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Angular Creative Editor

The CreativeEditor SDK offers a robust Angular library designed for crafting and editing rich visual designs directly within the browser.

What is CE.SDK?

This CE.SDK configuration is fully customizable and extendable, providing a comprehensive suite of design editing features, such as templating, layout management, asset integration, and more, including advanced capabilities like background removal.

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Key Features of the Angular Creative Editor SDK

Transforms

Transforms

Execute operations like cropping, rotating, and resizing design components.

Templating

Templating

Build and apply design templates with placeholders and text variables for dynamic content.

Placeholders & Lockable Design

Placeholders & Lockable Design

Constrain templates to guide your users’ design and ensure brand consistency.

Asset Handling

Asset Handling

Import and manage images, shapes, and other assets for your design projects.

Design Collages

Design Collages

Arrange multiple elements on a single canvas to create intricate layouts.

Text Editing

Text Editing

Incorporate and style text blocks using various fonts, colors, and effects.

Client-Side Operations

Client-Side Operations

All design editing tasks are performed directly in the browser, eliminating the need for server dependencies.

Headless & Automation

Headless & Automation

Programmatically edit designs within your React application using the engine API.

Extendible

Extendible

Easily enhance functionality with plugins and custom scripts.

Customizable UI

Customizable UI

Develop and integrate custom UIs tailored to your application’s design requirements.

Background Removal

Background Removal

This plugin simplifies the process of removing backgrounds from images entirely within the browser.

Print Optimization

Print Optimization

Ideal for web-to-print scenarios, supporting spot colors and cut-outs.

Browser Compatibility

The CE.SDK Design Editor is optimized for use in modern web browsers, ensuring compatibility with the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. See the full list of supported browsers here.

Supported Formats

CE.SDK supports a wide range of file types to ensure maximum flexibility for developers:

Importing Media

CategorySupported Formats
Images.png, .jpeg, .jpg, .gif, .webp, .svg, .bmp
Video.mp4 (H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC), .mov (H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC)
Audio.mp3, .m4a, .mp4 (AAC or MP3), .mov (AAC or MP3)

Exporting Media

CategorySupported Formats
Images.png (with transparency), .jpeg, .webp, .tga
Video.mp4 (H.264 or H.265 on supported platforms with limited transparency support)
Print.pdf (supports underlayer printing and spot colors)
Scene.scene (description of the scene without any assets)
Archive.zip (fully self-contained archive that bundles the .scene file with all assets)

Importing Templates

FormatDescription
.idmlInDesign
.psdPhotoshop
.sceneCE.SDK Native

For detailed information, see the full file format support list.

Understanding CE.SDK Architecture & API

The following sections provide an overview of the key components of the CE.SDK design editor UI and its API structure. If you’re ready to begin integrating CE.SDK into your Angular application, refer to our Getting Started guide or delve into the Essential Guides.

CreativeEditor Design UI

The CE.SDK design UI is optimized for intuitive design creation and editing. Key components and customizable elements within the UI include:

  • Canvas: The primary interaction area for design content.
  • Dock: An entry point for interactions not directly related to the selected design block, often used for accessing asset libraries.
  • Canvas Menu: Access block-specific settings such as duplication or deletion.
  • Inspector Bar: Manage block-specific functionalities, such as adjusting the properties of the selected block.
  • Navigation Bar: Handles global scene actions like undo/redo and zoom.
  • Canvas Bar: Offers tools for managing the overall canvas, such as adding pages or controlling zoom.
  • Layer Panel: Manage the stacking order and visibility of design elements.

Learn more about interacting with and manipulating design controls in our design editor UI guide.

CreativeEngine

The CreativeEngine is the core of CE.SDK, responsible for rendering and manipulating design scenes. It can operate in headless mode or be integrated with the CreativeEditor UI. Key features and APIs provided by CreativeEngine include:

  • Scene Management: Create, load, save, and modify design scenes programmatically.
  • Block Manipulation: Create and manage design elements such as shapes, text, and images.
  • Asset Management: Load assets like images and SVGs from URLs or local sources.
  • Variable Management: Define and manipulate variables within scenes for dynamic content.
  • Event Handling: Subscribe to events like block creation or updates for dynamic interaction.

