Uploaded assets

src: on an Image doesn't have to be a URL. The Assets drawer holds pictures uploaded straight from your machine, so your own art can go on a card with nothing to host and no link to keep alive.

The drawer#

The Assets button in the status bar (with a count badge once you've uploaded something) opens a drawer where you upload images — drag and drop, or the file picker. Each upload gets a name, derived from the filename and renameable anytime, plus a thumbnail and a Copy ref button that copies asset:<name>, ready to paste into a src: line.

Referencing an upload#

Reference an upload with the asset: scheme instead of a URL:

Image: "Portrait"
  x: 2
  y: 4
  width: 16
  height: 12
  src: "asset:dragon_art"

Everything about src: being a Text expression still applies — an asset reference works from a sheet column (src: [art]) or built with interpolation (src: "asset:[art]"), so different rows can point at different uploads exactly like different URLs.

Uploads also work inside text: {asset:dragon_art} in any Text or TextBox text: draws the upload as an inline icon in a one-em slot — see Inline icons.

If the same colored asset fragment belongs at different positions inside many spreadsheet descriptions, wrap it in a top-level Text let and place it with {alias:name}. The resolved-text alias example uses {color:#cc2222}{asset:swords}{/color} so each cell can say, for example, Deal 2 {alias:damage_icon}. without duplicating the asset/color markup.

The 2 MB cap#

2 MB per image — enough for card-sized art at print resolution, not a place for full-resolution photography. The drawer says so if a file is over the limit.

Renaming only updates the library#

Renaming doesn't rewrite src: lines for you — rename dragon_art to dragon and every src: "asset:dragon_art" still says the old name, now pointing at nothing. Update those references yourself; the compiler's unknown-asset warning squiggles exactly the src: lines that need it, so you won't miss one. Referencing a name that doesn't exist yet (or anymore) isn't an error, just that warning — you might be about to upload it.

Where uploads are stored#

Uploads live in this browser's IndexedDB, separately from the code-and-rows autosave: they save the moment you upload them, not on autosave's one-second debounce, and they survive a reload the same way the rest of your project does. Opening or importing another project switches its uploads together with its code and rows — separate stores under the hood, activated as one project.

Uploaded assets always embed in an exported PDF — unlike URL art, they never depend on a host allowing cross-origin use, since the file never leaves your browser.

Exporting a project file bundles your uploads into the file itself — the art, not just a reference to it — so handing someone a .cardgoblin.json hands them the art too. A file exported before uploaded assets existed has no art in it, so the newly imported project starts with no uploads.

Each immutable project ID has its own browser library. Anonymous projects stay on this device; an exported project file is the supported way to move one. Signed-in administrator cloud projects upload reviewed formats under content-addressed keys and restore them with the project on another device.