an element but allows a larger size

  • It only works on Figma's auto-layout frame elements.

Max width

The Max width property defines the largest allowed horizontal size of an element but allows a smaller size

  • It only works on Figma's auto-layout frame elements.

Min height

The Min height property defines the smallest allowed horizontal size of an element but allows a larger size

  • It only works on Figma's auto-layout frame elements.

Max height

The Max height property defines the largest allowed horizontal size of an element but allows a smaller size

  • It only works on Figma's auto-layout frame elements.

Possible values

The Sizing Token supports numeric values:

  • With or without a unit
  • Negative values

Hard-coded values

When writing the hard-coded values for a Sizing Token you'll want to:

  • Avoid spaces

For example:

1rem

Rem Units

To support responsive design, you can define your Sizing Token in rem units, and the plugin automatically converts the value to the pixel equivalent.

  • For example, a Sizing Token with a value of 2rem will appear as a 32px in Figma.

Rem Units act as a multiplier of the base font size, so when a user changes their preferences to a larger font size or uses a zoom feature in your product, elements defined in rem units will respond accordingly.

The value of 1rem can be configured in the plugin Settings for Base Font Size.

→ Read the guide on Base Font Size in the plugin

Values that reference another Token

When trying to reference another Token as the Value for a Sizing Token, you will see

  • Tokens living in Token Sets that are currently active.
    • In the left menu on the plugin's Tokens page, a checkmark is visible next to the Token Set name.
  • Token Type is compatible:
    • The same = sizing
    • number
    • dimension

However, like all token types, you can "force" a reference by manually entering the token name between curly brackets.

✦

The value will show a broken reference until the originating token set is marked as enabled.

→ Jump to the Token Values with References guide for more details

Values with math equations

All token types that accept numeric values can also accept math equations.

→ Read the guide on Tokens with Math Values for more details.

Transforming Tokens

Engineers typically transform tokens used in code with Style Dictionary, which is tool-agnostic. Tokens coming from Tokens Studio require an additional step: @tokens-studio/sd-transforms, an npm package that prepares tokens for Style Dictionary.

When transforming Sizing Tokens, there are some specific configurations to be aware of.

The preprocessor in the SD-Transforms package will automatically convert the Tokens Studio specific Token Type of sizing to align with the DTCG Format Token Type of dimension.

→ SD-Transforms Read-Me Doc, Using the preprocessor

Token Values entered as a number without a unit will be converted to a number with pixels as a unit.

→ SD-Transforms Read-Me Doc, ts/size/px

Resources

Mentioned in this doc:

Community resources:

  • None yet!

💡 Something to share? Submit it here!

Known issues and bugs

Tokens Studio Plugin GitHub - Open issues for Token Type Sizing

  • Deselecting The "All" Property In Spacing Tokens Removes Other Spacing Tokens #2377

🐞 If you are experiencing an issue not listed here, please reach out to us on the Troubleshooting channel of our community Slack, or submit it on our feedback tool.

Requests, roadmap and changelog

  • None

💌 Visit https://feedback.tokens.studio/ to contribute or subscribe to updates.

Last updated on September 9, 2024
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