Hello everyone,
Update 0.19 is now officially LIVE! 🎉
This update introduces a wide range of improvements across Card Engine, with a strong focus on workflow flexibility, editor usability, and quality-of-life refinements. Highlights include customizable project file paths, a major overhaul of the text icon widget, more standard-assets, upgrades to the template system, and several editor enhancements aimed at faster iteration and better control.
This will serve as the final update of the year, and I would like to say thank you to everyone who has shared their ideas, suggestions and bug reports throughout the year. You've helped shape Card Engine into what it is today.
Happy holidays, and enjoy the update 🎄
Patch Notes
General
Decreased transparency of the Demo watermark in the editor
Added a check to ensure the project card size config menu only appears automatically once, instead of every time a project with zero cards is opened
Made the Card Engine logo almost transparent in the set project card size window to make it easier to read the text values on small landscape card sizes
Customizable Project File Paths
The app now supports custom file paths when creating new projects
You can now “add” folders to the Project Hub. For example, you move an existing project folder from the current Documents path to another drive. You can then simply click the “Add project” button, find it in the native file browser and then have it reappear in the Project Hub
You can manually edit the custom project paths list in a new Projects.xml file found in the Documents/Card Engine folder
If not set, the project will be created in the default Documents location, matching previous Card Engine versions. Custom Linux paths may be configurable via the new Projects.xml file in the Card Engine Documents folder, but Linux is not officially supported so this has not been tested
Settings files etc will continue to use the Documents folder
Custom path projects can only be removed from the project list in Card Engine. This prevents accidental data loss if a user assigns the wrong folder. The Default Documents path still works as before
Project Hub
Added a new input validator for project names when creating or renaming projects. The only restriction now is the Windows (OS) illegal Filename characters and reserved strings. This means you can finally use space etc in project names
Reworked design of the projects list, to make it look less cluttered
Each project now displays the project folder location below the display name
Added a button to each project for accessing the right-click menu, making it easier to find where to open the project folder, change the project display name, etc
Will now scroll to the bottom of the list when adding new projects
Editor
Enhanced the Bold, Italic, and Underline buttons in the text editor. Now, when text is highlighted, these buttons apply formatting only to the highlighted portion. If no text is highlighted, they continue to toggle formatting for the entire text like before
Will now reselect the text input field after clicking the bold, italic or underline buttons
Added an overlay to the app window when the asset browser is opened for picking an image, making it clearer where your attention is required
Clicking outside the image picker will now close it regardless of deselecting an object or not
Also added the new input validator for when creating new categories and renaming layers, allowing more name flexibility
The editor config panel no longer closes when clicking outside it, allowing easier testing of different settings without reopening it repeatedly
Added toggle options for snapping to center, edge, border, safe zone and bleed zone in the editor config panel
Individual element visibility can now be toggled the same way as layers in the layer hierarchy
Updated the right-click menu shortcut icon in layer headers and added a similar button to the elements in the layer hierarchy to make the additional options more discoverable
Added a solution for recovering highlights lost during image tinting. The shader can now detect bright areas and preserve them using a ‘Highlights’ slider. At 0, the image takes the full tint; raising the value increasingly keeps more of the original highlights
Template system
You can now apply ALL changes from the left-side ‘Apply changes’ button in the Template editor. This should make it significantly easier to apply a bunch of changes without having to click ‘apply changes’ on every single element that was changed
Added headers to the apply to cards window to distinguish between applying changes to all elements and only the selected element
Changed some apply-changes window labels to make it easier to understand what they affect
Added a red * marker to the image and text properties in the apply window, and they are no longer affected by the “toggle all” button. They must be enabled manually, and hovering them now shows a warning that they will overwrite existing text and image content
Added a Layer property to the Apply Changes window. Changing an element’s layer or its position in the layer hierarchy can now be applied to template-derived cards. With this enabled, layer name and visibility will also be applied. Note: layer deletions are not synced, as each card has an independent layer structure.
