Magnolia 5.7 reached extended end of life on May 31, 2022. Support for this branch is limited, see End-of-life policy. Please note that to cover the extra maintenance effort, this EEoL period is a paid extension in the life of the branch. Customers who opt for the extended maintenance will need a new license key to run future versions of Magnolia 5.7. If you have any questions or to subscribe to the extended maintenance, please get in touch with your local contact at Magnolia.
Browsing assets
You can browse the Magnolia DAM in three views:
- Tree view: Displays a hierarchical tree, including the folder structure.
- List view: Displays the items individually. You can sort them alphanumerically by clicking the column headings.
The DAM can handle a very large amounts of assets. However, if you have 20'000 or more assets you should organize them into folders. Avoid too many assets in the same folder. Instead, create subfolders and organize your assets. Too many assets within the same folder may lead to performance issues. If you need a very big unstructured, flat list, disable the thumbnail and list views.
- Thumbnail view: Displays thumbnail images of the assets. There is a zoom control at the top for resizing.
Supported file formats for preview generation
Image formats
The most common image formats are supported, excluding:
- image/x-icon
- image/x-portable-bitmap
- image/x-xpixmap
- image/x-portable-graymap
- image/x-cmu-raster
- image/x-portable-pixmap
- image/x-xbitmap
- image/x-rgb
- image/x-xwindowdump
- image/x-cmx
- image/cis-cod
- image/ief
Video formats
- video/mpeg
- video/webm
- video/mp4
- video/ogg
Audio formats
- audio/mpeg
- audio/webm
- audio/mp4
- audio/ogg
- audio/aac
- audio/aacp
- audio/flac
- audio/wav
- audio/x-wav
- audio/mp3
For more information on supported formats, see DAM Preview module.
Searching for an asset
The search box provides a simple search. Asset name, metadata and content of documents are indexed for search. The results display in list view. A Path column is included in the view to help you find the asset but the path not indexed in the default Jackrabbit/Lucene search configuration.
Uploading a single asset
To upload an asset:
- Select a parent folder or upload the image at the root level.
- Click Upload asset.
- Select a file to upload or drag and drop it into the Media field.
- The file uploads.
- For images, the image details and a thumbnail displays. You can edit the image in Magnolia.
- For other assets, the file details and an asset type icon displays.
Uploading multiple assets
To import a ZIP file:
- Click Upload ZIP archive.
- Select a location. You can choose between:
- Extract here – Extracts the ZIP archive directly.
- Extract into new folder – Adds a new parent folder (default).
- Browse to the file.
- In Encoding, select UTF-8 (Windows) or CP437 (Mac) depending on what system the ZIP file was created on.
- Click Save.
The assets are imported like this:
Extract into new folder | Extract here |
Uploading an asset from another app
You can upload an asset into the Magnolia DAM also from any other app that can browse the DAM, for example when creating a new contact in the Contacts app. The procedure and actions are identical to those in the Assets app and work in exactly the same way. You can define app-specific metadata fields which can be different from the standard metadata fields available when uploading in the Assets app.
Downloading an asset
To download an asset from the DAM, use the Download asset action in the browser or edit dialog. The action opens the download dialog of your operating system where you can save the file to your computer.
Deleting an asset
Versioning is enabled in the DAM. This allows you to restore previous versions of an asset or folder. The delete action marks the node for deletion and the deletion is completed on publication of the deletion.
To delete an asset or folder:
- Select an item.
- Click Delete folder/asset.
- Confirm your action in the dialog.This marks the node for deletion and creates a restorable version. The item icon (folder or node) is replaced with the trash bin.
- Click Publish deletion to complete the deletion. At this point you can cancel the deletion by clicking Restore previous version.
Asset metadata
The metadata fields are located in the Asset dialog. You can set metadata when uploading or add/edit it by clicking Edit asset to open the dialog.
Magnolia native metadata
The system records certain data automatically, with such fields typically disabled. By default, the following fields cannot be edited:
- Describe asset using: The supported metadata standard. By default, the Simple Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) is supported. You can customize Magnolia to support different standards.
- Identifier: An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context. An alphanumerical string is used to identify and reference the asset. Editors can move assets without breaking links in the DAM.
- Type: The nature or genre of the resource.
- Creation Date: Date of upload.
- Modification Date: Date of last modification.
- Creator: An entity responsible for creating the resource (uploading the asset).
Dublin Core metadata
Magnolia supports the Simple Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) standard by default and the following fields are available:
- Caption: The asset caption.
- Language: Language tag of the asset. Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as RFC 4646 .
- Title: Asset title.
- Subject: The topic of the asset. Typically, the subject will be represented using keywords, key phrases, or classification codes.
- Coverage: Scope of the asset. Typically this refers to a place, period or jurisdiction.
- Description: Full description of the asset.
- Publisher: Original publisher of the asset if being republished from another source.
- Contributor: Use to name asset contributors.
- Rights: Type of copyright.
- Source: A related asset from which this asset is derived.
- Relation: Related assets.
Setting alt attributes
The alt
attribute of the img
tag specifies alternative text for an image when that image cannot be displayed on a page. The standard rule is to use concise text that serves the same function as the image.