Glossary#

The CLS Renderer has many moving parts and it’s important to keep consistent names for things to not get too confused.

Argument: a value passed to a function macro.
Card: The final rendered object made by the generator, does not need to be an actual card. This could also be a token or board, a character sheet, or something not from the table top game space like a letter or mailer, or a sprite used by a video game.
Card Layout Script: The name of the programming language used by the CLS Renderer
CLS Renderer: The app that turns a layout file into cards
Container: An element that contains another element, or the layout if a given element has no container. The phrase “element container” is used to specify the first case.
Compiling: The process of turning elements as described by the user into object usable by the renderer
Data: The CSV based based data that is used to fill in and customize specific elements of a layout.
Element: A portion of a Layout, for example an image.
Expand: To process a value into one that contains no macros or escapes.
Function: A macro that takes arguments. These always compute a return value.
Layout: A template for making Assets. A layout contains data about itself, as well as a number of elements.
Layout File: A file containing a layout written in CLS.
Macro: A piece of text like [asset-index] that returns another piece of text. These are like the variables and functions of programming languages.
Property: A changeable feature of a layout or element, for example width or angle.
Rendering: The process of drawing elements onto a card.
Value: The assigned contents of a property. In width: 1in the 1in is a value.; The term value is also used when referring to the data, where it refers to the specific values available as column macros.
Variable: A macro that does not take arguments. These generally do not compute their return value.