Preserving overrides when attaching nested instances

When using the Master plugin to create a component from selected objects or attach objects to an existing component, overrides in component instances are normally preserved. However, when making changes inside of a main component, this process becomes more complex.

How it works

When selecting objects inside a main component and running either Attach Objects to Target Component or Create Component from Objects, you will see the following dialog:

To preserve overrides, Master will attempt to find and update all instances of the main component (which can be a slow process in large files). Without any special handling, overrides for the replaced object will be lost in all instances of the main component it’s nested in.

Option details

• Preserve for entire file — slow for large files

  Searches for all instances of the main component across the entire file to preserve overrides.

• Preserve for this page only

  Limits the search to the current page.

• Discard overrides — fast

  Skips override preservation. Replaced objects reset to default (same as the newly created/swapped instance inside of the main component).

Tip: If you don’t need to keep overrides, choose Discard overrides for better performance.

Showcase

In the video, I’m showing the process of creating a new component from the frames inside of an existing component.

The new component is a status indicator for battery, task or log. It’s nested in the list item component. If I were to simply replace these frames, I would lose all overrides like color, icon and text. However by using Master it is possible to preserve these instances used in the design.

Works like magic!

See also

Learn to attach anything to a component.

Batch swap all instances of a component in the file.

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Made by Gleb Sabirzyanov.
Got questions or ideas? Let's chat: gleb@dominate.design