Angular Creative Editor

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.

Key Features of the Angular Creative Editor SDK#

Transforms

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

Templating

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

Placeholders & Lockable Design

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

Asset Handling

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

Design Collages

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

Text Editing

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

Client-Side Operations

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

Headless & Automation

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

Extendible

Easily enhance functionality with plugins and custom scripts.

Customizable UI

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

Background Removal

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

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.

Prerequisites#

Install the latest stable version of Node.js & NPM

Supported Formats#

Creative Editor SDK supports loading, editing, and saving a variety of image formats directly in the browser, with no need for server-side dependencies. Supported formats include:

• JPG
• PNG
• SVG
• WEBP

You can export individual assets or entire designs as PDF, JPG, PNG, or SVG files.

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:

  JavaScript

  engine.scene.create();
  engine.scene.loadFromURL(url);

• Zoom Control:

  JavaScript

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

Block API::

• Creating Blocks:

  JavaScript

  const block = engine.block.create('shapes/rectangle');

• Setting Properties:

  JavaScript

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

• Querying Properties:

  JavaScript

  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:

  TypeScript

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

Asset API::

• Managing Assets:

  TypeScript

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

Event API::

• Subscribing to Events:

  TypeScript

  // 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.

  TypeScript

  const config = {
    baseURL: 'https://cdn.img.ly/packages/imgly/cesdk-engine/1.18.0/assets',
    license: 'your-license-key',
    locale: 'en',
    theme: 'light'
  };

• Localization: Customize the language and labels used in the editor to support different locales.

  TypeScript

  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'.

  TypeScript

  const config = {
    theme: 'dark'
  };

• UI Components: Enable or disable specific UI components as per your requirements.

  TypeScript

  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.

Framework Support#

CreativeEditor SDK’s video editing library is compatible with any Javascript including, React, Vue.js, Svelte, Blazor, Next.js, Typescript. It is also compatible with desktop and server-side technologies such as electron, PHP, Laravel and Rails.

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