Keep a spec open beside Figma

I make Overlay. Dull case, happens every day. Figma is fullscreen. What you need is a Notion page, a ticket, or the site you're matching. The annoying part is leaving fullscreen to find a browser tab. Design tools are worse than editors about this, because the canvas already ate the screen on purpose.

Can you keep a spec open over Figma?

Yes. Spec, ticket, and the page you're building, over fullscreen Figma. Option-Space shows the panel. Drag a tab to any edge of another and you've got the spec beside the live page, or a column of references next to one wide page. Sizes are still there next launch.

A layout that shows up a lot: ticket and written spec stacked on the left, the implementation URL on the right, wide. Figma stays underneath, fullscreen. You're not zoomed out to make room for a browser snapped beside it. When the question is whether the spacing matches the note, you want the note and the site, not a smaller Figma.

Same if the fullscreen app is Sketch, some design tool in a browser, or Keynote. The panel doesn't know what's underneath. It needs a web page, or a local PDF or image. A screenshot the PM dropped in chat, saved to disk, can sit in a pane. So can the PDF of a deck. Neither has to be uploaded anywhere first.

Borderless mode hides the tab strip when the panel itself is in the way of the canvas. You're looking at the page. The shortcut still dismisses it.

Links in the spec can open in the panel instead of stealing a browser window on another Space. "See the live component" is the usual one. If that link is the only reason you were switching, this is the feature.

When is a second monitor the better setup?

When the reference has to stay on screen while you drag in Figma for an hour. Overlay hides. You can't glance at a hidden panel. Split View will park Figma next to a browser, and then Figma isn't fullscreen and the Space is shaped around the pair.

Use Overlay on one screen, when you want Figma fullscreen again the moment you've read the sentence. Shortcut, check the spec, shortcut, keep drawing. If you're tracing a layout and the reference can't disappear while your hand is on the canvas, use the second display. Don't buy this for a job it does by getting out of the way.

If the spec is a native app and not a web page, nothing here helps. Linear in a browser counts. A Linear I can't load doesn't. Figma's own comments and dev mode are already inside Figma. I'm not those. I'm the spec that lives somewhere else. Notion, a Google doc, a ticket, the production URL.

Same panel over an editor: that page. A personal Figma and a client Figma are a different problem. They stack. Client file fullscreen, the other account in an isolated tab, if you actually need both.

macOS 14 or later. $12 once after the trial. This isn't Wavebox. Wavebox would mean doing the browsing, and eventually the design work, inside another browser. Some people want that. This page is for when the design tool is already open.