How to Create an Auto Layout Stack in Figpea

Auto layout is the difference between a group that sits still and a group that behaves — re-pack its children into a stack, keep a consistent gap and padding, and stay tidy as you add, remove, or reorder them. This is a short, practical guide to building one in Figpea, using a simple button bar as the example.

Everything here happens in the editor, in your browser, with nothing uploaded. When you save, the auto layout is stored in your Figpea project — it is never written back into the original .psd, .xd, or .fig you opened.

A finished auto-layout button bar in Figpea: three buttons spaced evenly in a horizontal stack with padding around the group.

1. Group your layers

Start with the layers you want to stack — here, three buttons. Select them and group them (the same grouping you already use for organising a design). Auto layout only applies to a single group, so pick one group to make into a stack.

Open the right-hand design panel and, with the group selected, the Auto layout section appears. (It shows up only for a single group — select a shape, several layers, or nothing and it stays hidden.)

The Figpea design panel with a single group selected, showing the Auto layout section: a direction toggle, a Gap field, a linked four-side Padding control, Primary and Counter axis alignment dropdowns, and Sizing set to Hug contents.

2. Set a direction

In the Auto layout section, choose a direction: None, Horizontal, or Vertical. Setting it to Horizontal takes the children in their current visual order and packs them left-to-right; Vertical stacks them top-to-bottom. The re-pack happens immediately, and a single undo reverts it.

Setting a group's auto layout direction to Horizontal in Figpea and watching its children re-pack left-to-right in their existing order.

3. Add a gap and padding

Gap is the space between children — one number, one undoable entry, and every adjacent gap updates at once. Padding insets the content from the group's frame on four sides; a linked toggle lets you set all four sides from a single edit, or unlink them to drive each side independently.

Tuning a Vertical auto-layout group in Figpea: changing the Gap, switching Padding from linked to independent sides, cycling Primary axis alignment, then setting Sizing to Hug contents so the group snaps to its children.

4. Align and size

Alignment controls how children distribute along each axis — Primary (the stack direction) offers Start, Center, End, Space between, and Space evenly; Counter aligns across the stack. Sizing lets a group either stay a fixed size or Hug contents (resize to fit its children plus padding). Switching to Hug snaps the frame to the contents; switching back keeps the hugged size as the new fixed size.

5. Reorder by dragging

You don't have to reach for the layer list to move things around. Drag a child on the canvas and the stack re-solves into the new order as you drop it — one undoable step.

Dragging a child layer within an auto-layout group on the Figpea canvas to a new position; the stack re-orders and re-solves as it drops.

6. The finished stack

With a direction, a gap, padding, and an order you like, the group behaves like a proper stack: add a button and it slots in; drag one and the rest re-solve. The finished button bar below keeps its spacing and padding after the drag that moved its first button to the front.

The finished auto-layout button bar after reordering: the dragged button now leads the row, spacing and padding intact.

Where to go next

Full reference: Auto Layout in Figpea — every control, the deferred fields that stay untouched, and the import story.
Brought a stack in from Figma? Figma Import (Alpha) explains where imported auto layout comes from and how to edit it.
Auto layout lives alongside Constraints & Resizing — the other reflow feature in Figpea.