A project has many layouts. A component uses the layouts for its own valid faces: cards and boards may have a front and back, screens have outside and inside, dice have numbered faces, and a box has one outside dieline. This tutorial is about how those face-specific sets are organised and how an item ends up with the design it gets.
The layout list
Open the Designs panel, the first tab in the Design editor's left rail.
Everything about ShuffleKit's layout model is visible in this one panel:
Independent face groups. Each valid face has its own section (Front, Back, Face 3 on a die) and resolves separately. A card can use one layout on the front and another on the back; the two decisions don't interact. A die's Face 1 does not compete with Face 2, and a box only has its Outside group.
Rules, checked in order. The layouts that carry a condition come first, in the order they are checked. When a face has more than one, a line above them reads Checked top to bottom. A card gets the first rule it matches. Each row shows how many items it draws right now under the design's name, such as 12 cards, and its rule in a strip below, such as When Type equals living, with Edit at the end. A rule that draws nothing shows its count (0 cards) in amber.
The fallback. The one layout that catches every item no rule claimed. Its line reads Every other card, or Every card on a face where no layout has a rule. If it also carries a rule, the line reads Every other card, and rule 1.
Not used. Layouts that can never draw an item, under their own Not used heading, each with the reason: Never used: "RPG Split" is the fallback. for a second layout with no rule, or Never used: same rule as "…" (rule 2), which is checked first. for a duplicate rule.
A face with a single layout and no rules shows just that layout, reading Every card. A face nobody has designed yet still gets its section, with a dashed Design the back button (or the face's own name, such as Design the face 3). A back with no fallback says so under its rules: a card that matches no rule gets no back.
Each row carries a small preview of the design. Click the preview or the name to open that layout; the open one is highlighted. When another member has a layout open, its row shows their avatar.
Reading a resolution
Take the FRONT group from the example project:
| Section | Layout | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Rule 1 | RPG Split | Type equals "living" |
| Rule 2 | Tarot Portrait | Type equals "space" |
| Fallback | RPG Split | Every other card, and rule 1 |
| Not used | Co-op Art | no condition |
- A card with
Type = livingmatches rule 1 and stops. - A card with
Type = spacefails rule 1, matches rule 2. - A card with
Type = artifactfails both and goes to the fallback,RPG Split. - A card with no Type at all also goes to the fallback.
Co-op Art never draws anything. A layout without a rule can only draw cards as the fallback, wherever it sits in the list. Choose Use for every other card from its ⋯ menu to make it the fallback, and every card that isn't living or space moves to it.
Reordering
Click the small up and down arrows on a rule's row (Check this rule earlier / Check this rule later). Each click swaps the rule with its neighbour. Only rules have arrows: the fallback and unused layouts don't compete on position. Order is logic, not cosmetics.
The classic mistake: a broad rule sitting above a narrow one. If rule 1 is Type is not empty and rule 2 is Type equals legendary, rule 2 never fires because every legendary card already matched rule 1. Specific first, general last.
Creating, renaming and deleting
Three routes to a new layout:
- Add a front design (or back, and so on) at the end of a face's section in Designs: From a template switches to the Templates panel, Blank design opens the new-layout dialog on that face. A type with no templates, such as dice, has no From a template item.
- Import from PSD… in the same Add a … design menu: bring in a Photoshop design. (Export as PSD… in a design's ⋯ menu sends a layout the other way. The Cards page also offers
File → New project from a PDF or Illustrator file...for PDFs and.aifiles with one card per page.) - Browse all at the top of the Designs panel, or Browse all in the Templates panel: a full-window view with a Templates / Your layouts switch. Your layouts shows every layout as a thumbnail, split into Card Front and Card Back, each with a New front / New back tile at the end. This is the better view when you have more than a handful of layouts, because it shows each design at a larger size.
Hover a row in Designs and a ⋯ button appears on the right. Its menu has Change its rule… (or Give it a rule… on a design under Not used; the fallback row has neither), Use for every other card to make it the fallback, Rename, Duplicate, Export as PSD…, Export as SVG… (on the design open on the canvas only) and Delete (after a confirmation). Use for every other card only appears when it would change something, so it is missing on the layout that already holds the fallback.