API Overview

CE.SDK’s APIs are categorized into several groups, reflecting different aspects of scene management and manipulation.

Scene API:
  • Creating and Loading Scenes:

    engine.scene.create();
    engine.scene.loadFromURL(url);
  • Zoom Control:

    engine.scene.setZoomLevel(1.0);
    engine.scene.zoomToBlock(blockId);

Block API::

  • Creating Blocks:

    const block = engine.block.create('shapes/rectangle');
  • Setting Properties:

    engine.block.setColor(blockId, 'fill/color', { r: 1, g: 0, b: 0, a: 1 });
    engine.block.setString(blockId, 'text/content', 'Hello World');
  • Querying Properties:

    const color = engine.block.getColor(blockId, 'fill/color');
    const text = engine.block.getString(blockId, 'text/content');
Variable API:

Variables enable dynamic content within scenes, allowing programmatic creation of design variations.

  • Managing Variables:

    engine.variable.setString('myVariable', 'value');
    const value = engine.variable.getString('myVariable');

Asset API::

  • Managing Assets:

    engine.asset.add('image', 'https://example.com/image.png');

Event API::

  • Subscribing to Events:

    // Subscribe to scene changes
    engine.scene.onActiveChanged(() => {
    const newActiveScene = engine.scene.get();
    });

Customizing the Angular Creative Editor

CE.SDK provides extensive customization options to adapt the UI to various use cases. These options range from simple configuration changes to more advanced customizations involving callbacks and custom elements.

Basic Customizations

  • Configuration Object: When initializing the CreativeEditor, pass a configuration object that defines basic settings such as the base URL for assets, language, theme, and license key.

    const config = {
    baseURL: 'https://cdn.img.ly/packages/imgly/cesdk-engine/1.51.0/assets',
    license: 'your-license-key',
    locale: 'en',
    theme: 'light',
    };
  • Localization: Customize the language and labels used in the editor to support different locales.

    const config = {
    i18n: {
    en: {
    variables: {
    my_custom_variable: {
    label: 'Custom Label',
    },
    },
    },
    },
    };
  • Custom Asset Sources: Serve custom image or SVG assets from a remote URL.

UI Customization Options

  • Theme: Select from predefined themes like ‘dark’ or ‘light’.

    const config = {
    theme: 'dark',
    };
  • UI Components: Enable or disable specific UI components as per your requirements.

    const config = {
    ui: {
    elements: {
    toolbar: true,
    inspector: false,
    },
    },
    };

Advanced Customizations

Explore more ways to extend editor functionality and customize its UI to your specific needs by consulting our detailed customization guide.

Below is an overview of the available APIs and components.

Order APIs

The Order APIs manage the customization of the web editor’s components and their order within these locations, allowing the addition, removal, or reordering of elements.

Each location has its own Order API, such as setDockOrder, setCanvasMenuOrder, setInspectorBarOrder, setNavigationBarOrder, and setCanvasBarOrder.

Layout Components

CE.SDK offers special components for layout control, such as ly.img.separator for separating groups of components and ly.img.spacer for adding space between components.

Registration of New Components

Custom components can be registered and integrated into the web editor using builder components like buttons, dropdowns, and inputs. These components can replace default ones or introduce new functionalities, seamlessly integrating custom logic into the editor.

Feature API

The Feature API allows for the conditional display and functionality of components based on the current context, enabling dynamic customization. For instance, certain buttons can be hidden for specific block types.

Plugins

Customizing the CE.SDK web editor during its initialization is possible through the APIs outlined above. For many use cases, this will be sufficient. However, there are situations where encapsulating functionality for reuse is necessary. Plugins come in handy here.

Follow our guide on building your own plugins to learn more or explore some of the plugins we’ve created using this API:

  • Background Removal: Adds a button to the canvas menu to remove image backgrounds.
  • Vectorizer: Adds a button to the canvas menu to quickly vectorize a graphic.

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