Framer Tutorial: Components with Interactions, Variants and Variables

Introduction

This tutorial will guide you through creating interactive components in Framer, including buttons, toggles, feature blocks, and accordions. By the end of this guide, you will understand how to leverage variants, variables, and interactions to enhance your web design projects.

Step 1: Creating a Simple Button

• Open Framer and create a new project.
• Add a button component by dragging it onto the canvas.

Customize the button's appearance

• Change the text to your desired label (e.g., "Click Me").
• Adjust colors, sizes, and fonts in the properties panel.

Add an interaction

• Select the button and navigate to the "Interactions" panel.
• Choose an action (e.g., "On Click") and define what happens (e.g., navigate to another page).

Step 2: Developing an Interactive Toggle

• Select the frame where you want the toggle to be placed.
• Drag a toggle component onto the canvas.

Customize the toggle

• Change its label to something meaningful (e.g., "Enable Feature").
• Adjust colors and sizes to match your design.

Set up interactions

• In the interactions panel, define the action for the toggle, such as changing a variable when toggled on or off.
• Include visual feedback, like changing colors or icons based on the toggle state.

Step 3: Building an Interactive Feature Block

• Create a new frame for the feature block.
• Insert a text component for the title and a second text component for the description.
• Add images or icons to enhance the visual appeal.

Define variants for the feature block

• Use the "Variants" panel to create different states (e.g., default, hovered, clicked).
• Customize each variant's appearance.
• Add interactions to switch between variants on user actions, like mouse hover or click.

Step 4: Creating an Auto-Sizing Accordion Component

• Create a new frame for the accordion.
• Add a header for the accordion item and a content area that can expand or collapse.
• Use the properties panel to set up the accordion's default state (collapsed).

Implement the interaction for expanding and collapsing

• Select the header and navigate to the interactions panel.
• Set an action for "On Click" that toggles the visibility of the content area.
• Ensure the accordion resizes automatically based on the content size.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to create four essential interactive components in Framer: a button, a toggle, a feature block, and an accordion. Each component utilizes Framer's interactive capabilities, including variants and interactions. You can further enhance these components by exploring more complex interactions or combining them in a single project. Start experimenting with your designs and consider visiting the provided links for additional resources and community support!