Starter Kits – IMG.LY Blog

Starter Kits: A New Way to Use and Configure Our Editor

João — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:14:54 GMT

When we built the first version of CE.SDK’s mobile editors, we optimized for speed and ease of integration. We designed a set of ready-made solution editors: Photo, Design, Video, Postcard, and Apparel Editor. Each is built around the use cases we believed would meet the needs of most of our customers. With one component and a license key, you had a full creative editor running in your app. That approach got products to market fast, and for many teams it was exactly the right starting point.

But products evolve, and so do the needs around it.

As integrations matured, teams needed deeper configuration, more granular control, and the ability to shape the editor into something uniquely theirs. What starts as “give us a working photo editor” becomes “give us our photo editor.”

That’s why, starting with CE.SDK v1.73 on iOS and Android, CE.SDK evolves from a set of preconfigured solution editors into a single, flexible Editor foundation paired with Starter Kits: complete, working editor projects that you own, customize, and control entirely.

Here’s what that means and why it’s worth it.

What changed

Previously, you integrated CE.SDK by dropping in a solution-specific component: PhotoEditor, DesignEditor, VideoEditor, ApparelEditor and PostacardEditor. Each came with built-in UI, default behaviors, and preconfigured toolbars. You could adjust some of it through configuration APIs, but the foundation was managed internally by our SDK.

With v1.73, those components are replaced by a single Editor entry point that starts minimal without any configuration and a set of Starter Kits that provide the full experience you’re used to.

Each Starter Kit matches a previous solution: Photo, Design, Video, Postcard, and Apparel. You download it, drop it into your project, and you have the same editor as before.

With Starter Kits, the setup becomes explicit and lives in your own codebase. Instead of relying on built-in defaults inside a prebuilt solution, you start from a ready-made configuration structure that you can inspect, own, and change directly.

And if none of the starter kits match your needs, you can build your own editor from scratch using our configuration directly.

Before, you were always starting from one of the predefined solutions and trying to bend it to fit your use case, which was limited and often frustrating. Now, the building blocks are there for you to assemble however you want.

What are the benefits?

The full picture in one place

Configuration used to be spread across multiple APIs and documentation pages. It wasn’t always clear what you could customize, where to find the right setting, or whether a particular behavior was even exposed for modification.

With a starter kit, the configuration is the documentation. Open the configuration file, and you see every callback, every toolbar item, every setting, the complete scope of what the editor does.

This also makes production behavior safer. Critical parts of the editor setup are now explicit in your code rather than implied by SDK defaults. Your team can see exactly what is configured, why, and review changes through your normal development process.

More control and capability over your editor

Starter kits unlock customizations that were simply not possible before: restructure how the editor initializes; inject custom logic between loading phases; defines layouts from the ground up; build workflows that are unique to your product; and more.

The old configuration APIs drew a line between “customizable” and “not customizable.” Starter kits erase that line. If you can see it in the code, you can change it.

In simple terms, you can now adapt the editor to your product, instead of adapting your product to the editor, and this was one of our main drivers.

Opt in, never opt out

Until now, an SDK update could introduce visible changes to your editor, like a new toolbar button, a different menu option, a changed default, without you asking for it. Your release process had to account for UI changes that came from a dependency, not from your team.

With CE.SDK v1.73, that dynamic is reversed. SDK updates bring new features, engine improvements, performance gains, and bug fixes. But your editor UI stays exactly as you left it. New features and components become building blocks you adopt on your own schedule, documented, with examples, and ready when your implicit decide to add them. Nothing shows up in your product unless you put it there.

Two paths, your choice

Start from a Starter Kit
Download the one that matches your use case, run it, and customize from there. Each kit is a proven, production-ready structure that handles the complexity of editor setup so you don’t have to figure it out from scratch. Most teams will take this path.

Build from scratch
If you have very specific requirements or prefer to architect everything yourself, the Editor view accepts raw configuration directly. The starter kits serve as comprehensive, living reference implementations. Even if you never use them directly, they show you exactly how every piece fits together.

The engine you rely on hasn’t changed

It’s worth saying clearly: the core of CE.SDK, the rendering engine, export pipeline, asset handling, performance characteristics, and everything that powers the creative experience is unchanged. We improved how you configure and integrate the editor, not what powers it.

The Tradeoff

The old one-component integration was genuinely convenient for getting started. With starter kits, you have a small module in your project, a handful of well-organized files that you own and maintain.

We believe this is the right tradeoff for any team building a real product. The moment you need to customize anything you’ll be able to clearly structured and to modify without limits.

