Components, styles and variables

Make something once and use it everywhere.

Components

Select something and press Mod+Alt+K to make it a component. Every copy you place is an instance: change the component and every instance follows.

Make a component, then use a copy · 0:05
Description

A launch post with its headline selected. The command palette (Command-K) runs Create component (also Command-Option-K): its icon in the layers panel changes. Option-dragging it makes an instance, which follows every change made to the main component.

  1. Select the layer and press ⌥⌘K (Ctrl+Alt+K), or press ⌘K and run Create component.
  2. Option-drag (Alt-drag) it to place a copy: the copy is an instance.

An instance can still be overridden — its text, its colors, its images — without breaking the link. Detach if you genuinely want a one-off.

Variants

A button isn't one component, it's a family: primary and secondary, small and large, with and without an icon. Select the versions and Combine as variants to gather them into one component with properties. Instances then get dropdowns and switches instead of a list of near-identical names.

Styles

A style is a saved set of properties you can reuse:

  • Color styles — a fill or a gradient
  • Text styles — a whole type setting
  • Effect styles — a stack of shadows or blurs
  • Grid styles — a layout grid

Change the style, and everything using it changes.

Variables

Variables are named values — colors, numbers, strings, booleans — organised into collections, each with modes. One collection with Light and Dark modes, or Desktop and Mobile, lets a whole frame switch by choosing its mode rather than by re-styling anything.

Variables can also be bound to text, so a layer reads {{brand.headline}} and the copy lives in one place.

Brand kits

A brand kit is the shortcut for the above: your colors, fonts, logos and copy in one place, applied to a file in a click, so a template arrives already wearing your brand.

Libraries

Publish a file's components, styles and variables as a library and other files can use them. When the library changes, files using it are told what changed and choose when to take the update — a design system that doesn't move under people mid-task.

A library's colors appear in the fill picker's Libraries tab, grouped by library; picking one binds the fill to it. PopCraft's own libraries (Motion essentials, Micro-interactions, Loaders & skeletons, Toast notifications) ship their palette as color variables, so they show up there too.

Under Libraries in the Components panel, Installed packs lists the shader and brush packs you've installed from the marketplace, with how many shaders or brushes each one has. They're yours rather than the file's, so they show in every file on this device. Open a pack's marketplace page from its link, or uninstall it: its shaders or brushes leave your library, and layers already using them keep their copies.