Story
I can manage all assets I use on my web pages easily in AdminCentral. Assets may be stored inside a page, stored inside a special asset workspace and referenced in a page, or may even be located on an external storage device or space and referenced in a page.
There's a nice overview of all assets, whether they're stored locally on a page, in the asset workspace or on external storage; the overview groups assets according to their storage location and/or their type.
Description of desired behavior
Accessing Digital Asset Management
AdminCentral serves as the main hub to digital assets in Magnolia. It provides a separate entry in the [main menu] for accessing all three DAM levels Magnolia defines and supports. Support for these levels leads to two types of setups.
Setup 1: supporting assets attached to a page only
This setup covers the basic level as defined in the conceptual overview of Digital Asset Management only. Assets are not actually managed, but are merely uploaded to a single page and thus may not be re-used on another page. Still, Magnolia offers some support for controlling such assets by providing an overview over all assets used on all pages; there has been a significant amount of feedback requesting for such an overview.
Assets on pages are internally mapped to an asset set, which is accessed directly by clicking on the corresponding main menu entry in AdminCentral. This asset set can't be configured and its assets are not editable. Uploaded assets are mapped to an asset with a single rendition only and, again, both are not editable.
Setup 2: supporting actual management of assets
The second setup adds actual asset management to Magnolia. This covers both the intermediate and advanced levels, adding internal management and adapters to external systems at the same time. The main menu entry points to the main interface for asset management.
Assets on pages (see setup 1 above) may still be supported, but that shall be configurable: it must be possible for certain sites to disallow uploading assets to pages and force editors to use managed assets only instead. If assets on pages are allowed, the overview showing the corresponding asset set is by default demoted to a sub menu item - the asset set of assets on pages must not appear as equal among the other asset sets. This, again, could be configurable.
Three ways to view assets
AdminCentral offers a maximum of three views on managed assets. A view selector allows to switch between them.
Each view offers an actions view listing the actions applicable to the currently selected item or items. Below the actions view in the sidebar on the right (left on LTR setups), a larger preview of the selected asset or rendition is shown by the preview view, which also shows additional details on the item. Data presented by the preview view must be carefully selected with the goal to support finding and identifying a specific asset or rendition from a large list of items and care must be taken not to provide any unrelated information.
The list view
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.
The folder structure view
The folder structure view displays the entire hierarchy of folders used to organize assets. A tree is used to visualize it. Whether this view is actually available or not depends on whether the asset set it shows supports folders or not. If an asset set does not support folders, the view selector must not only disable, but actually hide the corresponding button.
The folder structure view does support showing the renditions of an asset and displaying additional details on a selected rendition in the exact same way as the list view does. It does not support showing renditions only.
The thumbnail view
The thumbnail view uses a grid to show little thumbnail images for every asset. As with the list view, the thumbnail view here does not show any folders, but always shows the entire set of assets available.
Showing only the renditions
The thumbnail view does not support showing the renditions of an asset, but you can switch it to show the renditions only as is illustrated in the mockup below.
The thumbnail view does not support showing the renditions of a particular asset, but you may select an asset, then switch the view to list the renditions - by default, all renditions of that asset will then get selected. Vice versa, if you select a rendition, then toggle the view to show the assets, the asset your rendition belongs to will be selected.
Preview shows details
The preview in the sidebar on the right (on the left on LTR setups) offers a second tab showing all kinds of details on an asset or rendition including info on its format, resolution, color depth (and similar - this obviously depends largely on the asset type), but also additional details on its status and when and who it was last edited.