Story
Description of desired behavior
The list of assets
The list view shows all assets as a flat list. If the asset set supports folders, the list nevertheless ignores the hierarchy defined by them and shows all assets of all levels at the same time. The list view is very convenient to sort all existing assets using one of the criteria shown by columns.
The list view shows the asset status (published, changed and published, unpublished), but also indicates, if the asset is currently in a workflow.
Display all renditions of an asset
Every asset with at least one rendition features a little triangle (or similar element), which can be clicked to view its renditions. The renditions of an asset are shown in-place inside the tree - the panel showing them moves down the other entries below when it appears.
Renditions are shown with typical data allowing to identify them such as a format string combining both their format, resolution, and color info (or whatever is appropriate for the asset type). It should also be clear if a rendition is currently published or not, and whether it is being currently worked on in a workflow. For rows showing renditions, the column layout of the surrounding tree does not apply, but information should appear well aligned between rows and possibly to the row showing the asset as well.
Selecting a rendition
Rendition rows must be selectable. Selecting a rendition shows a preview and the list of actions applicable to it in the sidebar. The information shown by the preview is similar to details shown on an asset, but focuses on rendition information instead.
It's ok to allow a user to select both renditions and assets at the same time, even though the actions and preview view may then not show much of interest and mostly disabled actions only.
Showing the renditions only
By default, the list view shows the list of assets. You may open an asset to show its renditions. A switch in the toolbar allows to switch the list to show the (flat) list of all renditions instead. This comes in handy if you would like to sort renditions by one of the criteria offered by the table columns or if you'd like to restrict the list to only show items you an actually place on a page (that's what renditions are for).
A separate column textually links back to the asset a rendition belongs to, but there's no direct way to select an asset or view its details. However, if you select a rendition, that rendition stays selected when you switch back to the list of assets so you may easily retrieve additional details on the asset from there. Likewise, if I select an asset, then switch to the list of renditions, all renditions of that asset are selected.