Role

A role determines the level of access an editor session provides. CE.SDK ships four: Creator, Adopter, Viewer, and Presenter. The choice depends on the user the session is intended for and what the product flow requires at that point.

The decision usually maps as follows:

• Designing or authoring a template → Creator. Full editing access with no restrictions. This is where you lock blocks and configure scopes that govern everyone else who opens the scene later.
• End users customizing within a template → Adopter. Only the blocks the Creator designated as editable are available, and only in the ways the Creator allowed.
• Reviewing or approving without editing → Viewer. The scene renders fully, but nothing can be selected or modified.
• Displaying the design on a slideshow, kiosk, or signage screen → Presenter. Read-only like Viewer, but tuned for presentation playback.

Most products use two roles at different stages. An internal authoring tool boots in Creator mode, and the customer-facing surface boots in Adopter mode. The same .scene file moves between them, and the role decides which editing surface and which constraints apply.

The Creator and Adopter split is the foundation behind a few patterns that appear repeatedly in customer products.

Branded templates for non-designer users. A central design team builds a template in Creator mode, locking the logo position and brand colors. Regional marketing managers, dealer networks, or franchise teams open the same template in Adopter mode and update the headline text or swap the campaign image. The output remains on-brand because the Creator’s locks are preserved within the scene. Digitas Germany used this pattern to power 140+ dealer campaigns across multiple automotive brands. Optimizely used it to serve 1,000+ customers with a brand template editor.

Self-service personalization. Someone ordering a print product like a postcard, a business card, or a t-shirt only sees the fields the Creator marked as editable: name, message, date, photo. Layout, brand marks, and structural elements stay fixed. The Adopter interface shows only the controls that matter for the task, which keeps the experience fast and the output reliably on-spec.

Internal self-service tooling. HR, internal communications, or marketing operations teams open constrained templates and update variable fields like names on a directory page, dates on an event flyer, or copy on a status update, without needing a designer involved. The constraint system guarantees the output remains on-spec regardless of who is editing.

Approval and review workflows. Stakeholders open a finished design in Viewer mode to sign off before production. The scene renders at full fidelity (fonts, effects, layout) but no editing surface is exposed. The same product often pairs Viewer for sign-off with Adopter for the customer-facing edit step.

Digital signage and presentation displays. Products that render CE.SDK scenes onto kiosks, digital signage, or presentation surfaces run in Presenter mode, which strips the editing surface entirely so the design itself is the focus.

A role sets the baseline access level. Scopes refine it per block. A Creator sets scopes on individual blocks that specify exactly what an Adopter can do with each one: selecting, moving, replacing the fill, editing the text.

When the session role is Creator, block-level scopes are ignored and every operation is available. When the role is Adopter, the engine enforces scopes per block. When the role is Viewer, nothing is editable regardless of what scopes say.

See scope for the mechanism, and design-constraint for the template-author perspective.

The active role can change during a session without reloading the scene. The standard preview pattern: build a template in Creator mode, toggle to Adopter to see exactly what end users will see, switch back to keep iterating. No reload, no lost work.

The Design Editor (Advanced) and Video Editor (Advanced) Starter Kits boot in Creator role for template authoring. The standard Design Editor, T-Shirt Designer, and Postcard Editor boot in Adopter role for customer-facing flows. The Design Viewer Starter Kit boots in Viewer role for read-only embeds.