At its core, this change is about moving from implicit behavior to explicit control, and we believe that is the better long-term contract with our customers. Your editor should not change in meaningful ways unless you decide it should. Your upgrade path should be predictable. And your team should be able to understand the integration by reading its own code.

Getting Started

We’ve written detailed migration guides that walk through every change with before-and-after examples. Each guide also links to the starter kit repositories for your platform:

	iOS	Android
Migration Guide	Upgrading to v1.73	Upgrading to v1.73
Photo Editor	GitHub	GitHub
Design Editor	GitHub	GitHub
Video Editor	GitHub	GitHub
Postcard Editor	GitHub	GitHub
Apparel Editor	GitHub	GitHub

We’re here to help with the transition. If you have questions, reach out to our support team or open an issue on the starter kit repositories.

CE.SDK v1.69 Release Notes

Neslihan — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 18:29:53 GMT

v1.69 is the biggest developer experience release we’ve shipped. Agent Skills collapse the time from idea to working editor from days to under a minute. Production-ready Starter Kits eliminate days of boilerplate setup. PPTX and Canva Importer lets users bring their existing designs directly into your editor. And a comprehensive video overhaul across Web, iOS, and Android closes the gap between CE.SDK and native professional editing apps.

Let’s dive in!

Introducing IMG.LY Agent Skills for CE.SDK

The biggest change to CE.SDK’s developer experience since launch.

AI agents have changed how developers build. With Agent Skills, CE.SDK works natively with your AI agent.

Install the plugin for Claude Code or Cursor and your AI coding agent becomes a CE.SDK expert with bundled access to guides, API references, and starter kits across 10 web frameworks. No external services, no MCP servers, no context-switching.

What your developers can now do:

/cesdk:build — Describe a use case in plain language. The agent detects the framework, pulls the right starter kit, and scaffolds a working project autonomously.
/cesdk:explain — Ask any CE.SDK implementation question and get answers adapted to the specific framework and experience level.
/cesdk:docs-[framework] — Retrieve guides and API references directly from the IDE, without leaving the editor.

For your product, this means: developers prototype in minutes, not days. Non-technical team members can now build and extend functional editors independently. And onboarding new engineers to CE.SDK shrinks from a multi-day ramp to a single session.

→ Quick Start & Full Announcement
→ Explore Agent Skills Documentation

Launch in Minutes with Production-Ready Starter Kits for Web

Previously, getting CE.SDK running in a real product meant adapting complex demo projects: stripping features, adjusting architecture, and undoing assumptions baked into example code.

Starter Kits replace all of that with pre-configured, production-ready editor UIs.

Specialized kits for Photo, Video, and Design editors are scoped, clean, and immediately deployable. Each kit starts with a focused feature set. You explicitly opt in to what you need, so your UI stays performant and your users don’t see capabilities they can’t use.

For your product, this means: a functional, shippable editor in minutes rather than days of setup. Clean architecture from day one, without accumulating technical debt.

→ Explore Starter Kit Documentation

Let Users Bring Their PPTX & Canva Designs to CE.SDK

Some customers don’t start from scratch. They have existing creative assets locked inside PowerPoint and Canva — and until now, bringing those into CE.SDK required manual recreation.

The new PPTX Importer removes that barrier.

Users can import native PowerPoint files or export Canva designs as PPTX and bring them directly into your CE.SDK-powered editor, with layouts, elements, and structure intact.

→ Try the PPTX Import Demo
→ View PPTX npm

Professional-Grade Video Editing Across Platforms

This release expands CE.SDK’s video features across web & mobile platforms.

Control Video Speed (iOS & Android)

Users can now adjust the playback speed of video and audio clips via a dedicated Speed UI. This has been one of the most-requested mobile features and is now available on both platforms.
→ View Video Speed Documentation iOS
→ View Video Speed Documentation Android

Create Video Groups in the Timeline (Web)

Multiple clips can now be combined into a single manageable unit with synchronized timing, trimming, and a unified timeline representation.

This enables complex, multi-layer content production and speeds up the design process.

Video Timeline Now Grows Automatically (Web)

The timeline now automatically adjusts its height based on content. Manual track configuration is gone, and complex projects are easier to pick up for your new users.

Use a Clutter-Free iOS Timeline (iOS)

Non-video tracks now show a single thumbnail per clip, reducing clutter in multi-layer timelines on your iOS app.

Full Changelog

See all technical details, breaking changes, and performance improvements in the v1.69.0 Changelog.

Thank you for building with IMG.LY.