Working with Nodes

Nodes are the building blocks that make up the content in a project. They are represented as "layers" in the editor UI.

There are different types of nodes, each with their own set of properties and methods:

  • FrameNode

  • TextNode

  • SVGNode

  • CodeComponentNode

  • UnknownNode

Getting Nodes

Most of the time users will be selecting nodes on the canvas and running plugins based on their selection. The following code returns an array of nodes.

const selection = await framer.getSelection()

You can also subscribe to the selection to by notified when it changes.

function useSelection() {
  const [selection, setSelection] = useState<CanvasNode[]>([])

  useEffect(() => {
    return framer.subscribeToSelection(setSelection)
  }, [])

  return selection
}

All nodes have an unique ID. If you know the ID of a node, you can get it specifically.

const node = await framer.getNode("some-node-id")

It's possible to also get nodes all the Nodes in a Project that match a certain criteria. In these cases you can use the getNodesWith…() set of APIs.

This will return an array of Nodes that match the criteria you set, with options for Node types and attributes. 

// Get all frame nodes in a project.
const frameNodes = await framer.getNodesWithType("FrameNode")

// Get any kind of node that has a background color set.
const nodes = await framer.getNodesWithAttribute("backgroundColor")

This API can also be used to query within a selection. 

const selection = await framer.getSelection()
const selectedNode = selection.length === 1 ? selection[0] : null

// To get all nodes of a certain sub tree
if (selectedNode) {
  const frameNodes = await selectedNode.getNodesWithType("FrameNode")
  const nodes = await selectedNode.getNodesWithAttribute("backgroundColor")
  const nodes = await selectedNode.getNodesWithAttributeSet("backgroundColor")
}

A more complete use case, would be a hook that gets all the background images within set on Frames within a project. Here is an example implementation of that.

function useAllBackgroundImages() {
  const [images, setImages] = useState<ImageAsset[]>([])

  useEffect(() => {
    let active = true

    async function run() {
      // Get all Nodes with a background image set
      const nodes = await framer.getNodesWithAttributeSet("backgroundImage")

      // Use a Map to remove duplicates
      const uniqueImages = new Map<string, ImageAsset>()

      for (const item of nodes) {
        const image = item.backgroundImage
        if (!image) continue

        uniqueImages.set(image.id, image)
      }

      if (!active) return
      setImages(Array.from(uniqueImages.values()))
    }

    run()

    return () => {
      active = false
    }
  }, [])

  return images
}

Creating Nodes

Create a generic frame node. This creates a frame on the canvas

framer.createFrameNode()

To add text to the canvas

framer.addText()

Other more specific nodes can be used to add text, images or code components. See docs on how to create them:

Traits

Traits are a way to differentiate between kinds of nodes, or nodes with specific attributes.

For example, to check if the selected node is text, we can use the isTextNode trait function:

const selection = await framer.getSelection()

for (const node of selection) {
  // We need to check what the node is because 
  // the `setText` method is only available on 
  // text nodes.
  if (isTextNode(node)) {
    node.setText("Hello!")
  }
}

Other trait functions for checking the node type include:

  • isFrameNode

  • isTextNode

  • isSVGNode

  • isCodeComponentNode

Traits can also be used to check if a node has a specific attribute. This is useful because different node types may have similar attributes. For example, all nodes have a position.

To check if a node has a specific attribute, use a trait function that begins with the word "supports".

For example, logging out all the locked layers that support setting a background image:

const selection = await framer.getSelection()

for (const node of selection) {
  if (supportsBackroundImage(node) {
    console.log(node)
  }
}

Some other trait functions for checking node attributes include:

  • supportsPosition

  • supportsVisible

  • supportsRotation

  • supportsBackgroundGradient

  • supportsBorderRadius

To see a full list, check the types file index.d.ts.

Replicas

Every node has a `isReplica` property that indicate if the node is a replica. Replica nodes are used within non-primary Breakpoints and Component variants and inherit attributes from the primary variant or breakpoint. Once a specific attribute is overridden on a replica node, it is no longer inherited from the primary node and is instead set on that replica.

Children & Parents

If you need to access the children or parents of a layer, you can do that via the getParent() or getChildren() async functions.

Working with Async Layer APIs

Example of combining async APIs for layers.

useEffect(() => {
  let active = true;
  
  async function run() {
    if (!active) return;
    
    const parentNode = selection[0];

    if (!parentNode || selection.length !== 1) {
      setState(null);
      return;
    }
  
    const layerPromises = [parentNode.getChildren(), parentNode.getRect()]
    const [children, parentRect] = await Promise.all(layerPromises)
  
    // Exit to not support no selection or multiselect
    if (children.length !== 1 || !parentRect) {
      setState(null);
      return;
    }
  
    const singleChild = children[0];
    const childRect = await singleChild.getRect()
    
    if (!childRect) {
      setState(null);
      return;
    }
  
    setState({
      parent: parentNode,
      child: singleChild,
      parentRect,
      childRect,
    });
  }

  run()
  
  // cleanup function
  return () => {
    active = false;
  };
}, selection)

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