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Asset: One module to rule all files
The asset module was created by Roger Lopez as a means to handle all types of files without needing to install imagefield, audio, youtube_cck, imce and a couple of other modules. An asset is any type of file that has been uploaded in the asset wizard: images, audio, youtube videos, flash movies, text documents, pdfs,... Permissions can be set to both assets and directories, making them publicly available to anyone, to specific roles or just to yourself. For the new drupal-powered amnesty.org the Amnesty International team needed such functionality, and much more. So for months the asset module has been updated, improved, tweaked and made more user-friendly. All these changes have now been contributed:
- CCK field, with instantaneous in-line preview
- Support for panels to create galleries and a preview block that links to these galleries, in the asset_panels module
- Support for .flv files in the asset_bonus module
- Upload a bunch of files with ftp and import them all with just one click using the asset_import module
- Ability to edit/move/delete assets and folders and to change their permissions
- Lightbox support
- Improved imagecache support
- Improved TinyMCE support
- Better i18n and mullti-site support
- Many GUI improvements
With these changes, the asset module integrates with the 3 most used modules (cck, panels and views) making it very easy to implement and integrate with your current site. Roger Lopez has been making a lot of changes himself in a separate version (currently not committed yet) so I hope to implement these changes as well, such as the use of thickbox instead of a pop-up for the asset wizard.
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Nice!
Checked this out today and am loving it. The interface beats the pants off of IMCE and I can't wait for the cck integration. I'll check your queue and see where I might be able to lend a hand on this. Really great work here.
Aaargh!
And, of course, because it was unknown that this was being worked on, the team at Achieve Internet is being work on Asset Manager (http://drupal.org/project/am). And yep, the code there doesn't work, because the WORKING copy is behind closed doors.
Frustrating to hear of the duplication.
But, of course, the functionality you describe sounds awesome. Will check it out and provide feedback on pros/cons vs. am.module....
Duplication of effort was more Asset Manager's fault
I had the same reaction when I saw the Asset Manager Barcelona DrupalCon presentation. I had that reaction because Asset existed before Asset Manager and the features that Asset provided in it's initial releases was quite good, and IMO, better than what Asset Manager provided even at the Barcelona presentation. I agree that it would have been better had all this new work on Asset been done in full public view.
Where do we draw that line between cooperation and competition? We (The Drupal Developer's) have done this many times. At some point, the competing developer's seems to come together. But for now...
May the best module win!? (Personally, I think it's Asset.)
Diff b/w asset and asset manager
I've installed both these modules (Asset and Asset Manager) and I'm really impressed. I haven't done a thorough comparison but one concern I have with Asset is that it doesn't use the CCK image etc. fields but rather uses its own methods for media handling. I just feel generally uncomfortable with this and wonder what others think.
I like that Asset Manager uses imagefield (although I wish it just used all imagefields instead of a pre-determined "image" node type that uses the "imagefield" cck field). So, I'm left without wanting to use either.
It seems that the simple approach would be a TinyMCE plugin that lets you insert imagefield, videofield, etc. uploads into your content, and this has not yet been developed - or at least I haven't found it.
All around, thanks for a great module! And I would love to better understand why the approach of a new CCK field instead of supporting imagefield etc.
A welcome advancement
I found a link to this page in my scrollback of drupal-support IRC chat and I have to say the idea of installing and maintaining a single module for all media files is a welcome advancement. Many thanks!
I am going to install Asset on a test site right away and will provide feedback in the issue queue if anything strikes me.
Latest version of asset available
Thanks to everyone for the kind comments and enthusiasm. I have been so tied up in client work that (thankfully) Wim has taken the lead in community involvement and development of this module. Several months ago, I began a new version of this module from scratch, mainly because there were so many things that I didn't account for in the original version. This new version is much cleaner on the developer and the end-user side, and will be much simpler to upgrade to Drupal 6.
So after several months of being to busy to do any work on asset, I finally got this new version into shape this weekend. Right now it is only in CVS HEAD, but a proper release will be created when I can figure out a decent upgrade path.
Gallery with Asset?
Thanks for this post, Wim. Well-designed Drupal modules are always a treat. ;) I've been searching frantically for an all-in-one solution for allowing my client to upload images, organize them into galleries, and embed them (and galleries) in pages easily. Does Asset have image gallery functionality? Even though I'm not using other types of files, Asset's streamlinedness makes it sound very compelling. Thanks!
Asset Import and other file types
Hi Wim,
Sorry to bother but relatively new Drupaler here. Wondering how I can get the import module to import other file types other than just image types? Any guidance would be much appreciated.
Many thanks in advance!
Julie
Queue is almost empty
Hey sirkitree, thanks for the positive feedback. I'm very pleased to say that this update almost completely pruned both the bug and the feature queue. What currently is still missing, is proper documentation. I created a GHOP task for this today.
One module instead of a zillion ones
Hey Samantha, first of all asset doesn't just handle images, it handles any type of file and tries to interact with as many of them as possible (flv, audio, video, ...) For this reason we do not want the user to have to install imagefield, filefield, imce, mediafield, embed filter, video filter and what not. People just install one module and it works. They can enable submodules like "asset embed" and "asset youtube" to enable extra features and support and everything embeds nicely.
Having only this one module instead of one module for each type of file enables easier interactions with views and panels. Asset comes with a panels type to easily create galleries and preview blocks. These galleries consist not only of the images but also of the flash files and video's. This doesn't require any type of voodoo: just enable the "asset panels" module and you're ready to go.
To make things easier I updated the "asset import" module yesterday to make a migration from imagefield, filefield, ... a lot easier.
Asset does come with a TinyMCE plugin to manage and insert all these files btw.
Panels integration to create galleries
Hey Alexander, it's really easy to create galleries. You need these modules: asset and asset_panels (which comes with the asset module), panels and cck. You can check the asset panels documentation for a complete guide on how to do this. Feel free to drop a comment if you need more information.
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