Layers and arranging

A design template is a stack. The background sits at the bottom, the customer’s photo goes on top of that, their name goes on top of everything. Layers is the list of that stack, and it is usually a faster way to work than clicking around the canvas, especially once a template has twenty pieces in it. Open it with the fourth icon down the left rail of the editor.

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Reading the list

Each row tells you three things at a glance.

• The small icon on the left says what kind of layer it is: Aa for text, a picture icon for an image.
• The number (#16, #13) is the layer’s number. That is the handle an option set uses to point at this layer, so a customer’s choice knows what to change. Two layers can share a number on purpose, and then one choice drives both at once.
• The name is yours to set. Kid's Name and Choose Pants For 2nd Woman beat Layer 7 when you come back to this template in three months.

The very last row, Background, is the canvas itself rather than something you added.

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Picking a layer

Click a row to select that layer, and its settings appear in the right-hand panel. Hold ⌘ while clicking to select several at once. You can also walk the list from the keyboard once something is selected:

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Reordering

Drag a row up or down to restack it. Whatever is higher in the list is drawn in front on the canvas, so if a customer’s name is disappearing behind their photo, drag the name above it.

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Hiding and locking

Hover a row and three controls appear on its right: a ⋯ menu, a padlock, and an eye.

• The eye hides a layer while you work. Hiding is a working view only, not a way to keep something off the finished product. If a piece should never print, delete it or let an option set decide when it shows.
• The padlock freezes a layer so you cannot drag or resize it by accident. Very handy for a border or a fixed logo you keep nudging.

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The right-click menu

Right-click any row for the rest of the actions. Two more actions live on the keyboard rather than in this menu: ⌘⌥C copies a layer’s style and ⌘⌥V pastes it onto another. Style carries the look, the font, size, and colour, without touching the words. Style one name field the way you want it, then paste that style onto the other three.

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Renaming a lot of layers at once

Renaming rows one by one gets old fast. Pick Bulk edit names & IDs… from the right-click menu and you get the whole template as a grid.

• Switch between Selected and All layers at the top, or narrow the grid with Filter by name or ID.
• Enter, ↑ and ↓ step down a column, so you can retype a whole column without reaching for the mouse. You can also paste a multi-line list to fill a column in one go, which is the quickest way to bring names in from a spreadsheet.
• A badge like ×2 next to a number means two layers share it. That is fine when you meant it, and a bug when you did not: one customer choice will drive both.
• Numbers are whole numbers starting at 1. Leave a cell empty to keep what is already there.
• The Background row’s number is reserved and cannot be edited.

Nothing is applied until you press Save in the dialog, and nothing reaches your live products until you save the template itself.

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Where to next