Magnolia Assets subapp

Magnolia Assets subapp is a Magnolia-native solution for simple Digital Asset Management (DAM) scenarios. It is installed in the Assets app by the Digital Asset Management module and allows you to manage media assets in Magnolia’s digital asset management system (DAM). You can upload original assets into the system, organize them, perform basic image manipulation operations such as cropping. The assets can be used on the website.

Assets subapp

See also our External DAM integration framework with out-of-the-box DAM connectors for Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Bynder.

In Magnolia 6.2 documentation, the page called Assets app - 5 UI describes the app with artifactId magnolia‑dam‑app-compatibility and configurable using the Configuration app (/modules/dam-app). In older Magnolia branches, the page’s name was Assets app.

By default, this app is hidden in the UI of Magnolia 6.2.

Configuration

The Magnolia Assets subapp is based on the Magnolia 6 UI framework and is stored in /dam-app-jcr/decorations/dam-assets-app/apps/dam.subApps.yaml.

Image manipulation actions such as resizing or cropping are provided by the UI Media Editor module. Configuration of these actions can be found at /modules/ui-mediaeditor/mediaEditors/image, with some of its parts defined in YAML-based decorations under /ui-mediaeditor/decorations/ui-mediaeditor/mediaEditors.

Turning the image thumbnails off in the asset browser

By default, image thumbnails are displayed next to the asset names in the asset browser. This behavior can be changed by setting the thumbnails property to false for the jcrName column (line 15 in the configuration snippet below):

  workbench:
    contentViews:
      - name: tree
        $type: treeView
        dropConstraint:
          $type: jcrDropConstraint
          primaryNodeType: mgnl:asset
        multiSelect: true
        columns:
          jcrName: &name
            class: info.magnolia.dam.app.contentview.column.JcrAssetNameColumnDefinition
            nodeTypeToComponent:
              mgnl:folder:
                icon: icon-folder
              mgnl:asset:
                icon: icon-assets-app
            thumbnails: false

A universal icon is then displayed next to the asset names instead of thumbnails:

Universal icon instead of thumbnails next to the asset names

Workspace

The subapp operates on the JCR dam workspace. The dam workspace stores the uploaded original assets and variations created with image operations such as cropping.

Node types

The DAM module registers a custom mgnl:asset node type. Magnolia Assets subapp operates on nodes of this type and on folders.

Using the app

See Digital asset management for how to use the subapp.

How to handle many assets

The DAM can handle a very large number of assets. However, if you have more than 10,000 assets, you should organize them into folders. If the number of assets you have drastically exceeds the 10,000 guideline, we recommend that you use an external storage system with our External DAM integration framework, our DAM API, or one of our Incubator modules extensions.

How many assets should I put in a folder?

As a rule of thumb when using JCR for assets, you should keep it to about 500 assets per folder. This is independent of the asset type. So, whether it’s an image, pdf, or some other type of asset, let’s try to keep it under 500.

Avoid storing too many assets in the same folder. Instead, create subfolders and organize your assets. Storing too many assets within the same folder may lead to performance issues. If you need a large and unstructured flat list of assets, disable the thumbnail and list views.