Updated tooltips on the ‘Apply to cards’ buttons to reflect the new apply ALL changes functionality
Free Starter Assets
Added frame_34 to the Frames category (Standard License)
Added frame_35 to the Frames category (Standard License)
Added frame_36 to the Frames category (Standard License)
Added frame_37 to the Frames category (Standard License)
Added frame_38 to the Frames category (Standard License)
Added frame_39 to the Frames category (Standard License)
Added frame_40 to the Frames category (Standard License)
Added elements_59 to the Elements category (Standard License)
Added elements_60 to the Elements category (Standard License)
Added elements_61 to the Elements category (Standard License)
Added elements_62 to the Elements category (Standard License)
Added elements_63 to the Elements category (Standard License)
Added elements_64 to the Elements category (Standard License)
Added elements_65 to the Elements category (Standard License)
Added Shapes_31 to the Shapes category (Standard License)
Added Shapes_32 to the Shapes category (Standard License)
Added tabletop_icons_239 to the TabletopIcons category (Standard License)
Added tabletop_icons_240 to the TabletopIcons category (Standard License)
TCG/Poker Card Examples
Added 2 new artist-designed example card frames
XML Files
Per element layer height (Sibling index) is now stored in the cards.xml file
Per element visibility is now stored in the cards.xml file
Exporter
Added cut marks around the edges when exporting in Paper mode, making it easier to line up a ruler and trim cleanly with a utility knife. The marks follow the Flow system and stay aligned with cards regardless of size, spacing, or paper format
Added ‘Alternating’ as an option under ‘Order’ (Renamed to ‘Layout’ in the new version). This allows exporting alternating front and back pages
Updated some tooltips for clarity
Decks collection
Will now scroll to the bottom of the list when adding new decks
Color picker
Updated UI design to match the aesthetic of the rest of the app
Text icon picker
The Text Icon Picker widget has been fully overhauled, improving both appearance and functionality to match the quality and features of the rest of Card Engine
Clicking icons in the widget will now select them in the widget and show a larger preview where you can set the color, see the full tag , restore default or change the icon to another one from the asset browser
Color data is now saved per icon for easier consistency
Added a Global Size modifier configurable per icon
Added a Global vertical offset modifier configurable per icon
Added a preview-text to show the icon in a text with all modifiers etc before you click insert
Variables window
Will now scroll to the bottom of the list when adding new variables
Help center
Reworked the ‘help center’ into a much smaller and simpler pop-up window
Removed the ‘Activate/Deactivate Debug Mode’ button. It was originally exposed to users due to an old template sync issue, but the bug hasn’t reappeared in months and is considered fully resolved
Fixes
Fixed the Demo watermark not updating to the new card size if changing project card size with the editor opened
Fixed a bug where the decimal parser could fail to register negative values
Fixed an issue where custom categories would remain open after being deleted
Now uses the actual project folders for last modified data timestamps, instead of cluttering the ProjectData.xml file with it
Fixed the scroll view in the Project Hub not scrolling if the pointer was in between two project rows
Fixed the new-deck-button-text unintentionally changing color when switching to light mode
Fixed some issues with colors in the layer component when switching to light mode
Fixed the rename layer and create category input field-texts not changing color when switching to light mode
Fixed the I-beam cursor not showing when hovering the rename layer and create category input fields
Fixed the + button in the header of the variables window not switching color when switching to light mode
Fixed custom variables fields not switching colors to light mode
Fixed the deck topbars not switching color when switching to light mode
Fixed an issue where rounded corners could fail to apply to some of the cards during the initial loading process, but would be fixed by refreshing the decks list
Fixed the scroll view in the variables window not scrolling if the pointer was in between two rows
Fixed an issue where the tooltip would not show if the cursor quickly entered a tooltip trigger, left it, then returned before the tooltip delay timer reached 0
Fixed file path displays where / and \\ were mixed, resulting in malformed paths