Export as SVG… reads Export previewed card as SVG… while Preview mode is on, and exports that card. For a die-cut shape, Export shape guide as SVG sits in the canvas size popover (click the size in the header): a blank outline to draw on in another app. See Import & Export.
When the face already has designs, the new-design dialog (and the dialogs for a template, Duplicate and Import from PSD…) asks Which cards use it?:
- Every card no rule claims, the default, makes it the fallback and names the design it takes over from.
- Only cards where… opens a rule row (property, operator, value) so it starts with a condition.
- None yet creates it with no rule, under Not used.
Below the choice, a count says how many cards switch to the new design and shows a few of them.
Duplicate starts on Only cards where… with the original's property already picked, so you only choose the value: a copy is usually a variant for other cards, such as a Rare frame beside the Common one. Its name starts as the original's with "(copy)" and can be changed in the same dialog.
A design under Not used draws nothing until you give it a condition or make it the fallback. While Designs is closed, the header shows an amber Not used chip beside its name to remind you (click it to open Designs), and if you leave Design with it still unused, ShuffleKit asks: "“Co-op Art” isn't used by any cards", with Make default as the quick way out.
Setting the default
Hover a layout in Designs, open its ⋯ menu and choose Use for every other card. It moves to the fallback row. If the layout that held it has no rule of its own, it now draws nothing, and the toast says so. The toast has Undo.
Each face has at most one fallback, and it should be the layout you're happy for an unclassified card to use. In practice that means your plainest, most forgiving design, the one that looks fine even when half its properties are empty. A front always has one; if you never picked one, the first front layout is used. A back has one only if you made one or a back layout has no rule, and a card that matches no back rule otherwise has no back.
Don't put a condition on the fallback. The fallback row has no Edit, because a rule there filters nothing. A front fallback you never picked is simply the first front layout, though, and that one often has a rule; it then shows twice, as a rule and as Every other card, and rule 1. Open that rule and ShuffleKit warns you:
This is the front fallback (★). It catches every card that matches no other rule, so this rule won't hide it from any card. Put the rule on another front layout instead.
The reasoning is worth internalising: a condition on the catch-all can't exclude anything. Cards that fail it still land there, because nothing else caught them. The rule can only ever be true or irrelevant, never exclusionary. What it can still do is win matching cards at its rank, ahead of the rules below it.
A face with only one layout gets a quieter, grey note rather than that warning, because nothing is wrong yet: "Your only front layout. Every card uses it. This rule starts filtering once you add a second front layout." The rule you wrote is valid; it simply has nothing to filter against until a second layout exists, and the note disappears on its own once one does.
Faces, not only card backs
The second face of a card works identically: its own list, rules and fallback. The same applies to a board or mat's Back, a screen's Inside, and any other type with multiple named faces. Dice get the same face-by-face model with numbered faces rather than a shared Back. The face tiles under the canvas switch between faces in one click.
Most card projects need exactly one back, unconditional and set as the fallback. Resist the urge to build more until a real need appears. Every extra layout is another thing that can resolve wrongly. Backs can still show card data: a back connected to the card's art or name draws with each card's own values. See Print & Ship for the product-specific print result.
Checking your work
Four views tell you whether the priority list is doing what you think:
Per face: the counts on each row of the Designs panel. A rule showing 0 cards in amber, or anything under Not used, is worth a look.
Per item: the live preview in Data states the outcome in a sentence, and Why this layout? breaks down every layout that didn't win and why. See Conditions.
Per rule: the rule popover (click a rule's line in Designs) counts live as you edit: "5 of 19 cards use this layout", with thumbnails of the cards it catches and, when rules above take some of its matches, "3 more match this rule but land on a higher-priority layout first." The first number is the one that matters.
Per layout: Preview mode in the editor pages through the items that actually print on the layout you're editing, after the rules above it have taken theirs. A layout that draws nothing previews the cards its own rule matches, and the preview bar says when nothing matches at all.
